ABBA between 1972 and 2021 achieved six No. 1 hits in Australia, six in New Zealand, four in Sweden, one in the United States and more around the world.

They have three No. 1 studio albums in Australia as well as three No. 1 compilation albums including ‘The Best of ABBA’ which achieved Platinum status twenty-two times.

I’ve picked a couple of ABBA songs; the list could have doubled or even tripled but I do like to keep these down to 500-1000 words apiece for people though weeks or months later I can always add more thoughts.

The YouTube stats do include lyric videos with some having as many as 74 million views.

Waterloo

The first few notes of this song really gets your attention and was quite suitable for use in the Matt Damon movie The Martian when he gets the capsule ready for lift-off.

This song was a Top 10 hit in at least ten countries and was No. 1 in at least four countries really setting up the group after a mixed bag of results in 1972 and 1973, of course winning Eurovision helped them greatly.

The music video is ABBA’s thirteenth most watched music video with 95 million views.

Dancing Queen

‘Dancing Queen’ was a mega hit for ABBA with the song hitting No. 1 in at least eight countries, ABBA really know how to get people interested in a song after a couple of notes and before even a word is sung.

I’d like to think that I am a Dancing King but only when I am alone and many people no doubt think the same about themselves, but you should always have fun dancing somewhere.

This music video has 975 million views and should join the billion-view club in just a couple of months’ time from now (April 2025).

The Winner Takes It All

‘The Winner Takes It All’ is one of my favourite ABBA songs, it is not a happy song but that is not the reason why I like it, I like the song because of the way it is sung, and I love the work on the piano, it just goes together well.

This was a Top 10 single in both Australia (No. 7) and America (No. 8) and No. 1 in the UK, they have excellent taste in the UK.

This music video is ABBA’s seventh most watched video on their YouTube Channel with 168 million views.

I Have A Dream

This song peaked at No. 2 in the UK and its B-Side was a live recording of ‘Take A Chance On Me’, a great combination of songs.

Westlife would record and release a cover of the song twenty years later and it hit No. 1 in the UK, one of those instances where a cover does better than the original on the charts in a country.

The song charted at No. 64 in Australia which was one of their lowest charting singles at that time and three singles had lower results after ‘I Have A Dream’, signs the ABBA phenomenon was on the way down as they had only two Top 10’s after 1979.

‘I Have A Dream’ is the 27th most watched music video on ABBA’s YouTube channel.

Take A Chance On Me

‘Take A Chance On Me’ was released in 1977 and peaked at No. 12 in Australia but peaked at No. 1 in the UK and No. 3 in the USA.

It is a catchy song especially with the ‘Take a-take a chance-chance, take a chance, take a chance‘ part of the song

The creation of the song reportedly started when Bjorn Ulvaeus was jogging, and he sang the “tck-a-ch”-style rhythm to himself which evolved into ‘Take A Chance On Me’.

This music video has 172 million views making it ABBA’s sixth most viewed music video just four million views away from ‘Fernando’.

Knowing Me, Knowing You

My last selection is ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’, the last single taken from the studio album ‘Arrival’, it peaked at No. 9 in Australia and was a No. 1 song in the UK, both countries sure loved ABBA.

I just love how everything works together in this song, the blend of voices, the guitar work, just the way they say, ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’, a great song that has continued to be great after so many years.

‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ is the ninth most viewed ABBA music video with 117 million views.