Abba: What has happened in the 40 years since the band's last album came out?

ITV News Arts Editor Nina Nannar gets the opinions of some of Abba's biggest fans on their new album

Words by ITV News Multimedia Producer Will Tullis


In one of the most eagerly anticipated comebacks of all time, Abba released Voyage on Friday - the first album from the Swedish pop legends in more than 40 years.

It has been four whole decades since the former Eurovision winners released an album - 1981's The Visitors - and the band split up a year later.

In the 40 years since Abba's last release, some band members have married, one has even become a princess.

Here are some of the other things that have happened in the world between then and now.


Marriage, divorce, children, grandchildren, and becoming literal royalty

The personal lives of the band members have changed considerably since the release of The Visitors, and the eventual break-up of Abba.

The band have married, divorced, had children - and even grandchildren - in the four decades since they came out with new music.

Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad (right) has become a princess since this ABBA concert at the Royal Albert Hall (pictured). Credit: PA

Abba singer Benny Andersson had a son, Ludvig, who was born in 1982 - months after the release of their last album.

Agnetha Fältskog and fellow bandmember Björn Ulvaeus became grandparents, 20 years after the band's last album came out.

Though the pair divorced in the 1980s, their granddaughter Tilda was born in 2001 - twenty years before the release of Voyage.

Abba are widely considered pop royalty.

But bandmember Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad has got closer to actual royalty. She became Princess Anni-Frid, Dowager Countess of Plauen in between the band's eighth and ninth albums.


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In 1992 - 11 years after the release of Abba's The Visitors - Anni-Frid married Prince Heinrich Ruzzo of Reuss, Count of Plauen.

He was a prince of the former sovereign House of Reuss.

The Abba singer has been titled "Her Serene Highness" ever since.

Heinrich Ruzzo died in 1999, leaving Anni-Frid the titles of Dowager Princess and Countess.


Countries no longer exist

In all the time it has taken for the Swedish pop giants to release Voyage, walls have fallen, borders have been redrawn, and some countries no longer exist.

Some notable examples include:

USSR/Soviet Union - The Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991. This followed the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the fall of several Communist states across Europe.

The Berlin Wall (pictured) fell in 1989. Several Communist states disbanded in the years that followed. Credit: PA

The Soviet Union beat Yugoslavia 2-1 in the final of the 1960 European football championship. The Eastern European state disbanded in 1992 - nineteen years before the release of ABBA's "Voyage".

And the band has outlived Czechoslovakia - the country split into two independent states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in 1993.


Zlatan Ibrahimović

One of Sweden's most famous people, the iconic Swedish striker was born in October 1981 - a month before Abba's last album was released.

Between then and the release of Voyage, Ibrahimović has played for nine different clubs, joined AC Milan three times and left them twice, scored 570 goals, and won 31 different trophies.

Zlatan has played in seven countries, including England, where he played for Manchester United. Credit: PA

England still haven't won the World Cup

None of the home nations' football teams have won the football World Cup in the 40 years between Abba's eighth and ninth studio albums.

England fans watched their men's team lose their only international final since the release of ABBA's last album. Credit: Martin Rickett/PA

The internet and mobile phones

Abba are pioneering new state-of-the art technology for the release of Voyage, and will be appearing in shows digitally.

The band will wear special motion capture suits to create digital avatars of themselves.

These digital avatars will feature in a series of shows next year in London.

A year is a long time in technology.

And in the 40 years since Abba's last album hit the shelves of music shops, the internet was invented (1983) by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and rolled out to households across the land.

And mobile phones went from the size of a brick, to the size of your hand.

Perhaps Facebook's Metaverse will be in full swing by the time Abba release a tenth studio album.