1982's The Singles
ABBA's last album with new material was the 1982 compilation The Singles: The First Ten Years, which included the new songs Under Attack and The Day You Came. Ulvaeus and Andersson took a break from the group to write a musical, while Fältskog and Lyngstad decided to record solo material. The boys' musical – Chess – became a worldwide hit after the concept album was released in 1984 and a stage version followed in 1986. Much like The Police, whose break turned into a long hiatus, ABBA have never officially split, but they have not recorded music or sung together for 26 years.
To date, ABBA have roundly resisted the temptation to jump on the tour reunion bandwagon. Reports surfaced in 2000 that the quartet had allegedly turned down a billion dollar offer to play live together in 100 cities worldwide. Benny Andersson was quoted in a Swedish newspaper remarking: "It was a hell of a lot of money to say no to, but we decided it wasn't for us".
Björn Ulvaeus
ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson were already stars in Sweden by the time the group took Eurovision. Andersson had played in the band The Hep Stars since he was 18, while Ulvaeus was the frontman in the skiffle group The Hootenanny Singers, one of Sweden's most popular folk groups. Their 1970 song Omkring Tiggarn Från Luossa, a cover of an old folk standard, stayed in the Swedish charts for 52 weeks, a record that wouldn't be broken for another 20 years.
