This week, ABBA celebrates the 40th anniversary of their big break—a Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton, England, win with their first hit, “Waterloo.” Not long after their victory on April 6, 1974, “Waterloo” topped the single charts all over Europe and the top ten in the United States.
Since then, the Scandinavian foursome has reached iconic status, with world record sales at 380 million and dozens of catchy earworm hits. Though the group, Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad, disbanded in 1982, ABBA was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
Plus: Watch ABBA’s 10 Best Music Videos
In honor of their anniversary, we’ve unearthed seven amazing facts about this legendary band:
1. Why did they wear those crazy, sparkly outfits? Partly for tax purposes! Swedish laws allowed the cost of outfits to be tax-deductible, as long as they were intended for performance only and couldn’t be worn as normal street clothes, according to Abba: The Official Photo Book. “In my honest opinion we looked like nuts in those years,” Ulvaeus reflected. “Nobody can have been as badly dressed on stage as we were.”
2. Before they were “ABBA” (the initials of their first names), the band was known as “Festfolk,” meaning “party people” in Swedish. The pronunciation of that word is very similar to another Swedish word, fästfolk, which was reportedly 1970s slang for “engaged couples”—an appropriate name because the group had paired off…
3. At ABBA’s height, Agnetha and Bjorn, as well as Benny and Anna-Frid, were married. Fans know both unions ended in divorce (the first in 1979 and the second in 1981), but contrary to conventional wisdom, the pressures of performance wasn’t what caused the splits. “A lot of people think that the divorces came about because of the stress of having to tour together and working together, but I don’t think so,” Ulvaeus has said. “I think, rather, the other way round.” The group did continue on for a short time after the divorces. “The four of us decided we had so much more to give, but it was strange in the studio,” Ulvaeus said.
4. ABBA’s two female members have a reputation for not getting along—one that they say isn’t accurate. “A lot has been written about how Agnetha and I fought and quarreled with each other. There is absolutely no truth in that,” Lyngstad has been quoted as saying. “Of course we competed, but to good effect.”
5. ABBA’s greatest hits album, Gold, is one of the best-selling records of all time. In fact, in the UK, it has outsold the Beatles’s classic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Adele’s huge hit, 21. In England, Gold is second only to Queen’s Greatest Hits.
6. Elton John‘s iconic and beloved soundtrack for Disney’s The Lion King was almost a lot more disco. Rumor has it that the film’s soundtrack lyricist, Tim Rice, originally approached members of ABBA to collaborate on the songs. John got the gig when Benny Anderson’s schedule didn’t allow for him to take the job.
7. The group has pledged not to reunite. “We will never appear on stage again. There is simply no motivation to re-group,” Björn Ulvaeus has said. “Money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were—young, exuberant, full of energy and ambition.”
Watch ABBA’s winning Eurovision performance circa 1974: