1976

The year 1976 brought a sustained success in Britain. Mamma Mia knocked Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody off of the charts after it was there for weeks. ABBA were asked to do Mamma Mia on Top Of The Pops, a British televised show that used it's own orchestra for backing artists. Benny and Björn did not like this idea so they brought three of their own backing musicians from Sweden. They were still not happy with the sound of the music. This began a tradition for ABBA, who were among pioneers using a new format, video. Videos provided ABBA the perfection that they wanted in addition to being a promotional tool used for telecasts. It also made traveling an option and gave the group more time to work on songs in the studio.

Frida's solo version of Fernando was such a popular hit in Scandinavia that Stig decided that it needed to be translated into English and recorded by ABBA.

During March 1976, ABBA made a promotional tour of Australia. In less than a year they would tour Australia. They were well received and they did a television show that attracted a larger audience than the moon landing in 1969.

1976 brought the release of ABBA's Greatest Hits LP. Most of this year was spent in the studio working on the next album Arrival. June 18th, 1976, was a special day for ABBA. This was the day before the marriage of Sweden's King, Carl Gustaf, and Silvia Sommerlath. A gala was held where entertainers from all over Sweden would perform for the new Queen to be. ABBA was the only pop act that was invited to participate. They performed Dancing Queen for the occasion even though it was not written for this event. In fact it had already been announced as a release six months earlier. The Swedish media criticised ABBA thinking that Dancing Queen had been written especially for this occasion.

In November, Arrival was released. It was very successful. Earlier ABBA had announced a world tour which was to begin in 1977. They traveled to Britain, the United States, and Poland. ABBA's success behind the iron curtain was phenomenal. Stig Anderson had worked out deals with every Eastern European country, but insisted that ABBA not be paid in worthless rubles, but in US dollars. The only places that ABBA refused to sell albums to were Vietnam, North Korea and China. Arrival was enthusiastically received by music critics. In America, it was the first ABBA LP to be certified gold.

The group spent the end of the year at home preparing for a very busy 1977, but an ugly rumour surfaced. It was reported that ABBA had been in a horrible plane crash and Frida was the only survivor. ABBA immediately tried to contact all of their representatives in record companies to quell this rumour. It was well known that Björn and Agnetha tried to avoid travelling together because they did not want to leave their daughter, Linda, an orphan.

Before the beginning of 1977, ABBA assembled a group of musicians for the upcoming tour. Twelve musicians were selected. They were also busy assembling all of the equipment that would be needed for this event. Thirty tons of lighting equipment would be used during this tour. They were to be amplified through a 20,000 watt stereo speaker system. Another 40 people were needed to set up all of this equipment and to transport it around the world.