As a representative of Sweden for the past 40 years, ABBA is inseparable from the Swedish context. From the continuous background music in Stockholm’s shopping centers and Happy New Year every 1st of January, to its prominent place on today’s lists, it seems that ABBA has never disappeared.

ABBA last week released a brand new album Voyage, with a new show put together and their new songs live online.

With I still believe in you and Do not turn me off, the listener is immediately moved back to the “good old days” of the 1970s.

The Waterloo decade was truly a positive and prosperous time in Sweden during which great progress was made in society. The success driven by the Social Democrats, with Olof Palme at the top, secured a high-level welfare state.

To this day, this image is still quickly conveyed when one thinks of Sweden.

With the resounding victory in Eurovision 1974, ABBA showed and heard the former Sweden. The semi-glamorous rock-pop sound by Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid showed a Sweden where everything went very well; the state took care of you, no stingy bullshit, Swedish meatballs for everyone, all in all a country of solidarity – but also homogeneous.

The new songs clearly convey the nostalgic sound of the glorious 1970s, almost as if nothing has changed in the 40 years since.

In their new live show, ABBA Voyage, which comes next year at London’s transformed ABBA Arena, the band members, all four over the age of 70, come to life in the form of their own holograms, avatars or ABBA tar.

Their ABBA tars do not portray the band members as they are now, old and gray, but as the beautiful young 20-year-olds at the top of their game.

With some new songs that sound like they were produced in the past, and of course super hits like Mamma Mia, Money Money Money, Dancing Queen and Fernando – a series of sentimental classics – it will undoubtedly be a damn show.

Just like everyone remembers ABBA. And with that Sweden.

Although it seems that ABBA has not changed during these 40 years, Sweden has done so. Very.

The Swedish signage, the welfare state is not close to what it was in the 1970s. Due to the large increase in immigrants in recent decades, which has diversified the previously homogeneous Swedish population, birth, growth and normalization of the political far right, and the transition to a more neoliberal and individualistic economy, solidarity – the social welfare state’s building block – gradually faded.

“Socialist paradise” gone

In their own words, Sweden is extremely progressive, and it is in some areas such as gender equality.

But the current Sweden has also stuck to a conservative level. Racism and discrimination may not be mentioned, but are clearly the order of the day, while Swedishness is still closely related to skin color and whiteness.

It only magnifies the differences between ethnic Swedes and non-ethnic Swedes, while the existing and positive similarities are almost neglected.

Sweden has changed a lot in the last 40 years. The socialist paradise that resonates through ABBA’s music, and how the country remembers with joy, is gone.

The red wooden houses, rustic lakes, Ikea meatballs, crispbread with salmon, schnapps and even ABBA music will always be there, you do not have to worry.

But as much as the Swedish identity is intertwined with her music, it changes along the waves of society.

At present, it is mainly hip-hop artists, often with a foreign background, who top the lists. Especially the rather dark and violent gangster rap scene has gained momentum over the last decade. A multicultural society that is reflected in the music.

On the contrary, ABBA wants to show that the nostalgic idea of ​​Sweden, which they embody in sound and image, has changed almost nothing. But it is a distorted view.