Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad given Royal Vasa Order, a Swedish knighthood, by King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm Friday
The members of ABBA staged a rare reunion Friday to receive one of Sweden’s highest honors at the royal palace in Stockholm.
Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad were given the Royal Vasa Order by King Carl XVI Gustaf, with ABBA awarded the honor for their “very distinguished contributions within Swedish and international music life.”
ABBA marked the first Swedish citizens to receive the Royal Vasa Order — a knighthood that is given in recognition of personal efforts for Sweden as well as the successful performance of public duties and assignments, the Associated Press writes — in nearly 50 years, as the honor was dormant from 1975 (the year after ABBA exploded onto the music scene after “Waterloo” won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest) to 2022.
The four members of ABBA have not performed live together since 1982, and have only made a handful of appearances together over the ensuing decades, most recently in 2022 at the first “performance” of their hit avatar show ABBA: Voyage in London. However, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-inducted act did reconvene in the studio to record 2021’s Voyage, their first album since 1981’s The Visitors.
Back in 2022, Rolling Stone spoke to Benny Andersson about the creation of ABBA Voyage’s “ABBA-tars,” with the four members wearing motion capture suits to recreate their performances with some help. “We are sort of merged together with our body doubles. Don’t ask me how it works because I can’t explain that,” Andersson said. “If you’re 75, you don’t jump around like you did when you were 34, so this is why this happened.”
