Gen Z Can Daaaance, Gen Z Can Ji..ivve! 🎵

Abba is back! You know ‘Dancing Queen, Mamma Mia’-Europop Abba! It’s true, they are BACK! 

However…not in the way you may think…

Of all places, Abba has been trending on TikTok and reaching the “core TikTok demographic” which is made up of…you guessed it – Gen Z!

While viscerally surprising, this shouldn’t come as a complete surprise.

Since the band officially broke up in 1982, they’ve had an impressive upward trajectory that included best selling albums and record smashing stage shows featuring their music. In 2016 they reunited for a digital comeback tour, and a couple of years later they announced new music. 

Despite their almost 40 year hiatus, they are among the most successful musical groups of all time.

Children of the 90’s are all too familiar with Dancing Queen,  the bane of every high school dance attendee’s existence. Then, Mamma Mia (the film) was released in 2008, prepping a new generation of kids to dance and sing along with the wholesome Scandinavian pop sensation.

Now they are meeting the mainstream again on TikTok, the platform created for singing and dancing, and ABBA is trending hard. 

The 70’s pop sensations are reviving the old hits and kids are playing right along. ABBA have 2.5 million followers and have spawned hundreds of thousands of viral videos from a totally new generation.

To call ABBA feel-good music is an understatement – they’re known for their bright, peppy lyrical content, garish outfits, and sunny dispositions. There’s something within their music that resonates with the Z-llennial generation in a time of uncertainty and apprehension.

ABBA has also warmly embraced emerging technology, both via social media and in their performances. They emerged from hiatus to play a series of shows using virtual avatars (called ABBAtars) and motion capture tech that allowed their de-aged selves to dance and sing on stage, accompanied by a live band. 

It’s exhilarating to watch the young clash with the classic, and the analog become entwined with the digital. Soon enough we’ll know if ABBA was onto something before anyone else took it mainstream – and we’ll be singing along with our kids in the process.