ABBA

They were the single most commercially successful band of the ’70s, but the international phenomenon that is ABBA goes far beyond “Money, Money, Money.” Couples Agnetha and Bjorn, Benny and Anni-Frid (A-B-B-A — cute, right?) had individual careers already on track when they joined up and, with their breakthrough advance-guard “Waterloo,” became the first Swedish band to win the hugely popular Eurovision song contest. The rest is pop-music history, as single after smash single spotlighted a genius for carefully crafted tracks so hook-heavy, so guilty-pleasure perfect (“Dancing Queen” anybody?), they still stream from iPods and eager amateur vocalists more than 30 years later — not to mention, thanks to “Mamma Mia,” Broadway stages and movie screens.

“Take a Chance on Me,” chant the irresistible foursome, and who are we to refuse? More ABBA awaits in Next Steps.

When a band feels as much at home busting out their moves on the disco dance-floor — take a whirl to the Euroflair flavor of “Voulez-Vous” — as it does having a dramatic heart-to-heart (say, to the spine-tingling harmonies of “Chiquitita”), you know you’re dealing with something out of the ordinary. And when Madonna herself has to write a letter and plead for permission to sample one of the band’s pleasure-center hooks — check out “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight),” then the Material Girl’s “Hung Up” — you begin to understand ABBA’s eternal pop dominance.

“I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do” sing the Swedes on yet another impossibly catchy hit — and so do we, with more ABBA greatness in Deep Cuts!

Take a moment to consider all the bone-fide smash singles in the great ABBA catalog, and one thing becomes clear — there are plenty of could’ve-beens, would’ve-beens, and should’ve-beens. And that’s where we come in, with a Deep Cuts playlist of the band’s best overlooked album tracks, from the fierce mid-period beast that is “Tiger,” to the bittersweet swansong “When All Is Said and Done” from the group’s last official LP. In between, we’ve got the early-times rock candy of “Rock Me,” and from the Super Trouper salad days the super-pop of “On and On and On.”

So what, exactly, made ABBA one of the most successful and beloved pop bands of all time? We could say it was the vocals, the way that Agnetha and Frida, especially, sound like they were born to sing together. We might focus on the songwriting, the mastery Bjorn and Benny had over a hook, their knack for just the right sound at just the right moment. But when it comes down to it, there’s no real way to pinpoint that certain something, the once-in-a-lifetime quality that makes a lark like “Does Your Mother Know” so supremely pleasing, or that infuses the story-song “Fernando” with enough hair-raising atmosphere to clutch at even the hardest of hearts. All we can do is offer our ABBA Essentials, packed with the ultra-hits (“S.O.S.,” “The Winner Takes It All”) and standout album cuts (“So Long,” a live “The Way Old Friends Do”), and let the music speak for itself.