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ABBA was praised for their use of promotional clips (now known as videos) well before MTV became an outlet for bands to showcase visual performances. And while the fact these clips, ABBA: The Movie, and even Mamma Mia! have become opportunities to appreciate ABBA in the decades since they stopped working together, but were they really made for artistic reasons or just to give them opportunities to stay away from the fans?

It’s no big secret that ABBA did not like touring and traveling to make appearances so the development of video clips that could be sent in place of the band led to what we can now buy on DVD known as The Definitive Collection. Granted at their peak, there was so much demand for appearances, they couldn’t have met the demand if they tried using personal appearances. On the rare occasions when personal appearances were made, it was more likely to occur within Europe because they could go and then get back home in relatively no time. For fans outside of Europe the appearances were even more rare.

It made sense to come up with a way to meet the demand for appearances where they’d just be lip syncing to the song anyway, so why not do the lip syncing performance once for the cameras in whatever setting and then send the video footage. Not only would the clips be played, they could be played more often than an actual appearance. Additionally it would also allow the band more quality control over how they appeared because the footage belonged to the group, not the individual television stations, and now you can own your own copy of all the video footage. Never mind the fact that what you own was designed so that the group could spend less time on the road among fans and more time in Sweden working on more music.

ABBA: The Movie which now looks like a brilliant treasure to capture the essence of the band at their peak on the, arguably, most important tour they ever did for the nation that loved the band the most at that time. But it was really a concerted effort to turn the Australian concert tour into time off for the band. While the tour may have been a couple of months and the additional work done for the film following for the tour was able to buy the band some time in the media with no effort on their part other than an appearance at the premiere. But not a bad idea to take the activities of the early part of 1977 to turn it into the event for the late part of 1977 and maybe even into early 1978. Again perfect control over your image and not a lot of effort beyond the efforts made to put on the concerts. And with luck, later this year, it too will be on DVD for the fans to enjoy decades following the original tour.

Mamma Mia! is a bit more of a stretch for this argument in that it was it was really Producer, Judy Cramer’s idea, and it took a lot of effort on her part to convince Björn and Benny into allowing it to come into existence. It’s level of success couldn’t have been predicted, but the end result is the same the show has been able to generate tremendous amounts of attention to ABBA, and even help sell ABBA products, without a whole lot of effort on the part of the members of ABBA. So Björn, Benny, and now Frida have made appearances at premieres and anniversary presentations of the show, and they’ve all participated in documentaries claiming to tell the history of ABBA (but really serve as extended commercials for Mamma Mia!) and conveniently the documentaries are also available on DVD.

So even though the fans have been kept at a distance throughout the history of the band the methods by which we were kept at a distance with have become treasures in themselves that are helping preserve the image of the band for the next generations of ABBA fans.