Twenty-five years ago this week, my first website The ABBA Phenomenon in Australia was launched.
In the mid-1990s I’d been thinking about writing a book about ABBA’s phenomenal success in Australia. Around that time a local music collectors’ magazine published a discography of ABBA’s local releases. There were many errors in the article, not least that the records were listed in the order that they’d made the charts, rather than by release date. I wrote a letter to the magazine, pointing out the many errors. I don’t remember if my letter was ever published.
Then the internet came along, making it easy for anyone to publish anything. So I took the idea about writing a book, used that letter as a base, expanded it, and created the website, which was launched on 19 July 1997. In addition to the full Australian discography, I wanted to detail ABBA’s two visits to Australia, plus other parts of the ABBA story specific to Australia, including the commercial for National electronics, and the feature film ABBA – The Movie, filmed during the Australian tour in March 1977.
The site has grown from the basic start, with the addition of vintage articles from local media, the various tours of the Mamma Mia! musical, and the ABBAWORLD touring exhibition in 2010 and 11, and a lot more.
Over the years I’ve been adding more detailed information as it came available. Not least including actual release or broadcast details where I’ve found them. So many sources, especially Wikipedia, list the first chart date as the release date.
Unfortunately in the last few years I haven’t been able to keep the site as up to date as I’d like, due to many conflicting factors (not least the research and writing of my book ABBA: Song By Song). I only added details of ABBA’s 2021 album Voyage a few months after it was released. Any other gaps in the recent discography will be updated very soon.
If you want to relive the excitement of ABBA’s extraordinary success in Australia, pay a visit today!
ABBA Omnibus blog 
Congratulations – where has 25 years gone? It’s no small feat to keep a website current and updated with all the news that sometimes seems to come in a flood, not a trickle (which would be more manageable at least). 25 years on it’s more important than ever that the correct facts are documented somewhere because facts don’t seem to be important in 2022 for some reason.