ABBA’s All-Time Greatest Hits
90 minute special for ITV1 - 2004

Abba created and performed some of the greatest of three-minute pop songs. Mamma Mia, Waterloo, The Winner Takes It All, Super Troupers, and of course Dancing Queen are examples of the very best of their kind. But how good were they really?

It has emerged that record companies are using a piece of software to predict whether a track will turn out to be hit record. Big name execs at Sony and Universal say that “Hit Song Science” is the future of pop music and is set to be an industry standard. The software works by analysing patterns such as melody, harmony, beat, tempo and pitch and compares them against a database containing 30 years' worth (3.5 million) of hit singles. The programme then produces a rating. HSS predicted the successes of Norah Jones and Maroon 5 before they were heard of, and is used by the producers of artists such as Anastasia, J-Lo and Robbie Williams.

This programme used HSS to list Abba songs both against each other and against the current top 10. What emerged was both an Abba Top Twenty and a placing of the best of these in an all-time list. The songs are mostly sung by Abba themselves, in contemporary videos and concerts. Cover versions are lightly sprinkled with performances by the band itself. Other Abba documentary scenes are liberally spread throughout.

All four members of the group comment on the songs, and other contributors such as Rachel Stevens, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Donny Osmond, Tony Christie and Stephen Gately describe their favourite Abba hits as they are counted down.