ABBA - Money, Money, Money

What this video is

Released November 1976 amid ABBA's peak commercial dominance, this promo clip exemplifies the group's unusually sophisticated approach to music video at a time when few artists invested in the format. Drawing directly from the aesthetic of the 1972 Cabaret film, the video situates a pop song about economic anxiety within a Weimar-inflected visual language — connecting mid-70s European pop to a longer tradition of…

Why it matters

A landmark in the pre-MTV promotional film tradition, this video demonstrates that Euro-pop could sustain cinematic narrative ambitions years before the music video became an industry standard. Hallström's directorial vocabulary — location realism contrasted with theatrical dream logic — directly…

The director

Lars Sven 'Lasse' Hallström (born 2 June 1946, Stockholm, Sweden) is a Swedish film director who first gained prominence directing nearly all of ABBA's music videos from 1974 onwards, including the 1977 feature ABBA: The Movie. He achieved international…