ABBA - Chiquitita

What this video is

Released on 16 January 1979 as the lead single from Voulez-Vous, Chiquitita marked ABBA's commercial and creative resurgence after a difficult 1978 in which no album was released. The song was debuted at the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly on 9 January 1979, and ABBA donated 50% of all royalties to UNICEF in recognition of the International Year of the Child. The song topped charts…

Why it matters

A defining artefact of late-1970s European soft pop and the Schlager tradition transposed to international commercial scale. Chiquitita exemplifies the ABBA formula of Latin melodic inflection grafted onto Nordic production discipline, and its broadcast television promo — rather than a…

The director

Swedish television director and producer active from the late 1970s through the 1980s. Known credits include Patti Smith Group Stockholm 1976 (1977), ABBA: Chiquitita (1979), ABBA: I Have a Dream (1980), ABBA in Concert (TV Special, 1980), Scener från ett…