ABBA — The Name Of The Game

JUL 01 1977 · 12:00

ABBA — The Name Of The Game (1977) Director: Lasse Hallström Era: Late 1970s European Pop Promo Era (1977) - Pre-MTV promotional clip period when Scandinavian pop acts pioneered the music video format as an international marketing tool, bridging television performance culture and nascent video promotion. High archival and pedagogical value as a confirmed, well-documented Lasse Hallström-directed promo clip from ABBA's commercial peak year. The video's precisely dated production (25 September 1977, Lidingö), domestic realist aesthetic, and direct connection to the concurrent ABBA: The Movie project make it a rich primary source for the study of 1970s European music video production, pop star image construction, and the pre-MTV promotional film ecosystem. Its warm tonal palette and fast editorial rhythm, contrasting with the song's introspective lyrical content, offer productive material for audiovisual studies. Context: Released on 14 October 1977 as the lead single from ABBA's fifth studio album The Album, 'The Name of the Game' arrived at the apex of ABBA's commercial dominance, particularly in the UK where it reached number one for four consecutive weeks. The song represented a creative evolution for the group — a more progressive, art-pop inflected composition built from six distinct structural parts, influenced by the California sound of the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, and by Stevie Wonder's bass-and-synthesizer work on 'I Wish'. The promotional clip, shot at a private domestic residence on Lidingö, exemplifies ABBA's and Hallström's pioneering approach to the music video as an international promotional tool — a strategy that had already proven transformative in Australia in 1975. The video's casual, home-environment staging deliberately humanised the group at a moment of enormous global fame, presenting them as approachable, playful individuals rather than untouchable pop icons. Director notes: Confirmed directed by Lasse Hallström per IMDb (tt6725116), IMVDb, Music Fandom Wiki, and the official ABBA site. The promo clip was filmed on 25 September 1977 at the home of Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog on Lidingö, outside Stockholm, Sweden. The central visual conceit features the four members of ABBA playing the Swedish board game 'Fia-spel' (the Scandinavian variant of Ludo/Parcheesi/Mensch ärgere dich nicht), directly literalising the song's title. This video was produced in the same period as Hallström was also directing ABBA: The Movie (1977), and is consistent with the low-budget, single-day production approach he used throughout his ABBA collaboration. Hallström's signature technique of regrouping the four members into different pairings to create intimate and poignant visual dynamics is evident in this clip.