ABBA: Classic Or Dud?

DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD!

If that gets me shunned, I don't care. Abba is a vile abomination and Must Be Stopped. There are very few bands in the world that produce this sort of violent reaction in me.

It's a childhood thing. The very first time I ever visited America, they wouldn't stop playing Dancing Queen on the radio, so I have horrible bad associations.

If I could erradicate the influence of *one* band from modern music in its entirety, Wonderful Life-Stylee, it would be Abba.

Thoroughly and unmitigatingly VILE.

That said, my friend Trish maintains that "although Abba are great, if you are ever in a nightclub which is playing Abba music, you are in a bad nightclub".

Add to this the fact that Abba came back into style while I was at 6th form and every lunch hour was spent cringing at the extrovert "performances" of Abba songs by the drama students in the quad corner. So I have to register a "dud" because they do it for my head and hips, but not my heart.

I would even so go far as to say that no other pop group in history has as consistently written such a dead on perfect string of singles.

It's remarkable how critical opinion on them has turned around - they were pretty much reviled by the typical NME reader in the 70's, yet now it's uncommon to hear a word said against them. I suppose the reasons for that would be the genuinely lasting appeal of the melodies *and* the critical legitimisation of cheese.

Well, a *multitude* of reasons, and you're going to get them all, in the heart/head/hips trichotomy that has been brought up recently.

1) Heart - the aforementioned association with a very *bad* period of my life. I never heard them in the UK for some reason, I lived in a bubble of old skool mod broken occasionally by punk rockers from the bad end of the street. Hearing Abba is associated exclusively for me with early trips to the US, and then with moving there in 1979, destroying my life forever. So they were doomed from the start by association.

2) Head - They started the most *APPALLING* genre of music ever. Respectfully keeping in mind your musical tastes, Tom, you've got to remember mine. From the aethetically criminally offensive domination of Pete Waterman, to today's crop of Steps and Atomic Kitten, I blame on Abba. I can occasionally even see redeeming glances of Motown in stuff like Destiny's Child, but this whole plastic disposable nightmare of irredemable pap is the legacy of Abba. I understand the cute, kitschy Warhol Coke bottle appeal of some bubblegum, but anything Abbaesque is just inherantly tainted and evil to me.

3) Hips - god, it's the most souless, slick, over-produced music I've ever heard. I know this is exactly what people praise it for- the slick production and knowingly terrible songwriting, but this is what makes me loathe it. I know that it's a terrible racial stereotypes to call music "black" or "white" as a substitute for expressing the even dodgier concept of "soul" but there really isn't any other way to describe the whiter than wonder bread Swedish pop abhorrences appropriating the "black" sound of disco and rendering it even more impotent and soulless than Kraftwerk.

No, I can't even say that, because Kraftwerk aimed to make machinelike music and succeeded. Abba puported to make soul music, but in reality made machinelike mass-produced pap. (That said, I actually rather like Kraftwurk.)

I don't like Abba. I never will like Abba. I cannot even conceive of liking Abba "ironically". I will not allow it in the house. My loathing of anything Abba borders on the obsessive.

And that brings up another thing- the sort of ironic kitschy-pop adulation of Abba by not only crap automaton office people, but serious music lovers who should know better.

I FUCKING HATE ABBA.

I'm not sure about the unequivocal classic - even their run of singles has some clunkers (the early stuff for instance) but at their frequent best they are THE best. Brilliant lyrics, utterly emotionally convincing songs, adult perspectives, ravishing melodies, irresistible machine grooves, voices full of shivering restraint....I think a lot of their stuff is still very, very underrated.

(Back to Kate - it's interesting that the things you single out in Abba - a cold whiteness, knowingly simplistic songwriting, anal attention to production texture, emotionless blankness - are exactly the things I'd single out to dislike about the post-Velvets drone and spacerock you like so much. ;))

I would also contest that the songwriting is "deliberately awful". Some of the rhymes are indefensibly bad, but the melodies are drop dead classics.

But then I'm a crap automaton office person, so I would eat shit if McDonalds told me to, and if it helped me fit in with my mates.

But the problem here is just how over-fucking-rated they are. "Ooh, pure pop perfection!" It's the sort of thing I can imagine Geir Hongro mantra-ing and it's annoying as all hell. It's not like they were god's gift to music and all things cultural. They were a fairly decent pop band.

They are the Beatles of dance pop, basically. Which is an unfortunate thing, because like the Beatles, who I technically half like, they become dud by association with myth.

As to "crap automaton office people" I've worked in enough offices to know that the average person who works in an office usually owns about a dozen CDs- one of them is often an Abba CD. They simply don't care enough about music to be caught dead on a board like this. The only music they listen to is "on the radio".

As to the emotional blankness of spacerock compared to the emotional blankness of pap like Abba and Waterpop, the difference is that (good) Spacerock *aims* for blankness as a means of transcendance from often overpowering emotion. Abba and Abba-derived pop claims to be emotionally deep, yet it only acheives blankness through shallowness.

You all apparently luuuurrrrrvvve Abba. That's your right. What is the point of an opinion if there isn't an opposing one? I think still it's an abomination.

For all my jibes about irony and soullessness, the basic problem is that I DO NOT LIKE THEIR MUSIC. End of story.

Kate - my suggestion would be that the sensitive boys who make spacerock would be a lot more interesting trying to express an extremity of emotion rather than bashing out chords and letting their fringes flop. But this I think is a different thread. Not one I'm likely to start as I'd get too rude.

Tesco Vee's Agnetha tribute in Forced Exposure: Classic!

"Gimme Gimme Gimme": Their best, gloomy, doomy classic.

Matching white jumpsuits: Whoa Nelly!

Overall: Classic.

It's just one of those things that drives me crazy, I referenced ol' Geir for a reason, which is that AS A STEREOTYPE ABBA is the sort of pop band that appeals to people like him, who think pop music is crap, but "Oh, look, ABBA has , so they are soooo much better than Britney Spears, who is awful". Sort of like how college kids who "hate rap" like the Beastie Boys.

And, quite frankly, either Kate has worked in the dodgiest offices ever or she's only worked one place, because I find that statement about 12 CDs and crap taste to be blatantly, patently untrue. I work in an office, Tom works in an office, Fred Solinger works in an office, so on and so forth, and none of us have crap taste (in my opinion - take it or leave it how you will) and all of us have well over 12 CDs, and judging simply by my current office, we're not an abnormality. One of my coworkers has 8,000 CDs. He's 35 and the corporate controller - talk about stereotypical white collar desk jobs, eh?

is the perception of coldness because abba didn't use traditional signifiers of earthyness and grit (ie 'soulful' voices', rougher feel etc)? is it something to do with europeanness?

i think the idea of 'soul' is often too bound up with a certain way of thinking. i actually dislike the use of the word soul (perhaps because it implies something), much as i dislike 'vibe' etc (although i've been guilty of using that one)

and why is there the perception that abba, or kraftwerk, or autechre, lack 'something', that emotive aspect? because they seem very emotive to me.

anyway abba are classic, just for dancing queen alone...

i actually started on the same side as kate: hated people for their ironic adulation of the band, hated the white-bread sound, the goofy outfits, the slick production, the critical reassessment of the band, so on and so forth, all i'm missing is the psychological scarring. actually, all i knew by them was "dancing queen," but, OH, that was enough.

but it wasn't enough. and then, on a whim, feeling at the end of my rope pop music wise, i TOOK A CHANCE ON THEM (yes!) and downloaded "knowing me, knowing you." which is now one of a handful of my favorite songs ever.

i bet that the less you know about them, and especially the less albums you own by them, the better off you are. i, for example, only own abba gold and have gone very little further, though i've discovered that "the visitors" and "the day before you came" are also glorious songs. so based on abba gold, one of my desert island discs, i have no hesitation in proclaiming them a classic, one for the ages, and all of that. compare them to motown, a singles label if there ever was one: i imagine if i started buying four tops albums and huge boxed sets, i'd realize that probably a good half of their output was shit. as it is, though, based on a best of and a few of the greatest singles ever recorded, they're thoroughly classic. and so too are abba.

Nicole raised a very good point that I have to briefly expound upon -- one can, indeed, lurve someone else's diametric opposites, much to said other person's distress/anger/loathing etc. Like Nicole, Abba and Spacemen 3, for instance, nestle in my collection without regret. Viva.

And I have to say that Ally's call of 'Abba as the Beatles of dance-pop' is FUCKING BRILLIANT. Yoo rool.

But I hate ABBA fans - theys the rats knackers !

I'm not ashamed to admit that the first album I ever willingly went out to purchase (ie. not the kiddie albums with yer abc's and such) was Waterloo, by ABBA, when I was all of 5, and that I religiously followed them until the end. I picked up each new relase on vinyl as it came out, and always cheered when one of the new singles cracked the Top 10. Sure it was cloying and sweet pop on the surface, but if you go back and re-listen to some of it, it was clear that something else was going on under the surface. From about Arrival on until the end, they were masters at fusing ripping guitar with popmusik and emerging unscathed. (I'd even argue that they started this even earlier, on songs like "Mamma Mia" and "SOS", but it's not so noticeable. And I shouldn't even have to mention that the title track from "The Visitors" was one of the most bent songs ever to be released into the mainstream by a supposedly "sickly sweet pop band": it was brilliantly claustrophobic both lyrically and musically, and the music was more reminiscent of stuff happening on the edges, like Gary Numan almost. The other thing that struck me about ABBA releases at the time: the construction of the album packages was always top- notch, with a glossy and thick sleeve both inside and out...no cheapo paper slipcovers for the vinyl. I realize I was young, but at the time it felt almost like art.

As I mentioned above, the cult of Abba I can do without. There came a point where it became kitsch to like them, and while I don't disagree that most of the fans today no longer listen to it for that reason, the association of kitsch lingers on thanks to films like "Muriel's Wedding" and the stage production of "Mamma Mia". Many people who like to think that they have good taste in music therefore view it as a red flag, and either hide their ABBA collection or say something like, "aahhh, they were gifts" or some other self-deluding thing. I admit that I'm like that, and that while I own a CD copy of The Visitors, I can't bring myself to buy copies of their earlier albums even when I find them in the used bin for cheap...though I really am tempted...just because of fear of losing face in the eyes of the salesclerks. Is that sad or what?

anyway, when did people start unabashedly liking them again?

is it hard to like spacemen 3? it is bandied about like an attribute on one's resume here.

Nah. I mentioned liking them because I know they are one of Kate's favorite bands, so they were sort of relevant to the discussion at hand. Not meant to be some sort of name dropping exercise at all, because that would be pretty sad...

it should be on my tombstone.

"Hi, I'm Kate, and I like Spacemen3".

This entire thread was an exercise in futility. You all had your ideas about Abba, and your ideas about people that hate Abba, and I was just there to provide the foil for your gushing. Everybody is satisfied.

Around 1980, it had become a disgrace to listen to them, so I stopped doing it. Later, I rediscovered them "in the closet", but I kept having the feeling that it was some sort of excentric vice that I should be ashamed of. I had no idea that so many people felt the same as I did.

I'm proud that their value has been so widely recognized in the 1990's, so I don't have to be embarassed anymore about liking them. I'm proud also because it proves to me that, from the beginning, my ear was right. I have listened to many many other artists since then, in all possible styles, but Abba remains a reference to me, just like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Elvis. Their sound is just as unmistakeable, and their production has been just about as creative and diverse.

More than other musicians, Abba have been a victim of their image, maybe because of their gaggy outfits. They were and are still labeled as kitsch by many people, including their own fans. Many of those who declare hating them don't really know their music, and don't bother to.

There were quite a few bands and artists of the 70's that really were dud, but the difference is that those never enjoyed this sort of late recognition. Anyone remembers the Rubettes or the Brotherhood of Man for instance? They were successful though back then...

I don't agree either that Abba's music is plastic and devoid of emotions. That applies maybe to bands like the Bee Gees or Boney M., which are OK in their own style, but which I think do lack depth. On the opposite, an album like "the Visitors" is full of emotion and refinement. Emotion is not just about being "upbeat".

I can very well understand that, for a number of reasons, some people don't like their sound. It probably goes for most artists.; everyone doesn't like the Rolling Stones either, but no doubt that they are classics. But , whether one likes them or not, what I would like to underline is Abba's artistical value. They are by no means just a good old kitschy attraction. They are indeed two outstanding composers, and two outstanding voices.

And yes, they do sound better when you're in an office.

Anyway...never heard any of the alb. and the singles only on the radio. Didn't like them when I was younger but 'Murriel's Wedding' is a wonderful movie and I love how this girl finds so much comfort in this music. I do tend to join in, singing along to those songs when played in the movie (as my brother pointed it out to me!).

The singles are wonderful though I never got round to getting a collection as it really isn't needed.

I love it.

I don't love it. Dud.

As if that 'Can you hear the drums Fernando?' thing and the 'I Have A Dream' thing and the 'I Believe In Angels' dreck were not enough, someone further up the thread has reminded me of 'Thankyou For The Music' - AAAaaaarrrghgh.

I had to hear their drivel all through my teens, and working as a barman in a handbag- dancer nightclub during the last days of disco meant hearing all those 'classic' singles over and over again...
But even if I'd never heard them before in my life, I would find them absolutely bloody dire - it's not just 'connections' stuff.
The songs are just so..... so..... ersatz.
They sound like things written for theatrical musicals about war, or like they've been commissioned for coachloads of pensioners to sing along to. I don't think I've ever heard a single note in any of their melodies that sounded like it couldn't have been statistically predicted. Their production/sound is so chintzy and schmaltzy and faux-classy, it's like being beaten to fucking death with a fool's-gold-plated wedding cake stand.

Kate, you are not alone - it just generally feels like it because they also seem to infect taste like some kind of lowest-common-denominator cultural virus : even Noise/Industrial music fans I know have Abba collections.

And I do think that all that rusty irony shit can't just be discounted either.

Oh, and RF - now that was a seriously enjoyable post...

The melodies - Money Money Money does sound like a show tune (intentionally, I would guess), but I don't see what you mean about the predictability of the melodies. There are some incredible twists and turns - I'd say that as writers and arrangers Benny and Bjorn are up there with the best ever.

Now Alex. What about this : **In my first dancing lesson we danced to Rasputin**

Well you'd have looked a proper charlie dancing to After The Bloody Goldrush, wouldn't you? Or Nick Drake? What's wrong with Boney M - 'Daddy Cool' has a fucking enormous bass-line - great record to dance to. Also Ma Baker. I used to dance to Boney M, Abba, Heatwave, The Supremes, The Specials, The Jam, The Sex Pistols and The Bee Gees within the same hour in 1978. And I still do given half the chance. This is turning into a rant now. I'm angry. Please don't take it personally Alex - I would buy you a dunkelsbier any day and even dance with you - but your musical world is nonsense. Abba are crap because of overexposure! In one or two years ALL MUSIC WAS LIKE IT!! WHAT! Soul music is crap because of falsetto vocals! Oh no!

Roger - you joyless, clueless fuckwit. I bet you're the po-faced, sneering, slightly smelly person in the corner with the Jim Morrison t-shirt. Aren't you?

And as for the Jim Morisson T-shirt, I prefer a Brownshirt with jackboots.

I'm not a musician or musicologist so I can't comment on the predictability of melodies thing - except to say that if that was the case then why haven't there been more groups like ABBA? Predictability implies that making ABBA records must be easy but the list of other bands who've enjoyed anything remotely approaching their level of success with a similar sound is very small. Part of that was the fact that they appeared and flourished at a time when the singles charts were possibly less concerned with 'cool' than any other, so the show-tunes influence (for example) and the Swedishness didn't ring any cultural alarm bells.

I think ABBA's lyrics show flashes of greatness all the way through and from about '77-'78 onward are consistently marvellous.

I'm a bit surprised at myself for how much I love them and how my love for them continues to grow - they still seem to me the most perfect group, despite inconsistencies of output.

I mean I say this as someone who likes a silly dance song or ten but, I don't know I'll never like Abba. Also I probably have subconscious prejudices about the 12 cd people who like them being fantastically happy and going to see Bjorn Again 3 times a year and living wonderful lives.

Great stuff while the initial buzz was still there but occasional radio/disco listening is as much ABBA as I need. So not quite classic because like the bunny in the Duracell ad they've run out of power while the best of Chic, EWF, Motown etc still motors on.

Yay! You know you've finally arrived on ILM when someone says you're talking bullshit!
What's that 'for the most part' mean, though, eh Dr C ?
And the answer to your question is 'No' - because:
(1) Indie feedback scenarios do nothing for me.
(2) Don't worry, I too lost such childish 'rockist' (tm ILM) notions as 'more real' >20 years ago - it's just that I've never felt convinced that it was for the better. I acknowledge it's a lot more complicated than 'real' vs. 'fake', but you have to decide whether you're willing to lose the dimensions of dialogue that the belittling of such ideas, however crassly expressed, leads to. Aren't there areas of aesthetics which allow for the validity of these criteria? Or do you think that pop music should by definition be exempt?
(3) I wasn't referring to the idea of Abba as 'fake' vs. Some Indie Noise as 'real' - I was trying to get across (perhaps badly) that they and their sound and their songs have to me a kind of representational efficiency <=> ideas/emotions/themes which is the audio equivalent of a fake tan. I'm not saying that I think all music 'should' have these affective/cognitive functions either, nor even that music which is popular and melodic and shiny necessarily has only 'ersatz' qualities (I find the Pet Shop Boys 'Rent' for example, to be quite a lucid musical/lyrical encapsulation of a complex set of feelings as well as a lovely wee tune with a sophisticated depth of production) - but I am saying that the idea of finding 'emotion' in Abba's songs (by which we don't usually just mean -'hey, this sounds like fun!') makes me think 'WTF?', in much the same way as imagining those for whom 'Lady In Red' is a rilly good love song...

As for 'laughable' - yes such an attitude may well be so by our sophisticated standards. Or maybe it wouldn't be so much a laugh, as a snigger.

I used to dance to Boney M, Abba, Heatwave, The Supremes, The Specials, The Jam, The Sex Pistols and The Bee Gees within the same hour in 1978. And I still do given half the chance

Bet you get a bit more out of breath now though haha
And just where the hell were you going in 1978 that played all this? I was stuck with either Saturday Night CattleMarket 'Discos', or Saturday Night Fuckwit 'Punk/New Wave Discos'..... but then I didn't want to dance to either...

As for your final point, I would refer you to the post by Andrew L:
I do hate the assumption that if you don't like ABBA (or their cohorts in evil, the Beatles) you're somehow anti-pop, anti-dance, anti-fun, whatever. You really don't have to be a musical elitist/purist to find ABBA cloying and annoying.

(Office Card: No - but it HELPS!! hahaha)

Tom - I can't back that melody thing up with any musicological analysis myself, cos I don't speak tadpole. It's just that I've never heard any sequence by them which sounded 'unexpected', there's never any sense of suspension/resolution in them - its just like one damn note after another...
I think you have a good point about 'why not more Abba's if they were that predictable', I need to think about that a bit more, but maybe:
Well maybe there have been lots more 'Abbas' - ref. Kate earlier.
Time and place, like you said.
The issue of being 'the original' group of that type.
The stuff mentioned by dleone in his post.

I think this thread is great - the degree of polarisation it produced dug out all the criteria which people use to evaluate music, many of which are themselves the subject of dispute as to applicability - eg craft & skill, art vs. industry, functionalism, personal/social context, who else likes it, etc.
I think that all kinds of things are relevant because they are made so by the surrounding culture - awkward, but everything counts. That's why its all so fucking personal and emotive and difficult and interesting.

To discos, nightclubs and people's houses.

**I think this thread is great - the degree of polarisation it produced dug out all the criteria which people use to evaluate music**

**eg craft & skill, art vs. industry, functionalism, personal/social context, who else likes it, etc**

Do you know what? I don't know why I love Abba. I don't know why I love ABC, The Human League, Joy Division, The Kinks, Chic....

I know *what it is that they do* that I like, but I don't know why I like what they do, at least in a way that I can sensibly analyse and articulate.

The polarisation around ABBA IS astounding, though. Ronan thinks it's too bubblegum, I think they're rather bleak. At least the later stuff is.

Alex - you didn't make me angry. Sorry if you thought that.

Bleak Bubblegum -- chew it and feel your spirit wither. (A cousin to Chunks of Sadness, Robert Smith's favorite chocky.)

There's a definite bit of nostalgia for loving Abba on my part in that, born in '71 and all, theirs was some of the first pop music I heard and recognized as such on the radio. "Dancing Queen" and "Voulez-Vouz" and all give me a basic rush and a fix, much like snoozerific hash such as "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" also does -- but the latter just sounds like snoozerific hash, but ABBA still sounds perfectly sparkling and wonderful.

I think it's odd ABBA haven't got a younger audience among people who are into music, but on the other hand I think the number of those people who go back and investigate older pop music is generally quite low (the people talking on the Four Tops threads have been older than the ILM average I'd guess).

Also, bump.

The delights of ABBA are many..... from the perfect pop of hits like 'S.O.S', 'Knowing me Knowing You' and 'Take a chance on me' to the beautifully written, darker moments like 'The day before you came' (one of the greatest songs ever written), 'The Winner takes it all' (ditto) and 'The Visitors'.

It's a shame they're remembered more for their appalling campy dress sense than their incredible music talents - Andersson/Ulvaeus are easily up there with Lennon and McCartney for their staggering songwriting talents - moreso, in fact, in my humble opinion.

To even question Classic/Dud with ABBA is terrible. ABBA changed the face of music, and their legacy lives on.

Absolutely classic.

(They were always princesses to me)

Just bought The Visitors for $5, absent the bonus tracks sadly, but remastered. Investigating their album tracks might be worthy of an ILM thread, actually...

Anyway!!!! I used to be like that, especially in the late 70s/early 80s when you couldn't switch on a radio or TV without hearing their latest number 1!!!! But even then, I liked the odd tune like "Knowing Me, Knowing You", "Name of the Game", "Eagle", "Voulez Vous", "Gimme Gimme Gimme" etc... And then some time in the late 80s Channel 4 showed "Abba- The Movie" in some graveyard slot, and I thought "Well, they did one or two good tunes, so I might as well give it a watch!!!!"... And I thorougly enjoyed myself!!!!! A much better concert movie than that pisspoor Led Zep "Song Remains the Same" thingie!!!! Bit ironic considering tha Zep at the time were the rock equivalent of Abba in terms of massive popularity and massive critical derision!!!!

Continuing the Zep connection, Abba even have an equivalent of "Hammer of the Gods" in the ace "Name of the Game", which is still one of my fave pop books!!!! (And it's co-written by Andrew Loog Oldham, for Cliff's sake!!!!!)

great column today, Tom

Yes, great article.

hmmm i'm going to suggest classic, because the girls could sing and when i feel in a certain frame of mind i'll put on the records and enjoy them.

faves: knowing me knowing you, gimme gimme gimme, fernando

"The Day Before You Came" was one of their last flops, not one of their first ones; between "Waterloo" and "S.O.S." none of their singles hit big in Britain at all.

Good point Marcello.

Thanks Dominique and Baaderonix!

'Dancing Queen' always struck me as one of the saddest hit singles ever. Partly because, yes, the "time of her life" is now, is gone. But also the knowledge that 30 years later, dancing queen is working at the post office in some provincial town listening nostalgically to 'Dancing Queen'.

As far as the lover/murderer equation goes in "TDFYC," the line "I never even noticed I was blue" probably tilts it in the "lover" direction, but of course lover and murderer could be the same person and the murder not necessarily physical - i.e. he came but now he's gone.

whoah.

i'd never thought about the murderer angle before! and tdbyc is in my top 5 abba tunes ever - it's always the one i bring out when people accuse them of being a shitty throwaway pop band or whatever.

great piece tom, kudos.

xpost

Blue = shade of a corpse, too.

I just ordered The Visitors. I better like it.

I only recently heard the Yngwie Malmsteen version of "Gimme Gimme Gimme," and I have to admit, it induced some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder that's limited my ability to listen to ABBA.

The Visitors >>>>> ABBA Gold

GOLD!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7539805.stm

Abba's greatest hits compilation Gold, first released in 1992, has become the oldest album to top the UK album chart. The record, which has made it to the top spot on four previous occasions, knocked Coldplay's Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends down to two.

This is a question? ;) The terms ABBA and Classic are almost interchangeable. Best singles band ever. They had an Olympian aura, when joyous the world feels lighter, more colourful and justified. When they explore sadness trees cry, the world turns grey, loss attains a mythical quality. My 3 favorite ABBA songs are 'Knowing Me, Knowing You', 'S.O.S.' and 'Chiquitita' (the outro always makes me misty-eyed, something to do with perfect childhood memories I guess).

I like ABBA fine, but this goes a bit far.

"Olympian aura" = proto-riot grrrl?

I don't think it even approaches ABBA's greatness

Thank you for the music just came on the radio the second I pressed submit

No Abba thread on HYS...

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/wingsounds1

!

cover for her 'Beat It' CD:

http://cdbaby.name/w/i/wingsounds16.jpg

I mean... God bless these fucking guys right?

Did "Summer Night City" ever get wide release as a 12 inch? Which sounds better, the 7 inch or its appearance on Greatest Hits Vol. 2?

The "previously unreleased full-length version" debuted on the box set.

Yeah, with the string intro or whatever. I'm thinking of record fidelity. The greatest hits vol. 2 is one of those records with a lot of tracks on each side, and I think "Summer Night City" is on one of the inner bands (and I'm superstitious of inner bands because I always think of them as lower fidelity because they're smaller than outer bands - I think a lot of singles lead off on the outer bands). I have a source for the GH, but not the 7 inch. Sometimes 7 inches sound like ass, anyway. I thought a nice fat-grooved 45 rpm 12 inch of this song would be cool.

That is way too much information.

A side note: Waterloo the album kicks ass.

how is this thread so short?

Abba are great, what's left to discuss?

i think it's cause we did so many other threads about them over the years. but yeah there's no debate is there.

Summer Night City on Greatest Hits Vol 2 vinyl sounds great. That's the format that I have mostly experienced it in. Comparitively speaking, I can only compare it to some illegaly downloaded mp3 and I have to say it is superior.

Best Band Ever right?

yeah - i'm listening to them now

Looks like I was referenced early on here. Just saying... No... They aren't the best band ever. But they are still classic.

However, their best album was one that was among their least selling. Probably because they were seen as sort of old-fashioned and their brilliant take on the synthpop sound went unnoticed by those (well... like me...at the time, even) who should have been supposed to like it.

Hardly a day goes by that I don't think about the chorus of "Angeleyes"

also lol@

I FUCKING HATE ABBA.

― kate the saint, Wednesday, April 18, 2001 7:00 PM (10 years ago)

This kind of response to music is so alien to me. I don't understand it at all.

I love "Angeleyes" too. I thought ABBA were new wave or something.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a relative had a copy of 'ABBA Gold', and decided to borrow it because I hadn't heard it for quite some time (I don't own a copy of it, myself) - I'd always liked stuff like 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' and 'The Name Of The Game', but I'd never bothered to actually go and check out to see what their studio albums were like. So I did.

I found myself quite surprised with some of their stuff, but some of it was a little bit TOO sugary for me (and I'm a guy that considers himself to have quite the musical sweet tooth).

Nevertheless, of all of their albums I'd probably say that 1975's self-titled album impressed me the most - love the playing, singing, songwriting and production on that. The one that least impressed me was probably the "Voulez-Vous" album.

Oh, and "I'm A Marionette" kicks all sorts of ass.

The live version of I'm A Marionette from ABBA The Movie is superb.

Yeah, I was just watching that on youtube! Far more energetic than the studio cut, and just as bizarre!

yeah Abba The Movie is amazing innit. shame that 'Get On The Carousel' from the film was never put on wax.

Narrator dude on the live version is great: "She feels like... A MARIONETTE!!!"

"I've Been Waiting For You" is so underrated as well - gorgeous ballad.

Where on earth has 'Summer Night City' been all my life? Such a tune.

I've never really been too keen on that one. Apparently even ABBA themselves considered it to be a bit of a weak song. 'I'm A Marionette' is still kicking my ass.

Summer Night City was inspired by The Bee Gees too according to the liner notes on the re-issue of the Voulez Vous album. "It never turned out as good as it could have been, there's something missing" says Bjorn and they deliberately left it off the album in the end. i like it. still baffles me why If It Wasn't For The Nights wasn't a single off that album.

Well, to me it's more of a 'track' than a song, perfect dancefloor/mixing material, with a really driving atmosphere, therefore to me it's their most disco.

Great song, Bjorn's wrong. #5 in the British charts, not exactly obscure either!

"WALKING in the moonlight"

Then Play Long finally reaches Abba: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/abba-greatest-hits.html

Sunday morning reminder.

The ABBA Session Band: http://felpin80.tripod.com/ata/id41.html

The soundtrack of the movie, except it's more of a soundtrack of their own minds: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/abba-album.html.

Not so much a greatest hits review, more an explanation of what Then Play Long has been all about: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/abba-singles-first-ten-years.html

the *fantastic* BBC doc is only up for a few more days so please do watch it at all speed

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03lyzpp/The_Joy_of_ABBA/

Yes, the BBC documentary is really great.

On another note, this map is interesting:

http://i.imgur.com/xLfdUoP.png?1

The website mentioned on the map only has information about Polish chart placings from 1982 onwards- were their records not available in Poland before that point,(or information about sales not recorded)?

The Radio Trojka archives only go back as far as 1982. The records would have been available but i don't think there was a formally compiled chart before then.

That BBC doc was thrash, sorry, again its doing the whole "isn't stuff that was popular at the time really great".

I wish the guy who said oh Joy Divisions/Stooges didn't sell as many records but had more cultural influence posted on ilx just so he could be abused.

fantastic documentary, saw it on bbc4 over christmas. fantastic, fantastic group, my favourite group at moment. must recommend the compilation the essential abba!

Docu is on YT if u look

That map is great but 'sup Denmark, lettin' the Northern Europeans down, do you think this is the Austro-Hungarian Empire or sumthin'?

informal Beach Boys (& opera) jam with OLJ and Andy Gibb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gt3grMaHZI

due to over exposure in the 70s via my parents love of radio 2, i have always avoided buying any ABBA product, but on a whim i picked up the boxset today (twas bargain of course!), and so far i have listened to their first 2 albums, 'ring ring', and 'waterloo' and have already come to realise the errors of my ways.

of course, in recent times i have fallen hard for lounge/easy listening, so i guess i'm in a better place (i.e. i am old.) to listen to ABBA these days.

The albums get better and better too.

bloody hell, opening track of 'the vistors'.

could be an offcut from a lost goldfrapp album.

brilliant.

best £15 i ever spent.

... also best bonus trax on an album evah

no bonus tracks on the boxset editions ..

are the tracks on the extra cd that comes with the boxset !!?

(please please please .. )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Albums#CD_9_-_Bonus_Tracks

Yes, 13-19

... uh, 17

hurray !

ta for being my knight in shining glitter tom d ..

much appreciated sir.

i need this groove this dark dark weekend

You Owe Me One and Under Attack are great. Like they were trying to take on some new wave influences. You Owe Me One reminds me of Oh No It's Devo.

re you owe me one : ok, i get the devo vibe. just.

would never have picked up on that if you had not said, i would have basically connected it with annie styled scanda pop, but i cannot deny the all too brief guitar break at 2.27-2.42 = devo-esque.

Ha, good comparison. Sometimes I think 'Should I Laugh or Cry' is my favourite Abba song.

my god this thread up top

14 years ago!

under attack = devo

yup : via Time era ELO (albeit on a slo-mo groove)

i.e. there is definitely a new wave groove to these tracks ..

damn.

this boxset = best money i have spend in ages.

Last year I tried making a single 80 minute CD of the best of the last three albums which was very hard to do. But here's what I ended up with...
http://s15.postimg.org/tl8tyfaaj/2014_03_07_13_44_45.jpg

The Day Before You Came probably the glaring ommission for a lot of people, but it's so long! The big error I realised later was excluding Lovers Live A Little Longer.

no "When All Is Said and Done" = try again

I've done about three different versions b/c I give it away to people but it's always lacking some great number. Even did a volume 2 but that was weak.

Here's the volume 2 / second best picks.

http://s7.postimg.org/rn0595q4b/2014_03_12_16_46_49.jpg

glad i don't have to restrict myself to such limitations

Loving "the visitors". Thanks for whoever recommended it on the "shifts in taste" thread, i think it was forks or scott, some ilm luminary

that was me i think. you're welcome, it's a fantastic album. especially when you know what turmoil they were going through. I'm always sad that the original album doesn't include Under Attack and The Day Before You Came, both of which feel inseparable to the Visitors experience.

Sorry for forgetting you dl! You're a luminary too. And yeah, you can tell the songs are coming from a very real place despite the glossy/disco/crowd-pleasing ABBA sheen.

xp

agreed, adding Cassandra as an awesome add-on for this record. If you're interested in more ABBA, here's an overview I did years back when all the CD reissues came out: http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/abba-the-full-story.htm

Thanks dude! Reading now

cool, dominique! :-)

Dud: Chiquitita.

Correct about the song. Wrong about the album. Some of their best stuff.

Prefer albums before and after it.

Of the last four, Voulez-Vous has the weakest singles and the strongest deep cuts. On balance, I think it's their best album.

don't know if i posted it anywhere, but i went to the abba exhibition at the southbank a few weeks ago
it was great! but the abba japan 1980 tour jacket they had was the real winner, i need one

it's on the right here: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MXo60bJRd9g/VhWwn7WFfAI/AAAAAAAADmY/rHR4GYP3T7g/s1600/IMG_0208.jpg

'Chiquitita' is maybe not one of their finest singles, yet the outro is wonderfully rousing and melancholic; the most memorable thing in the song for me is the wonderful leap that the piano makes, after it seems the song has finished, and then this outro bursts in.

― Tom May (Tom May), Wednesday, 29 October 2003 17:40 (fourteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^

It's no "Fernando" but it's still great, and, despite the Hispanic title and flourishes, it's so Teutonic/Nordic the video was probably shot at Berchtesgarden.

I don't know much about schlager but I think a lot of 50s/60s pop music in Germany and Scandinavia had Spanish or Italian themes - you know, better than thinking about Saturday night in Tromsø. This seems to be in that tradition.

back in the public consciousness thanks to..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb49gB5gdH8

(which just makes it even more dud)

2 of their best deep cuts and shoulda-been-singles are on Voulez Vous though; If It Wasn't For The Nights (a Top 20 ILX ABBA songs poll smash!) and As Good as New.

I've explained why I loathe Three Billboards yet blocked that "Chiquitita" scene.

I've no idea what they're getting at with it either; he's not a bad racist really because he likes Abba? I wonder if it's meant to be funny.

hot take: "Chiquitita" and "Fernando" are both among their worst singles

I never got the hate for "Fernando."

(I also never knew "Chiquitita" was particularly hated until now.)

"Fernando" is top 10 ABBA for me (it was actually @ 7, "Chiquitita" was 15)

I have a suspicion that "Fernando" and "Chiquitita" are harder to love if you grew up in a schlager tradition.

And didn't like schlager, I assume.

I didn't but I did grow up with ABBA Gold and More ABBA Gold on near-constant repeat and they were clearly the lowlights of the compilation

(More ABBA Gold is the better compilation, anyway)

I'm kinda fine with schlager at this point but I'm also fine with Chas & Dave and I bring this up because the journey to be able to enjoy that stuff if you're from the continent* is what I imagine the journey to being able to enjoy Chas & Dave would be like for Brits.

* don't want to lump all of Europe together but in my experience every nation I've been to has an equivalent

song is mitigated by the fact everyone and EVERYONE sings 'chicken tikka you and I know' when it comes on

is this worse i dunno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGoWbJbgjbY

I'm kinda fine with schlager at this point but I'm also fine with Chas & Dave and I bring this up because the journey to be able to enjoy that stuff if you're from the continent* is what I imagine the journey to being able to enjoy Chas & Dave would be like for Brits.

* don't want to lump all of Europe together but in my experience every nation I've been to has an equivalent

― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, March 13, 2018 3:20 PM (fifty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Had some very similar thoughts a while ago when I realised that the UK west country still celebrates The Wurzels as part of their regional identity, getting played at weddings and birthday parties. More than just 'Combine Harvester' too. Wouldn't mind a thread about regional novelty acts - the Proclaimers, Chas'n'Dave, the Wurzels, maybe even someone like Sleaford Mods could even count..

(xp) Of course, that is garbage. Anyway, if an ABBA album has "I Have a Dream" on it then it's simply not possible for any other track to be any dudder, duddlier.

(xp) Uh, I'm no fan of theirs but do you really want to label the Proclaimers as a regional novelty act to sit alongside the Wurzels?

*holds hand up slightly and murmurs* 'I Have A Dream' makes me a bit weepy when I hear it. I know it's sentimental dreck but it's a killer 'ambushed by unexpected emotion' song for me.

xp - maybe? is there that much in it?

If the Proclaimers are regional novelty act then I'd nominate the Pogues as the same, London Irish.

i guess The Wurzels are seen much more as a comedy act than the Proclaimers so maybe they're not part of it but 500 Miles is like a standard now and synonymous with Leith/Edinburgh to the rest of the country.

They're not from Edinburgh or Leith though.

But, no-one south of the Tweed can pronounce Auchtermuchty tbf.

it's synonymous with rugby lads on the piss to the rest of the country

well sure.

maybe "Thank You For the Music" is worse than "Chiquitita" but I ain't gonna find out.

Have you not heard "I Have A Dream"?

The 'Doris Day' version of Thank You For The Music is quite a fun little genre exercise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7pb1R1mXFw

Combine Harvester was massive compared to Brand New Key, i think many people back then (maybe even now?) were unaware it was a parody.

Exactly like Angelo and Fernando then.

hot take: "Chiquitita" and "Fernando" are both among their worst singles

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Tuesday, March 13, 2018 2:12 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM.

Fwiw, I don't think ABBA ever made a studio album that doesn't have at least one track that's far too corny for me. Even the last two LP's. Take the 1975 self-titled record, for instance: 'Mamma Mia', 'Hey Hey Helen', 'S.O.S.', even 'Tropical Loveland' and 'Intermezzo No. 1' are all superb, but then you've got unbearable crap like 'Bang a Boomerang' ...

Arrival has 'When I Kissed the Teacher' and 'Dum Dum Diddle' on it, both cringeworthy as fuck.

'When I Kissed the Teacher' cringeworthy? I think you'd best pack up your things and ride on out of town, stranger.

Yes, cringeworthy.

I think you spend too much time listening to lyrics.

On that song, they're fucking unavoidable!

Sometimes when I listen to 'Gimmie! Gimmie! Gimme!', I just wish that middle section would go on for a little bit longer. I love that groove.

I’ve always liked “I Have a Dream.” I think it’s a much darker song than the critical consensus suggests. Also, electric sitar (?) on ABBA’s attempt at a country song (??)? Fuckin sign me up.

I don't think it's supposed to be a country song, more like a Hitler Youth anthem.

Also electric sitar? Where? You mean the mandolins? (I think there are mandolins on it anyway).

I don't think it's supposed to be a country song, more like a Hitler Youth anthem.

― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Tuesday, March 13, 2018 3:42 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

uh citation very fucking much needed (are you thinking of ace of base or something)

I don't mean they literally wrote it as a Hitler Youth anthem, it just sounds like they did.

Always gave off a "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" vibe to me.

Originally they had a crack at writing a national anthem type thing, which ultimately ended up in Chess. It was called Nationalsang at one point, then Anthem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEUi1Pptb5c

Does "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" come from schlager stylistically?

I'd put it in with their rock'n'roll pastiches.

I was wondering if that was it, too, with the swing rhythm. It's always sounded European and old fashioned to me, though! Like, really old fashioned.

Why Did It Have To Be Me is pretty similar but maybe more schlager because of the male-female back and forth.

It's hard to say exactly what is and isn't schlager. One level is that it's just pop music and if it works it's broadly popular and that kinda makes it schlager.

The big Abba-as-schlager record is the original Greatest Hits, with He Is Your Brother, Hasta Manyana, Another Town Another Train, Fernando, Dance While the Music Still Goes On...

oh look it's a list of all the ABBA songs I can't stand

(the fact that the same band is responsible for "The Visitors" and "Nina, Pretty Ballerina" astounds me)

There's a good Chuck Eddy quote in Accidental Evolution about ABBA's stylistically underpinnings. I'll try to find it.

this song is fucking incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhr6tUE32YA

Also electric sitar? Where? You mean the mandolins? (I think there are mandolins on it anyway).

Eagle tho'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDI7x1nwTUw

omg what a freeze frame

Did they do anything quite as Floydian as Eagle?

They could have made a really cool, peripherally prog sounding record.

They have quite a few progge moments.

Intermezzo No. 1!

'Intermezzo No. 1' fucking rules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92L6balksi8

That bassline...

Should I watch ABBA - the Movie?

Yes. The plot about the journalist is a drag but some of the concert footage is thrilling as it gets.

They should do a new cut which totally omits the journalist and includes more ABBA.

Oooh sounds like I neeeeeed to watch this. I love the documentary filmmaker 'plot' in Spice World (using plot very loosely here) so I'm intrigued how the Abba one plays out.

Spice World is in fact the film that the ABBA film resembles most. But it was the latter that ignited a discourse about Agnetha’s derrière, so why not watch and judge for yourself

This framing story is reminding of Velvet Goldmine for some reason.

Looking at the Spotify "Popular" list, surprised to see "Angeleyes" making a surge. I've always loved it but felt like it was underappreciated, not part of the top canon etc. It's #3 on their popular list right now, is it on a soundtrack or something?

bc of its great sequence in mamma mia! here we go again

j/k i don't actually know

For me, this is the prototypical example of a band I despised back in the day but now find thoroughly enjoyable.

gonna blast "I Am the City" now.

For me, this is the prototypical example of a band I despised back in the day but now find thoroughly enjoyable.

Looking at the Spotify "Popular" list, surprised to see "Angeleyes" making a surge. I've always loved it but felt like it was underappreciated, not part of the top canon etc. It's #3 on their popular list right now, is it on a soundtrack or something?

lol mystery solved

For me, this is the prototypical example of a band I despised back in the day but now find thoroughly enjoyable.

my 9th birthday party involved all my friends going to see Abba The Movie. We universally loved them. Then from the age of around 12, ABBA seemed to be thee band to despise. They were for some reasion 'the enemy'. This went on for a long time. Now I have regressed back to my 9 year old self and find them thoroughly enjoyable again (though there are a good few ABBA songs I would be very happy to never hear again).

Frida is the Dowager Countess of Plauen. Take that, Sir Elton.

They should definitely do a new cut without the journo; he's doing a nine year stretch for something incredibly unsavoury.

Chris Carter was right after all.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZKk0vXesqmA/X9zspXItOZI/AAAAAAAAKCU/j_lEhCqq2RAjhwNF12352KGx2mLFH6WZACLcBGAsYHQ/s500/abbachris.jpg

100%. I was thinking exactly the same when I posted.

Is there any clamour for a spoiler-filled writeup of what ABBA Voyage actually is and whether it's any good? Because I certainly have opinions.

Yes please!

Is it generally good or bad? I’m still humming and ha-ing about going even though the few people I know who’ve been have all loved it.

Ok so I was firmly in the sceptic camp, my son had been and loved it but I often think he's a bit uncritical of music and events and we have divergent tastes and (like my daughter) I had concerns about the direction it took live music in.

So I resolved myself I wasn't in love enough with the idea to go to London for it but when we ended up there for something at the BFI then it felt like something worth doing.

I wasn't sure I done the right thing, as the next door popup bar was wall-to-wall beveragino/live laugh love and an expensive prosecco bar being the centre of the inside concourse surrounded by people in generic '1970s' fancy dress (although the ticket was explicit about which elements of that were offensive and not tolerated) made it clear what the target audience was.

The concourse is wood panelled and looks vaguely like a stereotype version of a sauna but works quite well in making it feel less like a generic stadium and more like an intimate show. For floor standing (the "dancing zone") there's a tunnel with a handily placed bar in it then through to the hall. Which is much, much smaller than expected. Looking round it actually feels... intimate? There's an animation of some woods on a big screen and occasionally you can spot someone or something running about which seems more frequent as the house lights go down.

Spoiler tags for the show content as anyone who is curious and/or able to go - and I don't know whether there's a plan to move it anywhere - might want to stay unspoiled.

Starting with The Visitors is a bold move that throws the audience, many of whom seem not to know the song at all. The Abbatars rise from through the floor in silhouette during the autotune/quartertone intro section but with "now I hear them moving" the stage lights come on and we're away. I'm a child again and I'm watching Abba on stage and my emotions get the better of me and I'm a blubbering mess.

Hole In Your Soul is an unexpected blast, with SOS finally bringing the crowd into familiar territory and properly engaging them.

KMKY follows and is the first song not performed by the Abbatars. Superficially this seems to be so the film can replicate parts of the video but the reason is far more prosaic - the longer they are on stage the less convincing they are, or rather you begin to see them as flat from time to time, and your eyes clearly need a break. But in this case it's well worth doing as there's one scene where Benny and Frida are so in love (more than they ever managed in the video at the time) which makes their breakup a few seconds later utterly heartbreaking and prompts emotions #2 from me.

Then, I'm afraid, the bar called. Chiquitita and Fernando are songs I've never liked (even if the crashing sun behind the latter improves things when I pretend it's Lars Von Trier's Melancholia) but I'm clearly an outlier because these are the best received songs of the whole night, which does make me wonder if I've accidentally booked the Brotherhood of Man fanclub night by mistake. Mama Mia rescues things somewhat though it's preceded by the first part of clunky audience interaction as Frida introduces it. These feel a bit staged - they get one each - but actually if there's one thing BBC4 has shown is that they always did uncomfortable intros on 70s TV shows so it's probably very authentic.

Three songs, quite flash so time again to lose the Abbatars. Bjorn comes on and introduces the band (who are utterly anonymous and not lit or even on stage for the rest of the show, raising questions about whether all the rest of the show is on tape) and does the verse of Does Your Mother Know before leaving the rest of the song to actual living people. Sorry, but if I wanted to see three women belt out an Abba cover in front of a competent but unspectacular band then I'd go down the Legion on a Friday night and it wouldn't cost me all this money.

Eagle up next, and backed by the first of two animated sequences that tell of a young child's quest for some kind of hidden temple which culminates in the band being revealed as giant Zardoz heads in the second part backing Voulez-Vous at the next gap. The former perhaps isn't a surprising choice for this treatment when we think back to Abba The Movie and the role it plays there, but the latter is a real surprise for me as I would have thought it was one of the big hits.

Lay All Your Love On Me starts the next part of the set with giant Frida and Agnetha stalking hanging video screens and concludes with genuinely the most astonishing thing I've ever seen on a stage. I'm struggling to describe it but the screens show the band top down which pulls away as the song ends then as Summer Night City starts it changes to Abbatars in an instant and it's like you've been thrown 90 degrees onto your back. Gimme Gimme Gimme brings down glitter balls and brings the party bangers section to a close.

After Voulez-Vous it gets a bit odd. When All Is Said And Done is an introspective choice which, on the face of it, feels like it's just to show off the effects (and to be fair the way they step forward and back, in and out of the shadows being just visible in the dark is brilliantly done) but to follow them up with Don't Shut Me Down/I Still Have Faith In You smacks of reminding the audience there was a new album came out this year that they didn't even listen to and they should now buy.

Waterloo is handled very, very weirdly. You'd have thought it would have been an obvious candidate for Abbatars in Eurovision gear but instead we get a supercut of British TV performances of the song, none of which are things you haven't seen multiple times already.

The Abbatars come back for the umpty-tum of Thank You For The Music before a storming version of Dancing Queen closes the show.

An encore of The Winner Takes It All is a triumph, and "and tell me does she kiss, like I used to kiss you" absolutely finishes me and I'm in floods of tears again.

All that's left is for the 'today' aged Abbatars to come on and thank people for turning up and sharing their vision. As they walk out across the wings it doesn't look so good but in centre stage I'd bet cold hard cash those were real people.

So it's not a perfect show but I'm absolutely delighted with my decision to go and if you have any desire to see it then you definitely should. Some practicalities:

• The resale option on the Ticketmaster site itself means you can definitely get tickets for the show you want to see so make your other plans first
• I didn't track the costs but the resale pricing does vary so it may be worth putting in some legwork to see when the optimum time is to buy
• The matinee show is much cheaper and so definitely a cost effective way of seeing it
• The evening show is still very early, you'll be done by 9
• There's basically nothing there except the arena so don't expect to make a night of it
• ]-* There may well be a set change at some point as they sell Take A Chance On Me t-shirts but it doesn't get played. So I might end up going again if it does. [/h]
• Make no mistake, the technology is amazing. But you have to keep your eyes on the Abbatars, if you look at the screens to the side it looks like a video game and takes you out of the moment.
• They're all good but Benny's is far and away the most convincing Abbatar. Bjorn probably the worst.

What does the technology mean for live music? Well for all my worries beforehand I think surprisingly little. This is clearly a very expensive endeavour which needs a lengthy residency to pay for it so only open to enormodome or heritage acts. My first thought of a candidate band is Fleetwood Mac, spending some of that sweet Yacht Rock Boom cash on having the diaphanous Stevie Nicks from the Rhiannon video on stage. Don't stop thinking about tomorrow indeed.

It does feel at times like you're trapped on the set of the ill-advised Suggs karaoke show Night Fever and I'm not actually sure who the target audience is apart from "people with money" but I am a person and I have money so I guess I fall into that demographic.

tl;dr - I had great fun and so will you.

Argh, hidden tags broken

what elements of 1970s fancy dress would be considered offensive?

"so-called afro wigs"

American Indian costumes?

I don't think people in the UK are all that aware of the offence that might cause.

I was imagining see-through blouses or giant coke spoon necklaces.

is there a good book on Abba? seems the autoritative text is the 600p mammoth by Carl Magnus Palm but tbh it looks really boring

I read it at the time, and ‘boring’ is indeed my lasting memory of it

CMP sort of redeeming himself here:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcnrL02FG8t/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I drunkenly theorised at the weekend that every ABBA song is secretly a short psychological horror story and I'd like to test it out with you all. Suggestions and examples welcome

There are some pretty obvious ones: Lay All Your Love On Me where someone's jealous streak becomes so terrifyingly inflated that it develops a dead-eyed numinous zombie-like religiosity

Dancing Queen. No matter who you are, YOU are the dancing queen. Against your will, you have been reduced to the object of the singer's cruel desire. This is a scene Thomas Ligotti would be proud of

One Of Us is crying. Who? Which of you? How many of you are in this smiling cabal with a single secretive cryer? One of us is lying, the other always tells the truth. I'm scared

Like An Angel Passing Through My Room. Sleep paralysis. Wonderful

Does Your Mother Know... what you did last Summer?

Haha I love this. "The Day Before You Came" if you buy the interpretation that the "You" is a guy who murders the protagonist.

My daughter was just in Mamma Mia, and as I watched I did wonder how malleable the ABBA catalog could be. Like, the musical is the most obvious, easy, literal adaptation, but a more creative mind could have gone truly nuts with the material.

People everywhere
A sense of expectation hangin' in the air
Givin' out a spark
Across the room, your eyes are glowin' in the dark

I don't know what's going on here but fuckin ell mate

Lovers Live A Little Longer - in which it turns that the protagonist is actually talking to the preserved corpse of her kidnap

E.T.A. Hoffman's "Nina, Pretty Ballerina"

Death Camp On and On and On ("people care for nothing, no respect for human rights")

The city is a nightmare, a horrible dream
Some of us will dream it forever
Look around the corner, and try not to scream
It's me

Ooh nice

Summer Night City is about a vampire that sleeps in the day and preys on people coming home from nightclubs and discos

Some folks only see the litter
We don't miss them when they're gone

That's a Paul Tremblay line if I ever heard one

I'm Carrie, not the kind of girl you'd marry,
That's me.

And I'm going to use telekinesis to take revenge on all of you after the prom.

Super Trouper – having been chased down by the authorities, the narrator is undergoing an interrogation so intense that she begins hallucinating that she is on a stage somewhere performing for her adoring fans, searching for her partner in the audience to rescue her. Alas he’s already dead. And by the end so is she.

Dum Dum Diddle – about a murderous stalker who imagines transforming into the violin of a musician she intends to kill.

These are gold. ABBA gold

(xp) Didn't Argento film that one?

“Elaine” is another great example

Someone needs to isolate the vocals on those tracks, slow them down and douse them with a ton of reverb so we can hear what the trailer will sound like.