Monday, December 23, 2013

Abba zabba

I like to think of myself as a pretty eclectic listener. And yet I could never squeeze much enjoyment out of Abba. If there's a variety of cheese I can't gobble up, it's them. So imagine my happy surprise when I recently stumbled on singer Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad's post-Abba solo album, produced by Phil Collins, and bearing nearly all of his early-'80s hallmarks that I enjoy entirely without reservation. The album is a mixed bag of pop approaches, most of which are weirdly flawed. But as batches of half-successes go, it's a pretty addictive listen. Especially this tasty niblet of regatta de blanc, with groovy guitar/organ call and response and Collins's very airdrum-worthy turn at the kit. God bless that man's left foot.
Frida — I See Red
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  1. plagueJanuary 8, 2014 at 6:21 AM

    Thanks for this. Anyhow, let me try to give you something to chew on with Abba. The core of their acheivement, poptimistically speaking is the great run of 9 consecutive singles from 1975-1978: I Do I Do I Do/SOS/Mamma Mia/Fernando/Dancing Queen/Money Money Money/Knowing Me Knowing You/The Name of The Game/Take a Chance On. I've gathered the youtube vids for these into a playlist here:
    http://tinyurl.com/l97swd6
    Like the Beatles in their prime, each of these tracks sounds completely different but always completely like Abba. Anyhow, I'll assume that for whatever reason you're immune to the charms of The Great Run.

    Let me then suggest a couple of other starting points. One wonderful, relatively little known song from Abba's album Arrival is 'My Love My Life'. Hear it first redone as an alternative rock song by short-lived '90s Kiwi/Flying Nun band Bike (vid. whipped up by me):
    http://youtu.be/zeQemF66b_g
    Now go to Agnetha's version:
    http://youtu.be/Lmp7E0CWRnM
    Isn't the emotional detail and specificity impressive?
    Back to something upbeat. How about 'If it wasn't for the nights' from the (often looked down upon, disco-ish) Voulez-vous album (again my vid.):
    http://youtu.be/xEqhcCR3B2E
    Abba's marriages fall apart in the late '70s, and the whirl of singles bars, and pre-AIDS permissiveness beckons. IIWFTN is just one of many Abba songs that dramatizes this back-on-the-market (and what a market!) predicament; it's very specific at the same time as the music itself is universal in its hookiness.
    Anyhow, as should be obvious by now, what's really great about Abba is they can be so up, but so dark at the same time, and that behind all the songs there's an underlying story of how two marriages formed and then fell apart. Take Frida (the dark-haired one). Here's an easly song where she's taking Benny (the piano-player) away from his first wife:
    http://youtu.be/Gytj4dazFMo
    By 1978, she's pretty settled and contemplative:
    http://youtu.be/-zKKSNaRbaU
    And by 1980, things are over:
    http://youtu.be/tUh4u-lYEhM
    Anyhow, there's a richness there, perhaps particularly as one gets older, that's incredibly affecting if you let it in. And even their most famous and potentially played out songs contain riches. Consider Tom Ewing's 'Dancing Queen' essay:
    http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/05/abba-dancing-queen/
    or consider this thunderous heavy metal cover of 'Knowing Me Knowing You':
    http://youtu.be/qZK7rBq8jwg
    No need to relegate Abba to the land of cheese! They hardly wrote a bad song - I swear, like The Beatles or The Smiths or VU, it's almost all good, and a lot of it remains world-beating (even if you aren't one to adore every minute of Muriel's Wedding, which really cemented the Abba reawakening in the '90s in my view).

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