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".
― PihkalBoy, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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.
― Peter, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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.
― Nicole, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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.
― David, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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.
― kate the saint, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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. ;))
― Tom, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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.
― Ally, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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.
― AP, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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?― Ally, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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?
― Dr. C, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― Otis Wheeler, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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...
― gareth, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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.
― fred "dancing queen" solinger, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― james edmund L, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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 !
― All the things I could do ......, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― Andrew, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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?
― Sean Carruthers, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
anyway, when did people start unabashedly liking them again?
― sundar subramanian, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― DG, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― Robin Carmody, Saturday, 21 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
is it hard to like spacemen 3? it is bandied about like an attribute on one's resume here.
― keith, Saturday, 21 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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...
― Nicole, Saturday, 21 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
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.
― kate the saint, Friday, 27 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― K-reg, Monday, 14 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― cockney red, Sunday, 20 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
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.
― francois chevallier, Wednesday, 5 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Chris, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― dleone, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
And yes, they do sound better when you're in an office.
― fernando, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dleone, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
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.
― Julio Desouza, Friday, 21 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
I love it.
I don't love it. Dud.
― Roger Fascist, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Clarke B., Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dleone, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
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...
― Ray M, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― alex in mainhattan, Thursday, 1 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Roger Fascist, Thursday, 1 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
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?
― Dr. C, Thursday, 1 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
And as for the Jim Morisson T-shirt, I prefer a Brownshirt with jackboots.
For me, this is the prototypical example of a band I despised back in the day but now find thoroughly enjoyable.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 25 July 2022 16:26 (one year ago) link
gonna blast "I Am the City" now.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 25 July 2022 16:26 (one year ago) link
― My Little Red Buchla (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 25 July 2022 16:33 (one year ago) link
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?
― big movers, hot steppers + long shaker intros (breastcrawl), Monday, 25 July 2022 16:33 (one year ago) link
lol mystery solved
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 25 July 2022 16:59 (one year ago) link
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).
― stirmonster, Monday, 25 July 2022 17:50 (one year ago) link
Frida is the Dowager Countess of Plauen. Take that, Sir Elton.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 25 July 2022 17:54 (one year ago) link
They should definitely do a new cut without the journo; he's doing a nine year stretch for something incredibly unsavoury.
― piscesx, Monday, 25 July 2022 18:19 (one year ago) link
Chris Carter was right after all.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZKk0vXesqmA/X9zspXItOZI/AAAAAAAAKCU/j_lEhCqq2RAjhwNF12352KGx2mLFH6WZACLcBGAsYHQ/s500/abbachris.jpg
― Tom D: panel beater, bouncer and tree surgeon (Tom D.), Monday, 25 July 2022 18:31 (one year ago) link
100%. I was thinking exactly the same when I posted.
― stirmonster, Monday, 25 July 2022 19:30 (one year ago) link
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.
― Long enough attention span for a Stephen Bissette blu-ray extra (aldo), Saturday, 15 October 2022 22:32 (one year ago) link
Yes please!
― pick the mouse that can reach all the cheese in the maze (Matt #2), Saturday, 15 October 2022 22:42 (one year ago) link
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.
― piscesx, Sunday, 16 October 2022 02:08 (one year ago) link
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:
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.
― Long enough attention span for a Stephen Bissette blu-ray extra (aldo), Sunday, 16 October 2022 09:33 (one year ago) link
Argh, hidden tags broken
― Long enough attention span for a Stephen Bissette blu-ray extra (aldo), Sunday, 16 October 2022 09:34 (one year ago) link
what elements of 1970s fancy dress would be considered offensive?
― Piven After Midnight (The Yellow Kid), Sunday, 16 October 2022 16:39 (one year ago) link
"so-called afro wigs"
― Long enough attention span for a Stephen Bissette blu-ray extra (aldo), Sunday, 16 October 2022 17:20 (one year ago) link
American Indian costumes?
― eatandoph (Neue Jesse Schule), Sunday, 16 October 2022 18:41 (one year ago) link
I don't think people in the UK are all that aware of the offence that might cause.
― Fronted by a bearded Phil Collins (Tom D.), Sunday, 16 October 2022 19:04 (one year ago) link
I was imagining see-through blouses or giant coke spoon necklaces.
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 17 October 2022 01:04 (one year ago) link
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
― corrs unplugged, Friday, 23 December 2022 09:02 (one year ago) link
I read it at the time, and ‘boring’ is indeed my lasting memory of it
― the shaker intro bit the shaker outro in the tail, hard (breastcrawl), Friday, 23 December 2022 09:38 (one year ago) link
CMP sort of redeeming himself here:https://www.instagram.com/p/CcnrL02FG8t/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
― the shaker intro bit the shaker outro in the tail, hard (breastcrawl), Thursday, 29 December 2022 21:59 (one year ago) link
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
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Monday, 20 March 2023 15:43 (one year ago) link
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
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Monday, 20 March 2023 15:44 (one year ago) link
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
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Monday, 20 March 2023 15:45 (one year ago) link
Like An Angel Passing Through My Room. Sleep paralysis. Wonderful
Does Your Mother Know... what you did last Summer?
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Monday, 20 March 2023 15:46 (one year ago) link
Haha I love this. "The Day Before You Came" if you buy the interpretation that the "You" is a guy who murders the protagonist.
― J. Sam, Monday, 20 March 2023 15:52 (one year ago) link
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.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 20 March 2023 16:01 (one year ago) link
People everywhereA sense of expectation hangin' in the airGivin' out a sparkAcross the room, your eyes are glowin' in the dark
I don't know what's going on here but fuckin ell mate
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Monday, 20 March 2023 16:14 (one year ago) link
Lovers Live A Little Longer - in which it turns that the protagonist is actually talking to the preserved corpse of her kidnap
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Monday, 20 March 2023 16:21 (one year ago) link
E.T.A. Hoffman's "Nina, Pretty Ballerina"
― eatandoph (Neue Jesse Schule), Monday, 20 March 2023 16:24 (one year ago) link
Death Camp On and On and On ("people care for nothing, no respect for human rights")
― eatandoph (Neue Jesse Schule), Monday, 20 March 2023 16:28 (one year ago) link
The city is a nightmare, a horrible dreamSome of us will dream it foreverLook around the corner, and try not to screamIt's me
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Wednesday, 22 March 2023 01:06 (one year ago) link
Ooh nice
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Wednesday, 22 March 2023 12:05 (one year ago) link
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 litterWe don't miss them when they're gone
That's a Paul Tremblay line if I ever heard one
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Wednesday, 22 March 2023 12:06 (one year ago) link
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.
― Portsmouth Bubblejet, Wednesday, 22 March 2023 12:27 (one year ago) link
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.
― Naive Teen Idol, Thursday, 20 April 2023 12:39 (one year ago) link
Dum Dum Diddle – about a murderous stalker who imagines transforming into the violin of a musician she intends to kill.
― Naive Teen Idol, Thursday, 20 April 2023 12:45 (one year ago) link
These are gold. ABBA gold
― Rolling Coastal Black Midi New Roads (dog latin), Thursday, 20 April 2023 13:41 (one year ago) link
(xp) Didn't Argento film that one?
― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Thursday, 20 April 2023 14:37 (one year ago) link
“Elaine” is another great example
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Thursday, 20 April 2023 15:50 (one year ago) link
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.
― birdistheword, Thursday, 20 April 2023 17:51 (one year ago) link