BCB 130 - ABBA

[Quaco]

I don't have time to look around now, but my one abiding childhood memory of ABBA is seeing a clip of them playing and being fascinated by Bjorn's guitar, which looked like a Les Paul, but had a whole shitload of knobs on it. I wanted one of those guitars soooooo bad.

Was it this?


I rather like this one...

[harvey k-tel]

I don't have time to look around now, but my one abiding childhood memory of ABBA is seeing a clip of them playing and being fascinated by Bjorn's guitar, which looked like a Les Paul, but had a whole shitload of knobs on it. I wanted one of those guitars soooooo bad.

Was it this?

Yes, I think it was!

Never seen that star guitar before. That's pretty cool.

[soundchaser]

One of my favourite fusion guitarists, Janne shaffer, did session work with ABBA, so there was always that interest for me. I've never owned an Abba album, but you can't deny the brilliance of many of their singles.

Plus, of course, the girls.

[toomanyhatz]

Don't have much to say here, other than I find "Knowing Me, Knowing You" one of the greatest, saddest breakup songs ever written.

It's funny that Fleetwood Mac's Rumo(u)rs is always discussed in terms of the relationships within the band breaking up. Don't the last several Abba albums have that as an underlying (and often overlying) theme?

[Phenomenal Cat]

I still haven't gotten into the albums proper, though the double-LP Abba Singles gets plenty of play in the house. Someday, Jim.

Someday.

[Polishgirl]

Bjorn in 1969 ( see what I did there?), ABBA are my Beatles - the soundtrack to my childhood. They were reaching stellar heights at the point when I started to be interested in music- I particularly remember seeing them perform " Money Money Money" when it reached number 1.

I had a book of ABBA songs for the recorder, and used to play them while dad played the piano. My best friend and I had a mahoosive colour in ABBA doodle poster, and we used to singalongabba, posing with our hairbrushes. I was Frida, with my brown hair, and C was blonde, so she was Agnetha. Various teddy bears played the parts of the blokes.

They're the perfect pop band with perfect pop songs - but they have something else to them, too; they have emotion and meaning. I agree about "Knowing Me, Knowing You". Some of the later songs, like " The Winner Takes It All" and "The Day Before You Came", are lovely, too.

I guess some of the feeling comes from those complicated inter-band relationships; gives the love songs an extra depth.

My favourites, though - "Take A Chance On Me", "Gimme Gimme Gimme " and "Lay All Your Love On Me".

[Nancy]

My mother was/is a fan so I heard the greatest hits album often as a kid. And all those choruses are still stuck in my head to this day, so they do know a thing or two about writing songs with hooks.

Apparently Ritchie Blackmore is a huge fan and has gone on record in several interviews about their singing and songwriting talents. Agnetha went to a Rainbow gig in Sweden in 1980 to talk to Ritchie about a possible musical collaboration, but it never happened.

Good enough for Ritchie, good enough for me.

[never/ever]

All this love for Abba fascinates me.
They wore capes for God's sakes....

[Polishgirl]

All this love for Abba fascinates me.
They wore capes for God's sakes....

It was the 70s! Capes were obligatory. At least they wore shiny ones.

[Polishgirl]

And....



Oh MY!

[Georgios]

Lemmy loves the piano outro to Chiquitita apparently.

[The Fish]

Nice work Jim.

I remember saying to you once that for me Abba were one of the few since Spector who did really come up with "a sound" perhaps not groundbreaking in itself but there was a wonderful feel to it. Actually I can only think of Lindsey Buckingham who has come up with a "trademark" sound since then.

Like you I love Like An Angel Passing Through my Room" and also Slipping through my fingers. I could say Visitors is my favourite but sometimes think I'm being falsely persuaded by the maturity of it. On any given day I'm just as likely to reach for Voulez Vous. I may be in the minority in loving the cheesy disco ABBA but I love it Maybe I find in it more of what makes ABBA ABBA. Favorite track today I'm going for Angel Eyes

[Davey the Fat Boy]

To me, ABBA are the band most hurt by their modern reappraisal. Back when they were uncool, I loved standing up for them. Now that they've won the history sweepstakes, I find I tire of them easily. Digging deeper has never been a fruitful task with this band.

I think shallow appreciation was a state of grace for me and Benny, Bjorne, Frida and Agnetha.

But I'll say this for them, their best singles kicked 10-year old me's ass late nights with the am radio on all night.

[GoogaMooga]

To me, ABBA are the band most hurt by their modern reappraisal. Back when they were uncool, I loved standing up for them. Now that they've won the history sweepstakes, I find I tire of them easily. Digging deeper has never been a fruitful task with this band.

I think shallow appreciation was a state of grace for me and Benny, Bjorne, Frida and Agnetha.

But I'll say this for them, their best singles kicked 10-year old me's ass late nights with the am radio on all night.

it's nearly always more satisfying when you have got a secret to yourself, or shared with the few enlightened

[Quaco]

To me, ABBA are the band most hurt by their modern reappraisal. Back when they were uncool, I loved standing up for them. Now that they've won the history sweepstakes, I find I tire of them easily. Digging deeper has never been a fruitful task with this band.

I think shallow appreciation was a state of grace for me and Benny, Bjorne, Frida and Agnetha.

But I'll say this for them, their best singles kicked 10-year old me's ass late nights with the am radio on all night.

But the modern reappreciation of them barely scratches the surface of what was great about them. It's still a secret. You will hear people talking about the musical perfection, the melancholy (comparing them to ... Fleetwood Mac??), but few have discerned what's really in the songs. And they don't help by keeping tight reins on their catalogue. How I wish a huge cache of isolated tracks would leak! How many people really know the song "You Owe Me One"? It's not one of their best, you know. How many have really heard this stuff buried within it? ...

[youtube]hGLAvaYfBRA#t=17[/youtube]

Or the beauty of the voice lines on this? ...

[youtube]3bjk4QO9ZSM#t=46[/youtube]

These are both courtesy of a guy who uses phase cancellation to bring out these things buried in the mix. I sincerely believe that ABBA deserve a "complete score" treatment. And even then, only a select few would even understand the magnitude of what they are seeing.

Like I say, for all their immense popularity, real appreciation of the artistry of ABBA is still very much of an exclusive club.

[Quaco]

Some really gorgeous work here. I like how the arrangement changes as it goes along. I invite anyone who is bored with, unimpressed by, or in general "over" the group to transcribe this and see if your appreciation is rekindled:




Progressive pop of the highest order.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

To me, ABBA are the band most hurt by their modern reappraisal. Back when they were uncool, I loved standing up for them. Now that they've won the history sweepstakes, I find I tire of them easily. Digging deeper has never been a fruitful task with this band.

I think shallow appreciation was a state of grace for me and Benny, Bjorne, Frida and Agnetha.

But I'll say this for them, their best singles kicked 10-year old me's ass late nights with the am radio on all night.

it's nearly always more satisfying when you have got a secret to yourself, or shared with the few enlightened

Maybe that's part of it, Googa - but the larger part is that they justified the defense when people were just completely writing them off. Time has swung the pendulum the other way, and now their case is often overstated every bit as much as it was understated.

['skope]

abba are pleasant enough. certainly, i've grown to appreciate them more over time but i've never owned anything by them, and that's unlikely to change. the revaluation of them puts me off. they just make me think of drunk bints on a hen night.

[Quaco]

Skip ahead a minute if you want:



Did any of us really hear all of that?

[Jimbly]

Always liked them. One of the few modern groups that my Mum and I both liked. The other being Simon and Garfunkel. To give a bit of context, my mum was 36 when she had me. She was in her thirties when Elvis hit. Pop music wasn't for her generation. She struggled with the whole concept of being a teenager.

Abba made great pop records from Ring Ring through to their end. I know a few of the albums but in general the singles are the best. In the 80's lots was said and written about the perfect pop record, mostly by acts that failed to achieve their stated aim. Abba just went ahead and did it.

Favourite song, probably SOS or Mama Mia or Knowing Me Knowing You or The Visitors or The Day Before You Came or........