Discovering The Band

To be quite honest, I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I first heard an ABBA song. I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t be able to. They’re such a big name in music and their influence is huge even today. Their songs are everywhere. Many contemporary artists have cited them as one of their main influences and have covered them over the years. They’re probably bigger than Jesus, although we don’t want to take that title away from that other band you know… I always had some basic knowledge about the band, mostly because of my parents’ strict musical education! Something I knew for the longest time, and I think everyone should know for their own personal culture, is that they won the all-important Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with the song “Waterloo.” I personally think the songs that do well at Eurovision are a bit silly and find that “Waterloo” is no different. There are much better ABBA songs out there and much better music videos too. Those camera angles in the official video are just awful. Apart from knowing their main hits, there are a couple more things I knew about them that I find important for everyone to know: they’re Swedish and the band’s name is an acronym of their first names (Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid). I always thought the band was playing disco, and god forbid I listen to disco as a teenager. Oh no! Not cool at all. And still, to this day, I don’t consider myself a disco fan. I just can’t get into it. But let me tell you something: it would be unfair to the band to classify them as pure disco. What made me start digging in their catalogue is a cover of “I’m a Marionette” recorded by the Swedish heavy metal band Ghost. I’ve heard that version in early 2013 and I couldn’t believe that a metal band would cover ABBA. I mean, sure, they’re fellow Swedes, but there must be something about ABBA’s music that they really liked, otherwise they wouldn’t have covered it. And then I got to thinking: surely there’s more to this disco/pop band. To come out of Sweden in the 70’s writing your own songs and to become one of the biggest groups on the planet doesn’t come easy. I wanted to hear the albums, from beginning to end, not just the hits. So I got a boxed set with all their albums and started listening. Let’s get this thing going!

The boxed set. Contains the 8 studio albums and a 9th disc of singles and B-sides.

The Album

“Eagle” music video of the shorter single version, without the guitar solo. © 1977 Polar Music International AB

Why did I choose to talk about this particular record? I didn’t choose at random. To me, the band has done everything right on this one. They’re known as a pop band par excellence, but this album rocks quite a bit. No wonder I chose it! Pop songs are usually around 3 minutes long, but on The Album they’re longer: “Eagle” is almost 6 minutes long and most songs run way past 4 minutes. There are only 9 songs on it which is also a bit unusual. So it’s an unconventional pop album, and I love it! To me, it just shows how good these people are as artists. The songs are credited to Benny and Björn, the two guys, with Stig Anderson, their manager, co-writting the lyrics to “The Name of the Game” and “Move On.” It is known though, that Agnetha and Frida contributed to many of the songs in the catalogue. Benny and Björn, to me, are pure music geniuses. They wrote so many hits! And you’d think they’re simple songs because they’re catchy, but if you listen closely, especially on this album, you’ll find that there is a more complex structure underneath the main melody that adds a lot of depth. The sound on The Album is a bit more raw. A lot of people criticize it for being “muddier.” I don’t know if it was the recording process or poor quality tapes, but it adds more character to the songs. The instruments are a bit louder and distorted. To me that’s a plus. I really love hearing the drums up front, distorted as they may sound. You don’t hear real drums on pop records nowadays. Now it’s all done on computers, so of course they sound perfect, but where’s the fun in that? Emotions are not always smooth, delicate and clear, and out of all bands, ABBA (yeah, that disco band!) understood that. Take the opening track “Eagle”, for example: right from the start, the raw sound hits you in the face. Another misconception about ABBA is that they don’t have nice guitar parts. I’d have to disagree. They have guitar riffs and solos on quite a few tracks actually. On The Album, listen to tracks like “Eagle” (again!), “The Name of the Game” and especially “I’m a Marionette.” Guitars are rocking! Even the tempo is more rock than anything else. You could say that the voices are very pop-like. Well, they are, but you can’t argue with the fact that they’re on point!

What they did on this album, is that they ended it with 3 songs from The Girl with the Golden Hair, a mini-musical that the band used to perform on tour at the time. I’ve read about this mini-musical, but I don’t exactly understand it, and I don’t think it’s even important to understand. But those songs (“Thank You for the Music”, “I Wonder (Departure)” and “I’m a Marionette”) are different than the others. They have more string instruments and piano parts. Genius idea! Stick 3 weird songs at the end of your most unconventional album to make a potpourri of awesome! And the best part: this is the band’s highest Billboard charting album (#14) and it charted at #1 in the UK and a bunch of other countries. Right on!

The Jabs

“The Name of the Game” music video. © 1977 Polar Music International AB

Right off the bat, “Eagle” sets the tone for a groovy record. It has a lot of rock elements, like a cool riff, and you can hear the guitar in the first few seconds. I love the drum sound on it, and there’s a full-blown guitar solo. At almost 6 minutes long, it’s a very underrated ABBA song and one of my favourites from the band. “Take a Chance on Me” is a perfect example of ABBA’s genius. It starts out with the girls singing the melody and the guys singing the baseline, very cool effect. Then they start adding layers of instrumentation. The end result is a catchy song (I should use the term “hit” here… we are talking about pop after all) with a somewhat complex but extremely exciting musical line underneath. Very well done! “One Man, One Woman” is a pop ballad. Some nice guitar work on there. “The Name of the Game” is really fun! Nice enigmatic riff, cool guitar lines and a long, melodic and very catchy chorus. I still find myself singing it from time to time. It’s one of my guilty pleasures. Now you know! “Move On” is another ballad. To me it has a sort of European feel, very hard to describe. “Hole in Your Soul” is very up-tempo and it sounds a bit like “Waterloo” to me. Just a bit. You can hear the guys singing on this one too. Then come the 3 songs from the mini-musical. “Thank You for the Music” is a classic. But my favourite of all is “I’m a Marionette.” It’s very creepy, fast and very loud in some places. The lyrics are pretty scary too. It might be a pop song, but it’s got a rock attitude to it and it renders the album so much better! Also, the guitar is very present. It’s got a bit of everything and is a real gem!

The Movie

The Sheraton Stockholm Hotel

The music from The Album was featured in a movie the band shot around that time called ABBA: The Movie. Having seen a lot of band movies, this one’s not bad! It’s about a radio DJ who is sent to interview the band on their Australian tour. Unfortunately for him, he runs into all kinds of trouble and can’t seem to get close enough to the band to request an interview. Fun fact: some of the movie scenes were actually shot in Stockholm. The hotel scenes were shot at the Sheraton hotel just across from the city hall. You can actually see the city hall in the movie. Other scenes were shot on the island of Djurgården. I highly recommend watching the movie. It’s an easy way to get a feel for the band and the atmosphere at that time.

From The ABBA Universe

Hotel Rival Stockholm, owned by Benny. In July 2008, all ABBA members reunited for the Swedish premiere of the movie Mamma Mia! and posed for pictures on that balcony.

The beauty with every band’s catalogue is seeing the evolution of their sound throughout the years. With ABBA, I find that the first 3 albums don’t have as much character. In my opinion, their music starts having more depth on Arrival and on The Album. The last 3 albums are truly pop classics, the bread and butter of old-school international pop fans. These albums are Voulez-Vous (1979), Super Trouper (1980) and The Visitors (1981). Just listen to these albums in order and you’ll notice how the music gets sadder. The two couples in the band were going through tough times and it transpired in the music. At the same time, the music was becoming more complex, so the critics praised these albums. I agree with them. Those efforts were really heartfelt and beautifully crafted. They were all recorded at the Polar Studios in Stockholm. Back then, Benny and Björn wanted to build a reputation for the studio, so they invited big artists like Led Zeppelin and Genesis to record there. The studios are gone now, but the building is still there. But if you really want to see pieces of ABBA history, you should definitely go to the ABBA museum in Stockholm. There you’ll find the original mixing desk from Polar Studios, the helicopter from the Arrival album cover and a bunch of original stage costumes. And if you can’t make it to the museum, the Stockholm City Museum offers an ABBA City Walk tour. You get to see (from outside, of course) the Sheraton Hotel, Frida and Benny’s apartment, Frida’s favourite hair salon, the bench they usually sat on and other crazy places you didn’t even know existed! I’ve personally done this tour in 2013 and highly recommend it because it’s cheaper than a city tour and you get to see the city too, not just the ABBA places. The tour guides are ABBA superfans, so they can answer just about any question about the band, but since they’re also official city tour guides, they will be able to show you interesting places around town as well. Just a suggestion if you ever find yourself in Stockholm like I did.

ABBA isn’t popular with the cool kids, but they most likely paved the way for many pop stars of today. So play one of their albums from beginning to end, listen closely and maybe you’ll get hooked on that je ne sais quoi just like I did. Thanks for tuning in! LG