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My fondness for ABBA (and if 53 counts as old, then I am among the old white guys anointed in an earlier post) preceded the years I lived in Sweden during the 1980s, but being part of the weird pop music culture (the world's second largest Elvis museum is in a rural Swedish town) out of which they emerged helped me appreciate it all the more. I've run through several copies of ABBA Gold since...the most recent one coming as a present for my daughters, now 6 and 4, who about went to pieces when the previous one started doing what all CDs do when played more than 12 times. They fight over which song to listen to in the car, they sing them in daycare/school and at music class (Emma's music teacher's late father was an ABBA fan, and when Emma sang SOS at the beginning of class one day, she almost cried), and they demand to see old videos on Youtube. Of course, this was the second CD with high harmonies, bouncy rhythms, and the spiritual elan described in Williams' article that they glommed on to: The first was Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits. Music snobs, make of that what you will.
