although I know they have male fans, like my husband. Their songs are infectious and create their own little pop universe of heartfelt feeling and danceablity; even "Fernando" makes me want to do an interpretive ballet. And I suppose they have a kind of wholesome appeal that is like catnip to our ironic sensibilities, and which caused many Swedes to commend their "tidiness" in "ABBA: The Movie". But if they had recorded nothing other than "Dancing Queen", they would still be beloved by dreamy females everywhere.

Abba sucked donkey-balls then, and they're even worse now. It's collective insanity.

ABBA is like comfort food.

One of the best evenings I ever had was in a funky restaurant in Mexico, eating what was called "continental" food, I think I had lasagna, and they had ABBA playing on the backgound.

It still can make me smile.

That should be Obama's theme song. The Berkeley Breathed Opus cartoons that Salon runs had one on ABBA's S.O.S in March.

All these are still on line.

On ABC's "Hopkins" last night, one of the surgeons googles the lyrics for Abba's "Dancing Queen". First, the surgeon asks one of the patients whether he remembers "Dancing Queen." The patient replies that, yes, he knows which song the surgeon is referring to, but he, the patient, can only recall bits and pieces of it. That is a pretty good indication of the extent of the band’s cultural penetration.

Upon reading the lyrics for "Dancing Queen," I agree with the author. The lyrics do sound as if they were written by someone for whom English is a 2nd language. For example:

You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life

See that girl, watch that scene, dig in [sic] the Dancing Queen

Yeah. The lyrics are unhip, but you can't help but admire a band that doesn't care whether you think they are hip or not.

the photo identifying the members is crazily wrong. it should be, left to right, benny, frida, anna, and bjorn.

I never listened very closely to the music of ABBA when I was young. Of course I heard it on the radio a lot, but it was just bouncy pop music to me (with very strong choruses and lyrics that were easy to remember), so I didn't think much about it.

What really impressed me was the concept album for the musical, Chess, that Benny and Bjorn helped to create. I wasn't a big fan of Jesus Christ, Superstar (which their fellow collaborator, Tim Rice, helped to create), and I wasn't a big fan of ABBA, so Chess escaped my attention for at least a year after it was released. But when I finally listened to the album (one of my friends was an ABBA fan, and he played it for me), I was fascinated by it. In a short span of time, I listened to it several times so I could absorb it, and soon thereafter, I couldn't get enough of it. The lyrics, the story, and the characters were part of the appeal, but the music is what really hooked me. The stylistic range, the composition, and the emotional impact seem brilliant to me.

Coincidentally, I've had the urge several times over the last two weeks to dig out my old CD and listen it, and I've been humming and singing it to myself. (I got a smile from a couple of people at a department store a few hours ago because they were amused by my absent-minded humming.)

I see now that ABBA has been in the news lately, but I haven't paid any attention to it. I assure you that I was spontaneously humming the music from Chess because that's something I do purely on my own from time to time, not because I heard about ABBA in the news. Quite simply, it means that I enjoy the music, and it is forever etched into my brain. I think that most of us have a tendency to believe that the things we like personally are "great", so I don't want to spend too much effort trying to convince other people that they, too, should believe that Benny and Bjorn are talented composers. I will simply say that if they can write music that has such an effect on me, then they definitely know how to hit the right notes.

We listen to ABBA at home at least once a week. They are still great after all these years. Looks like you have a serious case of bad taste.

Why should anybody let some arbitrary definitions of "cool" and "cheesy" get in the way of their musical enjoyment? I've loved ABBA since I was a toddler (according to my parents) and still do in my late 20's. Their music is the perfect backdrop for dreary Monday mornings, as well as for household chores such as dishes or ironing.

Abba exemplified the clear clean sound with stratospheric highs. A tribute to the human voice.

Meryl Sheep and the endlessly cloying, chirpy jingles of Abba.

Three words: perfect pop songs.

Considering the flak ABBA gets for its lyrics, they were often very witty. One of my all-time favorite lines is this gem: "The history book on the shelf/Keeps on repeating itself." I believe that some of their supposed clumsiness was tongue-in-cheek, like the pigeon-English of "Chiquitita you and I cry" and "I could sing before I could tawk."

They had a knack for writing about characters, often in character, such as the dominating go-getter of "Head Over Heels," the woman-with-a-past who settles for Harry ("Our Last Summer"), and the would-be gold digger in "Money Money Money." Is there any doubt that the dance-with-'em and leave-'em girl of "Dancing Queen" grew up to be the sexual adventuress of "Voulez-Vouz"?

Of course, it was ABBA's tuneful musicality which put these songs on radios and turntables. The songs were unusually structured ("The Name of the Game"), the production imaginative ("Take a Chance," "Fernando"), and the feel of the music matched the lyrics ("S.O.S.," "I Am the City").

As for musicianship, ABBA's bassist Ruttgar Gunnarson demonstrated time after time that he was a world-class talent; his work on "Dancing Queen" in particular gives the song its lift.

It was the uptight white male establishment that tried to beat down disco in the late 70's for its enthusiastic sexuality, which reached out to women, minorities, and homosexuals. Those same uptight guys recoil from the assertiveness ("Take it now or leave it") and vulnerability ("Would you laugh at me if I said I cared for you?") of ABBA. More than anything, they fear the strength of these women.

I know, I spend too much time thinking about these things. I recognize the group's clunkers, which are plenty and obvious. My ABBA-love is not absolute; I just love them about the same amount as Steely Dan, or Wilco.

As for supposed fashion crimes, their asses looked great in polyester.