(That's the story dek. I didn't write it.)

Somebody else already mentioned the fabulous concept album (music by Bjorn and Benny, lyrics by Tim Rice) that I had first on LP, then CD. It's fabulous.

For those who find ABBA cheesy -- learn to appreciate music on your own, for its own merits, rather than whatever makes the grade at your local college music review show run by tattooed hipsters.

Cheesy is American faux hipsters with confused priorities. Do other countries have a bunch of self hating prudes constantly flogging this or that supposed musical genius that nobody else wants to spend any money or time on hearing?

Music, especially POP music, is SUPPOSED to be fun and easy and sexy. So much better that it has some interest and depth and drama. Better yet that it also MOVES you emotionally. Even better, it is produced well. ABBA has all this in spades.

You ivory tower pretenders, with your Wilco and your Bob Dylan, can go hide somewhere. We're tired of your constantly lifting your noses to pop tastes. It's great that Dylan invented the electric guitar and songs with lyrics and ascended to heaven on the wings of angels and all, but can anybody actually listen to his so-called music without visibly wincing? Can anyone listen to Dylan and not immediately think that they need to step in front of the next bus? Does Dylan not remind most people of cats whining? What sort of music is THAT?!?

When I was 10 or 11 years old, I saw something on TV about ABBA. I hadn't heard of them before, but the music captivated me. I became an instant fan. I bought a couple of their albums. I had a greatest hits collection from K-Tel.

As a teenager, I had to change my mind about ABBA. It wasn't cool to like ABBA. They weren't edgy or dangerous. My parents liked the music because it sounds so nice. But deep down, I still loved ABBA. It's nice to know that I wasn't the only person who denied my inner ABBA fan.

As an adult, ABBA songs have impressed me even more with their sophistication. The ladies have fantastic voices. The melodies are beautiful and the arrangements are complex. The transitions from verse to pre-chorus to chorus and back again are flawless. I don't think I've ever heard a transition in an ABBA song that felt awkward. They seem perfectly natural, even the abrupt ones like in "S.O.S."

Their perfect pop songs mask a lot of melancholy in the lyrics. I was surprised the first time I really listened to the lyrics of "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and discovered what a sad song it is behind the catchy tune. I had the same reaction to "Mamma Mia", which is about a woman trapped in a painful relationship because she's obsessed with her man.

Perhaps Abba didn't produce the "important" music of their time, but Abba's perfect pop songs, as another poster aptly described them, endure in a way that edgy, cool songs don't and never can. Music on the vanguard has a short shelf life, and then listening to it is like eating your vegetables. I don't want to have to 'get' a song written by a self important tortured young man 30 years ago. I want to dance with my 8 year old in the kitchen.

They weren't cheesy and they were supremely talented. Of course, no one wants to admit they love Abba's music, but the fact remains they are about the most beloved pop group of all time and they only become more and more popular. And not without reason. Try listening to Slipping Through My Fingers without choking up. Or to The Winer Takes it All without feeling a flood of emotion. Or to That's Me without marveling at the way the two ladies' voices play off of one another. The perfect combination: two of the most gorgeous female voices in history, music of incomparable complexity and innovative harmony, and a sound that is totally their own and never imitated. Combine this with one great song after another and it's small wonder they are No. 1. We can laugh at them, say they weren't really that talented, call them cheesy and whatever, but the fact remains that this is a world of Abba lovers, closeted or not, and their songs will bring joy to listeners for many generations to come. They are irresistible, and no matter how much we deny it, their music touches a responsive chord in our souls. They are at once frivolous, breezy, achingly profound, and nearly always sublime.

http://www.pekingduck.org/2007/02/slipping-through-my-fingers/

Southern BUT waspish???? BUT??? I'm at a loss for words... perhaps this exemplifies why the !!! think they are 'the people'. No one could be MORE white anglo saxon and protestant than the so-called 'southerns.' This new fangled idiology (sic) regarding southerners be 'scotch irish' is, of course, misdirection. The point of then being scotch irish, in lieu of just plain ol' irish, was that they were protestants. Same culture as the proddie northerners, same crap.

Now, while Digsby or Bagby, or whoever may have coined the acronym for new englanders, the fact remains: Y'all a bunch of WASPs.

In the late 70s and early 80s I was a straight girl living in Houston with an unusually large number of gay male friends. I used to go to a club called "Numbers Two" with them. It was a wonderful time in my life. At the peak of the night they would always play a little known song by ABBA called "The Visitors". Everyone in the club would instantly go crazy and head to the dance floor and dance. Every time I hear that song now it is all I can do to resist the urge to jump up on a table or chair and dance with total abandon. Normally I never dance. Gosh I miss my time as a fag hag.

I never got the sex so much from ABBA. To me, ABBA was auteur bubblegum music, kind of like Boyce and Hart's self-sung creations but writ on a huge scale. It was playful, sure, but with the formality of flirtation. The peppy stuff everyone knows is indelible, sure (personally, I have to underline "Ring Ring" - the combo punch of the kick drum 'n' guitar still packs a wallop). But ABBA also had mournful, numb epics like "Eagle" and "Lay All Your Love On Me". You can call it overwrought, but there's nothing cheesy about those dark-discotheque cuts.

When people talk about ABBA as a guilty pleasure, I turn off. If you can't explain your love of the joyous propulsion of "On and On and On" or "Waterloo," or the pulsing putdowns of "Does Your Mother Know," or the neat motorik of "The Visitors," well, ya might as well push 'stop' right now.