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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
"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?"
Yes. It's called England. Or perhaps you might recall the anti-Emo lynchings in Mexico about 8 months ago. On the positive side, you aren't hatin' women right now...
Some fevered copy editor has gone way too far!
I had a mad crush on Agnetha Fältskog for the longest time.
Age hasn't dimmed her beauty very much at all.
I was always impressed that ABBA had all those gigantic hits in English, which is not their native language.
Like many others, I've had enough of rock bands and rock stars who are little more than spoiled adolescents, with their manic hedonism and childish indulgences.
The members of ABBA seem so mature and sophisticated by comparison.
Hats off to ABBA. And yes, I'll see the movie, and enjoy it.
You summed it up nicely. I could never appreciate it till now, but they were actually serious musicians with talent, and knew how to construct intricate yet very playable, catchy songs. The pop crap heard today? Hardly intricate or with any flair of musicianship that the 2 ABBA men showcased, along with the great vocals of the women.
And yes, if you take the time to listen to some of the lyrics, they're actually pretty moving and with depth. "Knowing Me, Knowing You", "One Of Us," "Winner Takes It All, "Chiquita", "Slipping Through My Fingers", and "Fernando" are but a few.
But the one that always gets me verklempt/lump in throat has got to be "Thank You For the Music". It is joyous, heartfelt, and always lift you up somehow, appreciative of the world, and yes, the beauty of music, which is what the song is all about ... how grateful the band is for being able to do what they love the best, and a lovely thank you to their legion of fans.
Back in the early eighties, my father (of all people!) actually turned me on to their music, and I was only 10-11 yrs old at the time. Here's this Indian immigrant who decides to bring back one of their early albums to Toronto after one of his business trips. I was hooked.
They were the first band (for me) that I was a genuine groupie of. Couldn't get enough of them. I remember snuggling in bed with my parents to watch one of their rare music specials on TV, and then watched, starry-eyed, their big-screen movie in Karachi, Pakistan when I visited there.
Of course none of my peers understood my obsession or even heard of their music, back in '80's Toronto. They actually snickered at me ... but I get my revenge now with the band's resurgence in popularity and proper praise of their musical genius and talent.
My dad died this past March ... and I had forgotten how he gave me my first taste of great pop music and created a fan of ABBA in me, and indulged my love for them by buying their albums for me. I miss him.
How did a cheesy Scandinavian pop group in jumpsuits and blue eye shadow become as seriously beloved as the Beatles?
They aren't, for anyone with any taste. They rank right up there with K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Steve Miller, the Captain and Tennille and Neil Sedaka.
Like most of us, I cannot look back upon my childhood or adolescence and say that I did many things or held many views of which I am now proud. After all, surely most of us, looking down the inverted telescope of the years, can hardly even recognise our younger selves as in any way integrated into our present existences. But I can say with unmitigated satisfaction that, even as a girl of no more than ten, I wasn't impressed by Walt Whitman, I couldn't sit through _The Sound of Music_, and I didn't like ABBA.
All three of those things still hold. As the young people say, Solid! Er, at least I think that's what they say.
I had no idea that all of this denunciation of deferring from ABBA would so quickly, seamlessly, and self-importantly sound the notes of the hatred of "elites" that the Republican Party has fostered. It's amazing.
From the letters so far, I learn that:
Intellect is bad.
Liking ABBA for being popular is good.
People who dislike ABBA are snobs.
People who like ABBA are fun.
It's rather like a McCain caucus all of a sudden. The truth is that we in the punk movement (I was one of them, and my Elvis was Costello), and all of the supposedly "unlistenable" "College rock" bands since, have been united by one thing: desiring to put the person above the corporation, mistrust of for-profit entities, and a belief that believing in one's music is better than designing it. ABBA was the negative of all of those beliefs, and their revival is, too.
If people want to praise the Big Mac for its popularity, that is fine, but if they want to claim that it is haut cuisine because it is popular, then they are misguided. If they want to have reminiscences of their first Whopper with Cheese, that's fine, too, but that has nothing to do with its culinary value.
Since I was a punk, I have gone on to be other things, and one of these is an analyst of culture. Saying that something is pleasurable is rather like saying that something has mass: it is meaningless by itself except to the one getting the pleasure. Ask why ABBA and ask how ABBA came to be the Chicken McNugget of the 1970's. You're not a fool for enjoying it, but you would be one if you let that convince you that it was good for you or the nation or the world.
I'm not at all a pop music fan, though I get assaulted by it in elevators and elsewhere.
So, for those of us who can't even spell Springsteen and Dylan or the Beatles, the one thing that ABBA brought to pop music was hearing and understanding the words to the music--something other artists seemed to work hard to obliterate. You knew what they were singing about and the production values were well above average.
For those of us who abandoned pop music after Bill Haley and Elvis, ABBA brought us back to a time where we could understand the lyrics and enjoy the musicality of the arrangements, which is not a mean feat. Nor often accomplished much since.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
