Can't buy into ABBA....

....but I love Ace of Base's version of Cruel Summer. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

Its okay Vern. ABBA still loves you.

-Glen

You'll get no rock-snob disapproval from me, Glen. Dancing Queen is my top Guilty Pleasure ABBA song, and I swear, The Winner Takes It All still makes me cry. As usual, Nick Lowe's taste was right on the money.

hey, if Marshal Crenshaw can cover "Knowing Me, Knowing You", then it's ok with me.

You make a strong case, but I still can't stomach ABBA. However, I've got my own seventies skeletons in the closet. One of these days I'll sack up and take them out here. Please don't laugh too hard when I do.

I acan't wait to read that one Pico. Actually, I'm already laughing.

-Glen

never been a big fan of abba. but i must say that disco is the most unfairly maligned musical genre out there. so much creative stuff came out of it.

did you know that p.i.l.'s "fodderstompf" was a huge gay anthem? what the fuck? johnny rotten at the gay disco... lovely.

(and i know that abba only somewhat qualifies as disco... they were much more pop than disco had any right to be...)

And Mark, you should know that your "Friday Morning Listen" on Journey is actually what inspired me to write this in a weird sort of way. Journey and Abba are both the very definition of musical guilty pleasures...know what I mean?

-Glen

yea, the whole guilty pleasure thing. the weird thing about this is that i used to be much more adamant about what i "should" or "should not" listen to. now i really don't care. i mean, if i like something, i just like it.

i don't have any Abba on cd but i bet i do on vinyl. wouldn't mind hearing "Honey Honey" right about now. i seem to remember some 'heavy breathing' in that song.

ah Abba...so 70's...boots, lip gloss...

Hey, I too am an ABBA fan, and I do a progressive rock radio show. These two things might strike most people as irreconcilable. Think again!

Cheers,
Frans

Mark,

You can queue up the video for "Honey Honey" right here. And yup, thats some very erotic sounding heavy breathing you remember. Frams, I agree totally that the line between prog and ABBA is a very thin one. Just listen to the ABBA song "Eagle" -- I can almost hear the way that somebody like Jon Anderson would cover that one in my head.

Thanx all for the comments.

-Glen

I must admit to owning one of those greatest hits LPs, and I don't feel terribly guilty about it. And since you mentioned Elvis Costello (via Nick Lowe) it must be noted that Costello himself is a big ABBA fan.

Thanx Gordon (or do you prefer I address you as "GL" these days?). And it doesn't surprise me at all to hear that Costello was/is a fan. Armed Forces really did end up with that Abbaesque pop gloss that I think Lowe was going for when he produced it. Costello himself has a major pop pedigree that goes from McCartney to Burt Bacharach -- so it makes perfect sense. Thanx again for the comment.

-Glen

Dear Glen,

What a brilliant perspective!! ABBA the group was/is a musical phenomenon. At 380 million units sold, they have made their mark in history....and yes, they were/are still musical geniuses. If someone dears, please tell me who can compare. Benny/Bjorn are the height of musical genius...the ladies?....tell me who can compare. God bless Europe for such a fine group!!!!

Micheal

I'm definitely an ABBA fan. I was still in diapers during the late 70s, but I became interested in them after watching Muriel's Wedding and Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Hehe, how interesting that both are Australian films.

I revel in the pop cheesiness of ABBA's music. I can't help it- they're so catchy, and fun to sing at karaoke!

Thanx Michael and Kanaoshi. I don't know about the "chessy" tag -- to me they were just great pop songs. I guess they were a little squeaky clean, although again I direct your attention to the breathy whispers of "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and "Honey, Honey." Pure sex guys. No way around it.

Thanx for the comments.

-Glen

Why should Abba have to be a "guilty pleasure." Is it because they are associated with gayness? Their music is great and really stands the test of time.

Why should Abba have to be a "guilty pleasure." Is it because
they are associated with gayness?

Now where in the hell did that come from? Can somebody tell me please?

-Glen

gayness? they were all straight, yeah? i think it's the level of cheese, the pure euro-pop and the 1970s that keeps them in the "guilty pleasure" zone.

disco as a whole was seen as rather gay, although the reality of the situation is that the stuff that was played at gay discos was far, far better than the stuff being played at straight discos.

"...you're a doggone beast"

mind-boggling.

"...you're a doggone beast"

mind-boggling.


Exactly Mark. Not much room for misinterpetation there in my view. Particularly sung by a female within the context of a song whose other lyrics include "Im gonna stick to you, you'll never get rid of me."

Now I do know that Abba did have gay fans. What 70's disco fixture didn't? And so what?

My article wasn't about that, and nothing I wrote suggests it. I suppose an interesting article about that subject could be written if someone wanted to persue it.

Perhaps the next assignment for comment #17?

-Glen

No, I'm not saying you're article was suggesting homophobia...lol! But, lets face it, if you are a fan of a disco act, like Abba, Donna Summer, Madonna, Village People, etc....., you are considered uncool. Therefore, it is a guilty pleasure. And the reason disco acts are not respected has a lot to do with their association with the gay community. Yes, a whole article can be written on this, I suppose.

I didn't become an Abba fan until a couple years back. When I played one of their cds, someone in the office asked, "are you gay?"

I know I'm going all over the place here, but Abba should NOT be considered a guilty pleasure. They should be considered a pleasure, period. But I think you say "guilty pleasure" cause you know it's not "cool" to like them. That's ok, I do the same. But we should questions ourselves why.

"But, lets face it, if you are a fan of a disco act, like Abba, Donna Summer, Madonna, Village People, etc....., you are considered uncool."

actually, disco is getting reappraised quite a bit these days. the fact is that if you enjoy dance music, you're just listening to disco as it has become.

out of all the acts you mention, donna summer (or more to the point, georgio moroder,) is well respected these days for pretty much inventing the 12" single format, which created the potential for the elongated remix (although her use of it, at first, was to create 20-minute long songs), as well as the use of the sequencer and electronic (as in synths) instruments.

more and more obscure disco of the time, like arthur russell productions, early electro stuff, italo disco, etc, is being unearthed and recognized for the creative stuff that it is.

out of all the mainstream disco acts of the day, i'd say chic is the best, as they are up there with the who and the band for tightness and synergy.

even post-punk acts of the time started incorporating disco into their work. see gang of four, new order and public image for some late-70's/early 80's disco-punk. even today, incredibly hip bands like liars, daft punk and the rapture have used disco as a rhythmic base.

shit, probably the most hipster-cred group in america right now is the dfa, and they are pretty much straight-up disco most of the time.

yes, zingzing. A lot of acts use disco. But I bet you if you mention the word "dico" to them, they'll cringe. I think it is hypocritical. Disco lived on, it just changed it's form. I was at Disco Demolition Night in Chicago and have very vivid, strong memories of that. I was a little kid at the time and was scared to death. But even I kept asking my dad, for weeks after, why people hate "disco" so much and why would they get so angry over it. He said, nicely, that it was a way to protest homosexuals. I still believe him.

"But I bet you if you mention the word "dico" to them, they'll cringe."

i'll assume you meant "disco," (even if it makes your sentence much more funny,) but i'll have to disagree. lcd soundsystem, who is pretty much the dfa by another name, has a song called "disco infiltrator" and it's pretty obvious from the sound (and interviews) of the disco-inspired punk stuff (new and old) that they had a genuine love of the stuff and were/are not afraid to share it.

of course there are people that will always connect disco, and hating disco, to homosexuality... of course, those same people were probably dancing with roller skates on in 1977... but those aren't the people one should listen to in order to decide what is "cool" or "uncool" (not that anyone need listen to anyone else on that front).

in england, disco never took the wholesale punishment that disco took in late-70s america. but even in america, disco was back by 1981, just under another name. and chicago was (with nyc) the center of that comeback.

Glen wrote: "Now I do know that Abba did have gay fans. What 70's disco fixture didn't? And so what?"

Having said that, I must say the ABBA girls - Anni-Frid and Agnetha? - DID provide some *cough* fertile ground for this young teenage imagination in the Australia of the early '70s, when they became the most popular pop band since the Beatleas for a short time.

The hot pants and figure-hugging outfits, along with the leather bodysuits worn by Emma Peel of the British TV series The Avengers, gave me an instant appreciation for older women.

Or possibly ALL women.

that's interesting, i don't really recall all that much anti-gay sentiment. heck, even a group like the Village People were mere cartoons, where people just disliked the music as being weak (catchy obviosly, but week).

i do remember that disco demolition stunt...and at the time, as much as i didn't care for disco, thought it was kinda stupid.

I meant disco (not dico)..lol. Typing on my new sony micro pc thumb pad can make you form words you never meant to.

I was only 8 at the time of Disco Demolition. But I do remember signs up around that period that said "Disco sucks," and "Fags Like Disco." I was young, but do remember the negative gay-disco association. It happened more in 78-79. I do remember doing "the hustle" was cool to everyone, even str8 people.

but I think the Hustle came out in either 76 or 77....

disco anecdote alert! i've written before about how i was a sort of closet disco fan...actually disliked most of it with a few exceptions: "Knock On Wood", "Bad Girls", "Love To Love You Baby".

so usually we had rock bands playing at dances, but every so often they'd have a dj...and me and the boys just hated it when the disco tunes came out. so all of us would yell "FUCK OFF!" over the top of the "Freak Out"'s on that Chic record. (right, only a 16 yr old can think that that's being clever).

the irony of course is that i love that song now. that funk guitar riff is, as mr. bueller would say, so choice.

I've had several musical secret lives, starting with loving The Beatles (Pop), The Rolling Stones (Rock) and Tamla Motown/Stax (Soul) all at once. This in a time when those three underground tribes (Pop fans, Rockers and Mods) were all literally fighting each other over dress codes and social or cultural values.

Subsequently, whilst almost always being part of an alternative or underground scene, I've always loved out and out pop too. I actually can't understand how people who only like one genre of music like, say, rock fans, don't get terminally bored.

I'll bite. Well done, funny article... like the Frida bit at the end especially. And I would be the last to call your interest in Marillion a "flaw."

PC

Hey guys --

Thanks for all the great replies and comments. I was actually in the middle of typing out one of my typically long-winded replies to this late last night when my computer more or less died on me. Not sure what the problem is, but it was pretty scary.

This means I could be offline for a few days depending on the results of a diagnostic I plan on getting later tonite.

Typing from work right now which means I have to be somewhat brief, but again I've really enjoyed the responses (even yours Daryl D --- LOL).

Hope to be back among the living in a day or so...

Thanx!

-Glen

No shame in luvin' all parts of Abba, think I. Heck, this pop-rock fan still holds a big ol' crush on Frida's solo album . . .

Glen--to answer your #13 question: I don't necessarily prefer "GL"--I had to make a change because for some reason I was unable to continue to leave comments under my tried-and-true name, and there didn't seem to be a way to fix it.
--call me Gordon

Find out the latest of what is happening with the four former members of ABBA - they are still alive and kicking (sort of).

:)

I like a lot of 70s music - there was certainly variety. Chicks didn't come much hotter than blonde Agnetha, though, like when performing Honey Honey in 1976:

Look at my URL video. Watch out especially around 1:01!

In order to look at the video you mention, I would of course need to actually HAVE the URL.

Thanx!

-Glen

Ah, technology! Try this!

Here's something of a somewhat different style