Book Review: Bright Lights Dark Shadows: The Real Story of ABBA by Carl Magnus Palm

Much like American politics, the work of noted auteur Michael Bay, and space-time itself, most celebrity biographies exist somewhere along a single continuum.

At one end of the spectrum, you have the unmitigated trash - quickie volumes churned out for a fast buck, often in the wake of a celebrity death or major life event. Sometimes, these trash bios expand into an epic scope, some of it possibly founded in deep, dark truth that even the celeb's most die-hard fans don't want to admit. (See: Kitty Kelley.)

At the other end of the spectrum is the intensely-researched, extensively-sourced, almost-religiously-reverential biography. If you're obsessed with any particular celebrity, artist or personality, you've probably read at least one of these. They begin with the birthplace of the subject's great-grandparents, work their way slowly through every minute influence on the subject's life, and often conclude with what the subject had for lunch last Wednesday. Intense, intense detail. Sometimes excruciating.

Bright Lights, Dark Shadows is a book about the worldwide phenomenon and seventies' disco pop group ABBA. It falls squarely at the latter end of the celebrity biography continuum. (I'm going to copyright that phrase like Pat Reilly and "threepeat," because I know it's going to get a ton of mileage for decades.) The book starts amongst the fjords and fronds of central Europe and takes us through childhoods, early careers, and minor setbacks for all four founding members of the group before finally getting to what you would probably consider the "good stuff."

I know it's what I consider the "good stuff." We're talking about the hardcore dirty details of one of the most romantically incestuous bands on that side of the pond. On American shores, of course, no group can hold a candle to Fleetwood Mac; I think the last pairing remaining for them is Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham, and I'm pretty sure they were spotted canoodling at the Knitting Factory last weekend. But, in Europe, these four have the market cornered.

Article Author: Matt Springer

Matt Springer should probably trim his toenails more often. Instead, he spends far too much time thinking and writing about pop culture ephemera, at Alert Nerd (for geek stuff) and Pop Geek (for everything else). …

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