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Earlier on this month, this issue raised its head on ABBAMAIL and I found the responses and arguments quite thought provoking enough to write a column about it. I’ve wanted to do it for some time but needed the right moment for it, and even though the topic has died on ABBAMAIL, I wanted to tackle it in more detail.

The whole idea started off with the announcement that there was to be a musical written based on the songs of Boney M. in the not too distant future, apparently to be called ‘Daddy Cool’. In the article it was stated that Boney M. had sold in excess of 800 million discs in their career together! Quite impressive, but it seems that one too many zero’s and quite a few extra millions had been entered into the equation!

For me as a fan of both groups, it was quite obvious that a real typo had crept into the article. There is just no way that Boney M. sold as many as 800 million discs during their career or the years thereafter. I mean, this would outdo The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, ABBA and quite a few others in record sales. Popular Boney M. were by all means, but most definitely not that popular. I don’t have the exact facts concerning Boney M.’s actual sales, but I’ve read them to be reportedly around 150 million discs.

The intention of this column is by no means an effort to slate Boney M. in any manner and the opinions that I may raise are entirely my own and are not intentionally meant to harm or upset anyone. I like Boney M.’s music, have all their CD’s, video’s, DVD’s, respect their work, but they most certainly do not surpass ABBA, and a few of their counterparts, in musical creativity and record sales. Let’s face it, like a few others, ABBA comprised of four talented individuals who could compose music, sing as well as play instruments on their recordings and deliver a genuine live show when they ventured into that field.

Boney M. were not that and the only common denominator between ABBA and Boney M., is that they consisted of four people, and in Boney M.’s case, two of whom could sing, namely Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett, with Liz Mitchell taking the more prominent lead singer role, and two individuals who were merely there for appearance sake. I only learned about this set up in their line-up during the late 1980’s a few years after Boney M.’s demise.

In South Africa, and during Boney M.’s active career we were only privileged to get record albums released with a plastic sleeve with no credit given to who sang what on their albums, and after I started working and making my own money, I began purchasing their albums in the imported format with the lovely record sleeves and there for the very first time I learned that Boney M.’s manager and songwriter of quite a few of their songs, Frank Farian, sang the vocals on their records and that Bobby Farrell (fondly remembered by many for his funny snake dance) only sang on a few tracks just before he was fired in the early 1980’s and later re-hired, which by then was too late to resurrect their flagging career. The ‘other apparent vocalist’, Maizie Williams, never uttered a note throughout their career together! Something, which Frank Farian managed to achieve once again in the 1990’s with Milli Vanilli, and we all know how, that ended.

There are many people who know who Boney M. are, but not many who know who the four individual’s that made up the group were. I recently read an article where Boney M.’s most prominent lead singer, Liz Mitchell, and with whom Bjorn was reported to have had a liaison with in 1979 just after his and Agnetha’s separation, walked into a London Restaurant and nobody knew who she was, which given her talent and the exposure she had during Boney M.’s career, is sad. It was reportedly written that, mention Agnetha Fältskog or Anni-Frid Lyngstad and you would immediately know who they were, but mention Liz Mitchell and nobody had a cooking clue as to who you were talking about unless you mentioned her as being one of the lead singers of Boney M. Despite this, Liz Mitchell sang lead vocals on many hits and even managed to achieve major recognition for Boney M., alongside Marcia Barrett, with two singles being in the Top 5 UK single sellers of all time, namely, ‘Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord’ and the double-sided ‘Rivers of Babylon/Brown Girl In The Ring’ and yet, nobody knows who these two woman are.

Which brings me to my next point, Boney M. have been said to be more successful than ABBA in terms of singles sales, which I find very hard to believe. If you take the UK alone, ABBA had 9 number 1 singles and a whole lot of others both in the Top 10 and Top 20, quite a few more than Boney M. had, and yes if you take into consideration that Boney M. had ‘Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord’ and ‘Rivers Of Babylon/Brown Girl In The Ring’ as two of their biggest singles sellers, ABBA’s singles run and domination of the pop charts far surpassed that of Boney M. Besides which ‘Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord’ was a re-worked version of an early Harry Belafonte song, with the ‘Oh My Lord’ part added by Frank Farian, just like a few other Boney M. hits, namely ‘No Woman, No Cry’, ‘Painter Man’ and ‘Sunny’. We all know that ABBA’s biggest hits were in fact all original!

ABBA were not isolated to sales in Europe, Asia, South Africa and Australia alone like Boney M. were. ABBA gave the charts in Canada and the America’s a good run for their money and raked up a Billboard number 1 as well as quite a few Top 10 and 20 hits throughout their career, whereas Boney M. only had a handful of minor hits in the US charts with the biggest being ‘Rivers of Babylon’ and that single only made number 30!

So how Boney M. can be stated to have outsold ABBA in terms of singles and be better single sellers is beyond me. ABBA outselling Boney M. with entire albums is a given. According to my Guinness Rockopedia, ABBA had 9 number albums in the UK alone as opposed to Boney M.’s 3. Let’s face it Boney M. faded into obscurity in the very early 1980’s with singles where the UK was concerned, ‘I’m Born Again’ in 1980 was their first single that failed to reach the UK Top 30, ‘Children Of Paradise’ faired less better later on that year and ‘We Kill The World (Don’t Kill The World)’ in 1981 didn’t exactly set the pop charts alight either. However, in South Africa, ‘We Kill The World (Don’t Kill The World)’ became one of their biggest single releases believe it or not.

This all took place before the demise of ABBA, who still managed to achieve two UK number 1’s in 1980 with ‘The Winner Takes It All’ and ‘Super Trouper’, as well as a number 7 with ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ and a number 3 with ‘One Of Us’ in 1981 respectively. It also important to note that ‘One Of Us’ was reportedly, according to Bjorn, ABBA’s 10th UK number 1 over Christmas in 1981 but never officially as there were no charts that week. Furthermore, it is important not to forget that quite a few of ABBA’s last singles were substantial hits in other territories despite not being ‘successful’ in the UK.

Boney M. managed to produce two more original albums before the demise of the original line-up and successful single sales eluded them. Today, there are four Boney M.’s touring the globe, each with an original member from Boney M. performing as Boney M. featuring either Liz Mitchell, Marcia Barrett, Bobby Farrell or Maizie Williams individually under the Boney M. banner, and all four original Boney M. members either have had or seem to be in some sort of legal dispute with Frank Farian over the Boney M. name. Thankfully ABBA never had that with Stig Anderson over their name, other financial issues yes, but at least not a name dispute. I find it quite ironic that Maizie Williams tours under the Boney M. banner as all the songs for the show are mimed. Mind you she should be used to it by now, as I wrote earlier on, she is reported to have never uttered a sound on a Boney M. recording! At least when ABBA ceased being ABBA, they remained that way and did not go out to cash in on the ABBA name as solo artists or re-invent themselves as ABBA with replacements for original members!

Seeing that both ABBA and Boney M. were really popular in South Africa and as an exercise to satisfy myself with what I’ve written above, I visited the South African Rock digest website that lists chart activity in this country from 1969 – 1986, and managed to glean the following information concerning these two acts concerning the number of hits each group had in the South African charts.

• Number of Top 20 hits - ABBA 18 • Number of Top 10 hits - ABBA 16 • Number of Top 3 hits - ABBA 13 Boney M. 6 • Number of # 1 hits - ABBA 8 Boney M. 3 • Most consecutive years on the charts - ABBA 10 (1973 – 1982) Boney M. 5 (1976 – 1980) (To qualify in this category, the artist had to have spent at least 1 week in the Top 20 for each consecutive year) • Most weeks on charts - ABBA 238 Boney M. 130

ABBA also qualified with a Number 1 in the US, UK and RSA with ‘Dancing Queen’. Boney M. did not feature, but to give them credit, they did get into the South African all time Top 30 with ‘Rivers Of Babylon’ at number 30, whereas ABBA did not feature at all. Out of all the 6 categories I have listed above as a comparison between these two groups, ABBA came up trumps out of all the artists featured in the South African singles charts. The point I’m trying to make is, and with the figures above in mind, how can Boney M. be stated to have been a better single selling group over ABBA? These comparisons are for South Africa only, so I should be correct in assuming that the same could very well apply in many parts of the world. In many instances, South Africa was only privileged to get 1 single from an ABBA album, and on the odd occasion a 2nd or maybe a 3rd, that would be a hit or hits and this was obviously enough to give them the positions that they have achieved.

ABBA came together as four talented individuals who throughout their career together perfected their art, which has stood them in good stead up until today, and yes, there is ‘Mamma Mia!’ helping to continue this legacy. Once again, it seems that Boney M.’s talented manager, producer, song writer and singer, Mr Frank Farian, has decided to jump on the bandwagon, the very one he has jumped on before, and do the same with a musical based on the songs of Boney M., and this is just the tip of the ice-berg. I have got to believe he is behind the musical and I have to hand it to Frank Farian, he certainly knows how to really milk the cow with his product alongside the ABBA revival that has continued a lot longer than ABBA were originally ABBA!

In the early 1990’s when ‘ABBA Gold’ CD was released, Boney M. came out with the ‘Boney M. Gold’ CD, and the same happened a short while later when the ‘More ABBA Gold’ CD was released. Boney M. came out with ‘Boney M. – More Gold’. This Boney M. release featured four new recordings as opposed to ABBA’s one unreleased track ‘I Am The City’ on ‘More ABBA Gold’. Unfortunately, the ‘Boney M. – More Gold’ release only featured Liz Mitchell as an original Boney M. member.

But, despite him doing so, will the musical based on the songs of Boney M. succeed? I have my reservations. How many other artists have had a successful musical based on their music? Not many. ‘Mamma Mia!’ is in fact unique, no matter how much the show itself is despised amongst ABBA fans, be it Oldies, Goldies or Mmoldies! Nearly 6 years after opening, ‘Mamma Mia!’ is still being performed in front of sold out audiences the world over.

I wonder what the ‘Daddy Cool’ musical will be about? Maybe finding ‘Rasputin’ in bed with ‘Ma Baker’ alongside the ‘Rivers Of Babylon’ with ‘El Lute’ being chased by the ‘Painter Man’ whilst he’s ‘Gotta Go Home’ to the ‘Brown Girl In The Ring’ whose in love with ‘Sunny’ in ‘Belfast’ trying to educate the ‘Children Of Paradise’ about how not to ‘Kill The World’ while ‘Bahama Mama’ reflects on the ‘Oceans Of Fantasy’ trying to think of a way to sell ‘Love For Sale’ all no doubt with a happy ending!

Sorry guys, I somehow don’t think Boney M. come close to ABBA where any type of single sales are concerned, despite having two of the biggest single sellers in the UK as part of their catalogue, and I don’t think the ‘Daddy Cool’ musical is going to improve that in any hurry no matter how talented the original Boney M. were!

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I’ll see you all next month!

Neil

Note:- Statistics taken from ‘South African Rock Digest’ website, ‘Guinness Rockopedia’ and ‘Q Encyclopaedia of Rock Stars’.