Leave your comments on Trent's column in our Columnists Guestbook:

 

Agree or disagree?

If you agreed, you're 100% correct. If you disagreed, you're a bad ABBA fan and deserve to be drawn and quartered, medieval style. I'm sure we can arrange something for you... ABBA fans are good at thinking up appropriate tortures for those that don't conform.

The first ABBA book I ever read was called, "ABBA - For The Record" by a gentleman that I'm sure you've heard of called John Tobler. This book later morphed into "ABBA Gold - The Complete Story", that came out in 1993. The book charts ABBA's career, from a British perspective, by following all the releases as well as including other major dates. Photographically, this book is crammed full of brilliant pictures in more or less chronological order, and should appease the usual, "What photos does it have?" fans.

However, in case you missed the memo, John Tobler is infamous among hardcore ABBA fans for his factual errors in his book. For example, page 123 under the heading, "Opus 10". Mention is made that Benny, Björn and Frida announced that there would be a new ABBA album in 1986 with this title. Of course, this is totally untrue.

The other major clunker comes on page 135, reporting the rumour that a new EP by ABBA would be released at Christmas 1988 with songs such as, "It's Been Swell", "Something On My Mind", "It's Alright Darling", and "I Just Wasn't Thinking". It is prefaced by the statement that it was a rumour, but a lot of fans took this as fact and included the songs in songs they'd like to have from the archives.

John Tobler's book is quite good. It gives the average reader a decent overview of the ABBA story, and there are some thoroughly interesting things in it - such as quotes directly from the British music press at the time. These give much insight to what the music press thought at the time, and it's probably due to the author relying almost solely on these reports from various sources that much information is incorrect. Certainly, no additional research was done.

Another book that I read quite early on in my ABBA fandom was, "ABBA - The Lovers Whose Music Conquered The World", by Harry Edgington and Peter Himmelstrand. This came out in 1977, and contains some photos that I still haven't seen anywhere else to this day. It was probably the first book to chart the early careers and lives of the ABBA members, along with much information on sales figures and the like up to that time.

Peppered with quotable quotes from the ABBA members and Stig Anderson, it's a very good read. At only 154 pages, the small paperback book is easy to get into, and perfectly aimed at a teenage audience. A lot of things are talked up in such a way that you would be able to go to your friends at school and quote cool things that were said, or cool little stories that you'd come across, to impress your friends.

Jumping back to 1993, and we have a book called "ABBA" by Nina Rasmussen. It's a CD sized book of 120 pages, and doesn't contain anything particularly thrilling. However, it's eye-catchingly pretty and colourful on the inside, giving yet another snapshot overview of ABBA's career.

Before I go into a discussion on what I consider to be the cream of the ABBA books, let me discuss the only book put out by a member of ABBA, and that would be Agnetha Fältskog's "As I Am - ABBA Before & Beyond", co-written by Brita Åhman. It is worth buying for the pictures of Agnetha alone. She looks exceedingly good in her new studio shots, and to top that off, there are lots of personal photos of her when she was young, as well as recording studio shots and other photos that I've never seen before.

Picture wise, the book is a treasure trove. As a book, it is a two hour read at most, and doesn't really shed a whole lot of light on the person Agnetha is. It seems that she enjoyed her early career, but that she found ABBA and the associated times very stressful. It's unfortunate that all of her happy ABBA memories seem to be tempered with equally bad ones - be it her fear of flying, bad reporting in the press, or the way fans acted. Her "sweaty, obsessed" comment has now made it into fan lexicon, as a description for overzealous fans.

My favourite ABBA book was released in 1994, and was titled, "ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions", by an unknown author called Carl Magnus Palm. I immediately liked the book, because it has a Voulez-Vous session photo on the cover - that session being a personal favourite. The pictures in this book are presented chronologically, and as a special treat there are actual reproductions of session sheets, original typed lyrics with Frida's pronunciation notes, hand written lyric sheets, and chord sheets.

As enthralling as all of that is, the really interesting material is in the content of the book. Carl Magnus Palm went out of his way to chart the recording sessions of arguably the most famous band on the planet, and succeeded. We learn working titles to songs for the first time, hear about demos that had been recorded and scrapped, different mixes of well known songs - all of the stuff that an ABBA nerd like me drank up like mothers milk.

Magnus even had the opportunity to listen to many of the original master tapes, with Björn, Benny and Michael B. Tretow. If you go to http://www.carlmagnuspalm.com/ you can even read the story about that day, along with the stories about many of the ABBA items that Magnus was involved in. A most interesting read. To this day, I am envious that he had that opportunity - after all, how many of us would kill to hear the original tapes?

In 1999, Anders Hanser (ABBA's photographer) and Carl Magnus Palm teamed up to bring us the lavish coffee table photo book, "Frän ABBA till Mamma Mia!" - or, in its English form, "From ABBA to Mamma Mia!". The Swedish version of the book is the bigger version, containing several chapters that were eliminated in the English version. It covers the period from 1978 to the present, the time that Anders has been ABBA's main photographer.

Unfortunately, I can't comment on the text, as I don't own an English version of the book and only know little Swedish. However, I was given the opportunity to skim through the English version at a friends house, and the text was interesting, containing several tidbits of information that were new.

It is the pictures that make this book. Tens, if not hundreds of gorgeous pictures, ranging from tour shots, to candid behind the scenes shots from tours and recording. An instant favourite among ABBA fans was the photograph of Agnetha and Frida on board their tour jet, sharing a laugh - proof positive that girls didn't hate each other. It is simply a gloriously presented hardback, and you're guaranteed to make a best friend if you give this to an ABBA fan as a present - if they don't already have it. Brilliant!

Vindication for ABBA fans came in the form of Carl Magnus Palm's most successful book yet - "Bright Lights, Dark Shadows - The Real Story of ABBA". According to the author himself, he had no say in the title, nor the cover picture, both being chosen by the publisher. This 554 page tome set a new standard for ABBA books around the world.

No longer were the misconceptions and errors of previous ABBA books to be treated as fact. Magnus researched the ABBA story in depth, relying on information from those who were there - namely his interviews with the former ABBA members - as well as a helpful fan base that supplied him with a deluge of articles and assistance.

The book is written chronologically, and for the first time, non-Swedes have had a deep look into the Sweden of ABBA. What I mean by that is this: you need to understand Sweden and the times ABBA were living in throughout their lives in order to understand the challenges they were up against, why certain decisions were made, and why various things happened. All of the major events are covered, and there is much detail provided about the lesser known aspects of the ABBA story. A real eye-opener.

"Bright Lights, Dark Shadows" is essential reading for any ABBA fan. If you haven't read it, then you're just someone who happens to like the music, as opposed to knowing the story behind the music. A rollicking good read - I devoured it when I received it, and love dipping into it from time to time to re-read various parts.

I would like to write some more about the other ABBA books, such as "ABBA - The Book" by Jean-Marie Potiez, or "ABBA Fotographien 1974-1980" by Wolfgang "Bubi" Heilemann - both of which I'm told are exquisite works of their own. Unfortunately, I don't have copies of them, nor have I seen them, so I am unable to comment.

In case you don't know, there are two books which are famous among fans for being complete and utter crap. The first is "ABBA On Speaking Terms" by Frédéric Tonner and Marisa Garau. I've had the pleasure (misfortune) of reading translated extracts from this book, thanks to a kind fan on the ABBAMAIL list. The authors take great delight in painting Agnetha as the blonde goddess who was the main singer in ABBA, while at the same time painting Frida as the ugly girl who had nothing to contribute. It is offensive in so many ways, and I do hope that Frida never reads this book.

The other bad book is, of course, "ABBA - The Name of the Game" by Andrew Oldham, Tony Calder & Colin Irwin. Besides having spelling errors and generally bad presentation, it also does everything it can to give the impression that Agnetha and Frida were bitches who fought all the time and hated each other - and that's the very least of its transgressions.

ABBA books provide an excellent source of information and pictures about our favourite group, and I hope I have convinced some of you to go out and purchase some of these books from online retailers such as Amazon, or even from your local bookstore. As an avid reader, I believe that books impart more knowledge than the Internet, and will continue to do so for many years to come.

Here's to a great February - enjoy yourself (with a book, hopefully!).

Trent.