|
Melody Maker – 19 April 1975 (Page 13) ABBA: I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do (Epic). New Singles by Colin Irwin This week’s misses: It’s too late, kids. Teach-In are the champs now you’re not likely to do anything about it with this turgid mess. Sounds like Vera Lynn having an argument with Dorothy Squires in the showers. It’s so bad it hurts. We can all do without it. A Miss! Melody Maker – 30 August 1975 (Page 18) ABBA: S.O.S (Epic) - Short Takes! New Singles by Colin Irwin Former Eurovision champs ABBA keep plugging away despite little record success recently and S.O.S. (Epic) is unlikely to help their cause. It’s chirpy and inoffensive, but does nothing to induce the world to vacate their armchairs and actually unleash money on it. Melody Maker –27 September 1975 (Page 55) ABBA: ABBA (Epic) – Short Takes! Albums Review They claim to be the nearest thing Europe has created to The Mamas And Papas. The lack of Americans’ relaxed swing, but their clipped beat has an attractiveness of its own and ABBA are by no means to be dismissed as a Eurovision-winning group which got lost. Interesting album, strong musicianship and good tunes. Melody Maker – 3 April 1976 (Page 2) ABBA: Following their success in the Eurovision Song Contest two years ago, ABBA have become a permanent fixture in the British charts (and now they’re breaking in the States). Their new single Fernando is in at 20 on The Melody Maker singles Chart. Photo: ABBA in the morning after winning the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo in Brighton. Here they’re all sited alongside each other and smiling with happiness while at a beach together posing for the press’ photographers. Melody Maker – 3 April 1976 (Page 31) ABBA: Greatest Hits (Epic). Short Takes! Albums Review Section One of Europe’s finest little pop groups, with a fine line in vocal harmony. Mamma Mia fully deserved its chart-topping status, and with Waterloo and others here like He Is Your Brother and S.O.S., ABBA look like being around for a long time. They are in a direct line of descent from the golden harmony groups like The Mamas And Papas and Spanky and Our Gang. Remember them? Melody Maker – 15 May 1976 (Page 19) Advertisement: Europop breakdown – As ABBA lead the Continental march into the British charts, we visit Sweden and examine why Europe has suddenly become a major pop force, in … Melody Maker next week. Melody Maker – 22 May 1976 (Page 1) ABBA concerts ABBA, who top both the Melody Maker singles and album charts this week have been consistent hit-makers in this country since their break through success with Waterloo, Sweden’s Eurovision Song Contest winner two years ago. Their current smash Fernando, has been number one in The Melody Maker Chart for four weeks. Yet ABBA have never played in Britain. But in January the group will embark on a major-European tour, including two shows in this country. “We’re really looking forward to playing in England. We don’t go out on the road very often so I’m sure some fans wonder if we really exist. We’ll be giving as good a show as we possibly can to show them we really do exists,” Björn Ulvaeus, ABBA’s guitarist, told Melody Maker. The group whose Greatest Hits album has sold over 300,000 copies in Britain, appears successful, further dates in this country will be added to their touring schedule. The European Phenomenon – Europe: the future of pop? Harry Doherty reports from Sweden. (Page 9) ABBA opened the door / Demis Roussos: sold six million albums / silver convention. As it was Stockholm, and as the ever-witty 10CC were playing there, Eric Stewart thought it’d be nice to play a little tribute to a Swedish group and hammered out a few bars of Mamma Mia. The audience, fearing that it would be beneath their dignity to acknowledge publicity the importance of this home-grown sound and group, whistled and howled at the gesture. “C’mon,” Stewart pleaded. “You should be proud of this.” The audience, for some strange reason, we weren’t. ABBA are the current Kings and Queens of Euro-pop but their involvement with the Eurovision Song Contest has made many loath to accept that they have something positive to offer. Without Eurovision, the world might never have heard of ABBA, though it is generally accepted that there is genuine talent within their ranks; a talent for writing good pop songs and recording and performing them, always maintaining an incredibly high standard. There are a thousand other groups on the Continent that we’re never going to hear of, but recently Euro-pop has been playing a more important part in music. Suddenly, bands and artists are starting to creep into American and British charts. ABBA, though they do not attach any significance to the fact that they are Continental, would seem to have opened the door that gives other European acts a platform to the world. From Germany, the music of Silver Convention owes as much to British and American music as ABBA’s does. Unlike ABBA, who rely on the pop influence, Silver Convention look to the disco soul sound and it’s with that they’ve achieved a success that is almost to equaling ABBA’s. They’ve had hit albums and singles in the States and Britain, the most recent thing the infectious chug along Get Up And Boogie. The group was formed by producer Michael Kunze at the end of 1974, comprising of Ramona Wulf, Linda G. Thompson and Jackie Carte. Soon afterwards, Penny McLean took the place of Carlton, and after an appearance the following year at the Mideus Festival, the group’s success took off internationally. Their first single, Save Me, a minor hit in Britain, scored in 43 other countries, including the lucrative American movement. The second single reinforced this break through. Fly Robin Fly went to the top of the US charts but again merely scratched the British surface. Get Up And Boogie brought down all the barriers. The three girls also continue to follow successful careers. Then there’s Demis Roussos, who has just recently been publicly acclaimed in Britain. In four years, Roussos, an Egyptian born of Greek parents who has spent most of his life in Greece, has sold more than six million albums. He has averaged a gold disk every year since 1968. Quite an achievement! Roussos, a former member of Aphrodite’s Child, has reached the stage now where he could comfortably play a string of concerts in The Royal Albert Hall and not worry about filling them. Movie Star, by Harpo, also from Sweden, was released on the Continent almost a year ago. A massive hit which Britain rejected but which Dick James Music, his record company here, were confident would eventually make it and the record came awake about a month ago, deejays picking up on the song and playing it to death. (Anni-frid Lyngstad sang back-up vocals to the song Movie Star.) As usually happens when the Beeb picks up on a record, it was a hit. Harpo, too, struck a blow for Europe. From Holland, the George Baker selection were set to follow suit until man-about-pop Jonathan King decided that he’d record a version of their Continental hit, Paloma Blanca, put it out on his own UK label, and presto, had a hit. After an interesting struggle between the two versions early on, the George Baker Selection’s original conceded defeat. But Paloma Blanca was the group’s sixteenth single. Written by the guitarist, singer and producer, Jans Bowens, it was number one in Germany for 14 weeks and also went to the top in Austria, Switzerland, South Africa and Italy, positions the group has become accustomed to hitting. Britain would have been a nice addition but for our Jonathan. And there are thousands of other Continental artists who’re massive there and totally anonymous here. Throughout the turmoil surrounding their current world-wide success, ABBA remain quaintly unaffected and stay in the comfort of their suburban Stockholm homes. They refuse to pursue the glamour that such success inevitably brings, and remember, their success ranges from America to Australia to Japan. There’s a philosophy attached to this homeliness. ABBA, you should know, do not tour much. Explains Björn Ulvaeus: “There are a lot of groups who tour the whole year round. I don’t know how they do it. We couldn’t write songs in hotel rooms. “This life-style suits us perfectly. We can do what we want to do and occasionally we’ll go out and tour and show people that we’re real and that we’re not another factory group. That is one thing we’re not.” “This life-style” is what makes ABBA so special. If there is such a thing as “the perfect situation” for a pop/rock band to be in, ABBA are close to it. They don’t have to tour to earn success, having reached that magical state where records sell themselves. They’ve got their own independent organisation in Sweden. Polar Music is ABBA’s own record, publishing and promotion company. (“The only record company in the world that doesn’t release records,” boasted Benny.) From there, they plot their strategy, record their songs and generally take care of business. With the help of manager Stig Anderson, ABBA have become their own pressure. Polar gives them invaluable freedom. There’s more to ABBA than “that band that won the Eurovision.” Björn and Benny had been writing songs for many years before they teamed with girl-friends Frida (Anni-Frid Lyngstad) and Anna (Agnetha Fältskog), two Scandinavian beauties, who were also successful solo artists. They agreed to help their boys out in the plans for world domination. Björn and Benny had taken two conscious decision that they would write only in English and desert, for the most part, their native tongue. After working for a time as Björn and Benny, Agnetha and Anni-Frid / or Frida, and appearing in the Swedish preliminary Eurovision Song Contest heat as such in 1973 singing Ring, Ring (they finished third), the name was changed to the snappier ABBA (their initials) for the competition in Brighton the following year. Their song was Waterloo, and while our own Olivia Newton-John was crying about not liking her song, Long Live Love, ABBA marched to victory. “We were aware that Waterloo was not a typical Eurovision song,” Björn recalled. “A lot of people considered that it was too rocky for the contest, but it was the song we wanted to sing. We wanted it to be different from the rest.” What ABBA didn’t realise was that there was an inbuilt skepticism in the minds of the British to anything Eurovision, no matter how good or original, was regarded as superficial, to be forgotten with Sunday lunch the next day. “There seemed to be this thing in England, said Ulvaeus, “that anything from Eurovision lacked credibility. But that’s one of the things we’re after. We believe that we’re a credible group and that what we do is worthwhile. “It wasn’t frustrating trying to overcome the problem. I knew that if we just kept putting out good singles we’d make it in England sooner or later. We had to. “The English are always on the lookout for something new, which is good. “I think we’re contributing something positive to music. There is a lack of strong melody, that’s what I think. If you look at the English chart a month ago there were so many oldies. “I suppose that is part of the Continental tradition that we have. In places like France and Italy, they love that. It has to be a strong melody to get into the charts. And this is maybe something we can contribute to English pop.” Melody Maker – 17 July 1976 (Page 1) The Raver We are used to our rock idols having names like Jason Turbuence or Jive Smith, so it comes as something of a shock to find that Tam Paton, manager of the incredible Bay City Rollers, has signed a new 16-year old singer/guitarist, called ?-49 !@# %&*. Baffled? So were we when received this telex message from Copenhagen, Denmark. Then we realised that the operator had been imbibing insufficient qualities of the famed lager that refreshes parts other beers cannot reach. At length, after a glass of the cooling (well known brand), the operator corrected her message thus: “Please read 16-year-old singer/guitarist, Baron Gert Von Magnus.” Baron Gert Von Magnus? We preferred the first spelling, can he be a relation of the famous Gert und Daisy? Gert was formerly with Danish teen band Mabel (and not streaky, as we hoped and prayed), and is now with Kips, who are expected to out-do ABBA as the world’s most popular Scandinavian group. “They are not just a bunch of pretty faces” declares Claes Cornelius, of Copenhagen. We don’t mind pretty faces – it’s all that singing that one finds jarring. Meanwhile we predict – Magnus mania. Melody Maker – 14 August 1976 (Page 10) ABBA: Dancing Queen (Epic) - Singles Extra! By Caroline Coon Dancing Queen has a disco feel, but it’s a bit slow to hustle to. Great just to listen to, though! One of their best yet! We’ve become accustomed to these super-commercial productions from this band of greats. The single grows and grows. A huge hit! Melody Maker – 4 September 1976 (Page 1) ABBA Dates ABBA make their first ever British appearances in February. The chart-busting Swedish group, whose The Greatest Hits album has sold over half a million records in this country rose to pop prominence after their Eurovision Song Contest two years ago with Waterloo and have been rarely been out of the singles and albums chart since. ABBA – Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Frida Lyngstad and Anna Fältskog are currently working on a new album. Dates are all in February: Birmingham Odeon (February, 10), Manchester Free Trade Hall (11), Glasgow Apollo Theatre (12) and London Royal Albert Hall (14). The British tour, exclusively forecast in the Melody Maker last May, is part of a major European trek. Melody Maker - 27 November 1976 (Page 3) ABBA: Money, Money, Money (Epic) - Caroline Coon Reviews the new singles When I first heard this I thought Amanda Lear, backed by sailor, and herself a huge hit. But no, it’s just Anna and Frida sounding as sexy as ever. It’s their weirdest single yet – a song about it being a rich man’s world (Well, I suppose it is). ABBA suggest that young ladies should get themselves over to Las Vegas or Monaco, to win a fortune gambling, since there aren’t any available millionaires around anymore. Umm. How about joining a rock ‘n’ roll band? Another good-to-great production, though. A hit! Melody Maker - 27 November 1976 (Page 4) Extra ABBA ABBA have added an extra London concert to their brief British tour next February, which was exclusively revealed by Melody Maker last month. They play at Birmingham Odeon (February 10), Manchester Free Trade Hall (11), Glasgow Apollo (12) and London Royal Albert Hall (14). There will now be two shows at the Albert Hall, at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Tickets for the provincial concerts are priced £2, £3, £4, £5 and £6. Manchester and Glasgow tickets are available from the box offices while tickets for Birmingham are available by postal application only, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope to PO Box 394, Northfield, Birmingham 31, with cheques and postal orders being made payable to Birmingham Odeon. Tickets are limited to four per application. Tickets for the London concerts will be available on mail order only, from ABBA concert, PO Box W1A 4 TL, London, with cheques and postal orders made payable to ABBA concert. The tickets, priced at £2, £3, £5.50, £6.50 and £7.50, are also limited to four per applicant. ABBA’s new album, Arrival goes straight into this week’s Melody Maker album chart at number 11, with their Greatest Hits collection at number 6. Melody Maker - 4 December 1976 (Page 21) ABBA: Arrival (Epic EPC 86018) - Review Section: New Albums ABBA and the class system: Frida Lyngstad and Anna Fältskog (vocals), Benny Andersson (keyboards, backing vocals) and Björn Ulvaeus (guitars,vocals) with Ola Brunkert and Roger Palm (drums), Janne Schaffer, Anders Glenmark and Lasse Wellander (guitars), Lasse Carisson (sax). Recorded at the Metronome Studio, Stockholm, during this year. Arranged and Produced by Benny Andesson and Björn Ulvaeus. There is no doubt that ABBA are the classiest pop outfit around Europe at the moment. Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson write snappy commercial tunes. ABBA, and in particular, the vocalists, Frida and Anna, strengthen the identity with tight vocal interpretations, backed by a cool continental instrumental sound. That is the base from which ABBA operate, rarely venturing outside strictly defined terms of reference. A toe-tapping tune, a simple, sing-a-long lyric. Short and direct that is the ABBA sound. That is Arrival. Ironically, although the album is initially impressive by its forthright and innocent out-and-about pop, after a while the clinical aspect of the construction of an ABBA song becomes increasingly annoying. I’ve had this album for a few weeks and played it a lot. It is only now, after my sixth or seventh listen, that the coldness of the structure is beginning to rub me the wrong way. There are ten tracks on this album. The longest is 4 minutes and 20 seconds, the shortest 2.53. The first side is 16.77 long and the second 14.95. Consider that the ideal length, for the best sound quality, is around 18 minutes, and you wonder whether ABBA have freaked and cut the playing time drastically in an effort to go for the perfect recorded sound, or, as is more likely, the sum total of a year’s writing for the group’s writers was a mere 32 minutes of song, which can hardly be described as prolific. Despite those reservations, it is an album that epitomizes the ABBA phenomenon, the first set showcasing the Eurovision victory with Waterloo a couple of years ago and then the string of hit singles, Mamma Mia, SOS, Fernando and others. Excellent singles those, all of them or The Greatest Hits albums’ charts for something near a year now. Whether or not Ulvaeus and Andersson insists that they do not work to a formula, Arrival has joined its compilation predecessor in the top ten because they stick close to the proven mixture. It’s obvious that the major ingredient is the melody. The lyrics, which border between the naïve and bland (Dum, Dum Diddle joins Mamma Mia in the corniest words of all time stakes) are of secondary importance to ABBA, probably because they haven’t mastered the finer arts of the English language in a song. It’s down to the tune and the nuance of the distinctive vocals to carry the message. Most of the songs are standard ABBA stuff, and consistently good at that Dancing Queen was a hit single and I’m sure other tracks will keep ABBA in those charts for the next year, principally, Knowing Me, Knowing You, Tiger, That’s Me and possibly Why Did It Have To Be Me?, on which the band uncharacteristically rock a little, Money, Money, Money, which sounds as if it should be one of the songs in Fiddler On The Roof, is the current hit. But the best track of all for me is the beautiful My Love, My Life, which would have been an ideal Christmas single, full of sentimentality and soppiness. The title track, an instrumental – sounding of all drawing from the band’s Scandinavian roots. An ideal Christmas present for mums, dads, aunts, uncles, sons, daughters, nephews, nieces. But who said “once more with feeling”? H.D. Melody Maker – 1 January 1977 (Page 2) 1976’s Top Singles Artists No.1-ABBA, 2-Rod Stewart, 3-Demis Roussos, 4-Dr Hook, 5-Queen, 6-Wing, 7-Tina Charles, 8-Manhattans, 9-Barry White, 10-Stylistics, 11-Pussycat, 12- Four Seasons, 13-Tavares, 14- Elton John & Ki Ki Dee, 15-Brotherhood of Man, 16-Real Thing, 17- Wurzels, 18-10CC, 19-Gallaher and Lyle/Sailor/Chicago, 22-Billy Ocean, 23-Bryan Ferry, 24-Becitles, 25-Diana Ross, 26-Status Quo, 27-Electric Light Orchestra, 28- Candi Staton, 29-Bay City Rollers/Hot Chocolate, 31-Hank Mizzel, 32-Cliff Richard, 33-Who, 34-Mike Oldfield, 35-Dorothy Moore/Elton John, 37-Silk, 38-Smokie, 39-John Miles/Showaddy Waddy, 41-C.W. McCall/Leo Sayer, 43- J.J. Barrie/R&J Stone, 45-David Dundas/Sherbert, 47-Manuel and the Music of the Mountains Miracles, 50-Bee Gees. Photo: ABBA top singles artists of the year. 1976’s Top Singles No.1- Mississippi (Pussycat), 2- Fernando (ABBA), 3- Don’t go breaking my heart (Elton John & Kiki Dee) 4- Save Your Kisses For Me (Brotherhood Of Man), 5-Dancing Queen (ABBA), 6- A Little Bit More Love (Dr. Hook), 7- If You Leave Me Now (Chicago) 8- Mamma Mia (ABBA) / I Love To Love You (Tina Charles) 10- Young Hearts Run Free ( Candi Staton), 37- Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen). Swedes are sweet - Caroline Coon reviews the year’s singles. (Page 3) Over 4,000 singles were released in 1976 but only a fraction, 21 to be precise, made it to the coveted top stop. To further compound that surprisingly stark fact, three of the 21 songs were recorded by the same group. Yes ABBA swept the board. Although their latest release, Money, Money, Money (Epic) reached no. 2, only to be piped to the post by Johnny Mathis’s When A Child Is Born (CBS), Mamma Mia, Fernando (at no. 1 for five weeks) and Dancing Queen captured the chart top for 12 weeks – twice as long as anyone else. Trying to analyse why these particular singers were the big hits of 1976 is, as ever, impossible – although their success does defy almost all the text-book hit making rules. ABBA achieved their huge hits with minimal promotion and no ‘live’ appearances in the UK at all. Single File (Page 27) ABBA have been the year’s most successful singles band, with 4 records in the chart – and three of those have been number one hits. The band have been in the Melody Maker Chart for a combined total of 39 weeks, a sharp contrast to ABBA’s chart performance last year when their only hit, SOS, was in the Top 30 for eight weeks. The biggest single of the year, however, has been Pussy cat’s Mississippi a chart record for 15 weeks. The group’s nearest rivals were Brotherhood of Man (Save your kisses for me) and ABBA (Fernando, Dancing Queen) who were in the chart for thirteen weeks. Mamma Mia – Date of entry: 10 January 1976; Highest position: 1; Weeks in chart: 10. Fernando – Date of entry: 3 April 1976; Highest position: 1; Weeks in chart: 13. Dancing Queen - Date of entry: 28 August 1976; Highest position: 1; Weeks in chart: 13. Money, Money, Money - Date of entry: 27 November 1976; Highest position: 4; Weeks in chart: 3*. (*in the weeks in chart column indicates the record is still in the listenings. This could also have an effect on the single’s final highest position.) Melody Maker – 8 January 1977 (Page 2) 1976’s Top Albums No.1- Greatest Hits (ABBA), 2- Wings At The Speed Of Sound (Wings), 3- A Night On The Town (Rod Stewart), 4-Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 (Eagles), 5- Forever And Ever (Demis Roussos), 6- 20 Golden Greats (Beach Boys), 7- Frampton Comes Alive (Peter Frampton), 8- The Best Of (Gladys Knight And The Pips), 9- How Dare You (10CC), 10- Desire (Bob Dylan), 11- Laughter And Tears (Neil Sedaka), 12- Live In Concert (John Denver), 13- Diana Ross ,14- A Night At The Opera (Queen), 15- The Very Best Of (Slim Whitman), 16- Changesbowie (David Bowie), 17- A Little Bit More (Dr.Hook), 21- Songs In The Key Of Life (Stevie Wonder), 23- Black And Blue (Rolling Stones), 37- A Kind Of Hush (Carpenters). Photo: All members of ABBA toasting with a glass of champagne. They are dressed in the white Arrival album cover costume. Albums Artists No.1- ABBA, 2- Rod Stewart, 3- Demis Roussos, 4- John Denver, 5- Wings, 6- Diana Ross, 7- Bob Dylan, 8- Eagles, 9- Beach Boys, 10- David Bowie, 11- Peter Frampton, 12- Gladys Knight and the Pips, 13- 10CC, 14- Led Zeppelin, 15- Rolling Stones, 16- Neil Sedaka, 17- Queen, 18- Stylistics, 19- Slim Whitman, 20- Mike Oldfield, 21- Dr. Hook, 22- Manuel and the Music of the Mountains, 23- Roy Orbison, 24- Status Quo, 25- Stevie Wonder / Thin Lizzy, 27- Elton John, 28- Neil Diamond, 29- Nana Mouskouri, 30- Rock Follies, 31- Who, 32- Drifters, 33- Gallagher and Lyle, 34- Bay City Rollers, 35- Four Seasons, 36- Carpenters, 37- Genesis, 38- Helen Reddy, 39- Roxy Music, 40- Joan Armatrading, 41- Beatles, 42- Cliff Richard, 43- Bad Company, 44- Paul Simon, 45- Dr. Feelgood, 46- James Last, 47- Max Bygraves, 48- Glen Campbell, 49- Perry Como, 50- Bert Weedon. Melody Maker – 12 February 1977 (Page 8) The Arrival of ABBA On the eve of ABBA’s British live debut. Harry Doherty looks at the reasons for their amazing success – and asks the rock biz for its verdict. A few million fans will, through no fault of their own, miss ABBA when their tour winds its way to Britain next week. It’s funny to think that about six months ago in a little fish restaurant in the centre of Stockholm, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, the writers and producers in the group, cautiously quizzed me on their “ambitious” plan to play at a major London venue. They intended to play at Wembley Empire Pool and doubts had set in as to whether they were capable of filling the place. Little did we know that, having finally settled for the Royal Albert Hall, public interest would be enough to fill the hallowed interior of that prestigious venue something like 300 times over. At that stage, I recall, plans for ABBA’s first world tour were nearing completion. Björn and Benny were nervous. The big moment was at their doorsteps, when ABBA, who had charmed supporters all over the world with their neatly manufactured pop records and warm promotional films, would leave their Scandinavian retreat and place themselves in front of audiences for examination. It would be a concise tour, they decided, in some areas taking in only one concert per country, and if there wasn’t perfection, the much-respected name and pop legend of ABBA could very easily be blown. A living legend they are. In Britain it’s roughly reckoned that one in every ten homes has an ABBA record in the family vinyl collection. In Australia, which has gone absolutely nuts over the Swedish smilers, the same calculations are even more incredible. There, it’s said that one in every three families has a copy of ABBA’s Greatest Hits album (known rather as The Best Of ABBA in Australia and it doesn’t contain the track Fernando which would appear later on the Arrival album instead). That, my friends, put a new slant on the word “popular”. It’s shattering to ponder upon what their reputation will jet to when they finally break the States. That is certain to happen this year. But ABBA have no intention of blowing it when they hit the stage. From reports of concerts already seen in Europe, it appears that audiences have set open-mouthed when they found that the group could reproduce their hit singles note for note, without a fault. ABBA, mind you, make sure that there are no gaps. Behind the four in the group – Björn (guitar), Benny (keyboards) and vocalists Frida Lyngstad and Anna Fältskog – there are ten other musicians and three female singers. Nor have they been content, it seems, to satisfy the basic instincts of their audience and leave it at that, as one would expect them to do. Their two-hour show also includes what manager Stig Anderson describes as a “mini-musical”, for which they have acquired the services of an English actor. Manager Anderson explained why they decided to take the stage set a step further than the predictable. “It’s something we have been discussing for some time. Let’s just say that it’s a first step to write a little musical, which is something we have been dreaming of for years. The segment in the show is a fore-runner to something else, a complete musical perhaps. It adds a new dimension to ABBA and shows the abilities and possibilities for the future. “Maybe we’ll do it next year. One of the reasons we’ll be doing the musical is that we don’t want to do the same things we have done before. We would like to develop all the time, come up with new ideas and, if they are worthy, put them into action. Another “idea”, he revealed, was a major feature film ABBA were working on. It would be a semi-documentary and much of it is being filmed on their tour. The first scenes are to be shot outside the Royal Albert Hall next week. Swedish writer Lars Holstrom is preparing a script, and the film and the soundtrack from it are due out around October. Mr Stig Anderson is the man who has astutely guided ABBA to their phenomenal world-wide success. Back home in Sweden, he is accepted as the fifth member of the group, just as Brian Epstein was seen as “the fifth Beatle” and Roy Thomas Baker, until last year, as “the fifth Queen.” As well as handling the business end of affairs, however Anderson also dabbles in writing with the group members. He is credited with penning four tracks on the latest album, Arrival, including Dancing Queen, as well as some of the older hits, Mamma Mia, SOS and Fernando. Versatile indeed! He claims the credit for noticing the potential that Ulvaeus and Andersson possessed. His partnership with Björn goes back to 1964 when Ulvaeus played in a group called The West Bay Singers. Anderson renamed them The Hootenanny Singers, which eventually grew into ABBA. The girls had been following solo careers until their respective boy-friends persuaded them that the way forward was as a singing quartet. Frida, in fact, is still enjoying enormous success as a solo artist and still releases her own solo albums. One of them, Frida Ensam (with a sleeve photograph so sensuous that it would make the Leaning Tower of Pisa stand to attention), is a collection of cover versions sung in her native Swedish tongue. Titles include Bowie’s Life On Mars, The Beach Boys Wouldn’t It Be Nice and 10CC’s Wall Street Shuffle, as well as the original Swedish version of Fernando. The album available only in Scandinavia unfortunately, portrays Frida as a very strong and emotive singer and shows the true value of the music, that if sung properly and with enough feeling, it transcends all language barriers. With Stig Anderson at the wheel, ABBA then prepared to take on the rest of Europe and, with a song called Ring, Ring entered the Swedish completion to decide who would represent the country in the Eurovision Song Contest. They finished a mere third however, and had to wait a year for their turn, in 1974, when they bopped back with a little tune called Waterloo, which was a gem among the crap that was performed at that year’s Eurovision, held, if you remember, in Brighton. Anderson, thought, has been taken by a much surprise as everybody else by ABBA’s meteoric climb to fame and fortune. “I could always see that Björn and Benny had great ability as song writers. That was so evident. I knew they would be able to make a world-wide name for themselves as writers. I was thinking more of them writing songs for world stars and being writers and publishers rather than performers. But it turned out better than that. It happened that they did their own songs better than anybody else. It’s been a fairy-tale since.” Whether they had won the Eurovision or not, he felt, success for ABBA was certain anyway. “We had been big on the Continent before Eurovision. Ring, Ring was a hit before Waterloo in 1973. That’s when it started to happen. We saw what could be done. That’s when we made up our minds about the future. “We sat down after Ring, Ring and worked out what was wrong with it, trying to sort out why it was a hit for some of the continent but not for Southern Europe and England. Then in the next year, we decided to write something that was more of a pop song and which would change the Eurovision Song Contest situation. “Most of the songs in it were very bompa-bompa and we wanted to change that; English songwriters write these really corny songs for England all the time and we wanted to come up with something new. “The Eurovision was a big break but all Eurovision winners are mostly just a one-shot success and many people suspected that it was the same for ABBA. It took some time to convince them that that wasn’t the case with us. We knew that if we kept putting out good records, they would break through eventually. “But the Eurovision really just made things happen faster for ABBA. It would have happened regardless of it. After all, America and Australia aren’t interested in the Eurovision Song Contest.” ABBA’s formula writing since then has earned the respect of a broad spectrum of musicians. Even the punks acknowledge that it has it’s good points. Very few musicians will knock their music, a reflection of ABBA’s capabilities. Eno is an admirer and says he likes their singles. On the other hand, Roger Chapman of The Streetwalkers, commented “Snore” – such a positive reaction from an “important” contemporary singer and writer to a phenomenon. Another ABBA fan is Nicky Chinn, who, with Mike Chapman, epitomizes the British formula writing team. In four different pop fields, Chinn—Chap has successfully manipulated and wrung the last drops out of their formula with bands like Sweet, Mud, Suzy Quatro and their latest acquisitions, Smokie. “They make some of the best pop records in the world today,” Chinn said. “They write very good songs and when I say very good songs, I mean that they are always different. I don’t think Money, Money, Money was their best but Dancing Queen was a classic and so was Fernando. They just keep coming up with terrific songs. “The production is immaculate. It’s absolutely perfect. Their whole set-up, in fact, is really good. Those promotional films they keep sending over are really excellent. I find it very difficult to fault them at all. “Writing like that may be something you are born to do but it takes a long time to find out you’ve got it. Once you’ve got it, one of the reasons it’s not hard for them to come up with good stuff is that they know the market they’re aiming at and it’s fairly formula-oriented, which isn’t a criticism. “They’re clever enough to know where they’re going. Once you’ve got something that works to a formula, and is also quite musical, sometimes it’s easier than changing style with every record. “But I also think that in a year or so, the public may be wanting ABBA to develop, the trend they are on at the moment may not be as successful. They’ll want a little more. It’s like The Beatles realised that Love Me Do and Please, Please Me wasn’t good enough and came out with Yesterday. I’ve noticed that a lot of people have decided to compare them to The Beatles. They may be comparable in terms of sales, but The Beatles had something very special in their songs and their whole approach, and I don’t think ABBA have reached that stage yet. “You’ve also got to bear in mind that ABBA have the marketing know-how behind them. Ten or twelve years ago the record companies didn’t have that. God knows what The Beatles would have sold if they had. “So one thing ABBA must work to in a year’s time is something of a change, because trends change quickly in this business and the formula pop record they have tended to come out with so far might not be as acceptable. If they want their market to move with them instead of beyond them, they have got to do something a little different and special. Personally, I think that they have got to come up with a ballad soon. If I were ABBA, I would be saying that in a record or two’s time, we’ve got to come out with a hell of a ballad before their public gets tired. For instance, the last single, Money, Money, Money could have been better, and the public reacted to this. “As far as they were concerned, it wasn’t in the groove and they weren’t going to buy it. I mean, ABBA should have had the Christmas number one, even before Johnny Mathis, but their public showed that what they presented wasn’t exactly what they wanted. “I would imagine that they have got it in them to make on and develop, but only time will tell. This is the thing about a phenomenon. Will it last? Theirs will, I think. They have a couple of very bright guys in that group. “I was thinking the other day about the late sixties and early seventies, just after The Beatles split and heavy bands, like Led Zeppelin, started to sell really well. Heaviness was the thing. The last thing one expected to see was a pop group to come along. “I can’t answer why, maybe there are two reasons. One is that they make tremendous records. The other is that the world is a depressed place at the moment and many people want to be happy. ABBA have a very pretty image. It’s very attractive. Everyone loves each other and all that. “That was what people wanted. Everybody suddenly got fed up with four minute solos. So timing had a lot to do with it. I’m sure that if they had happened two years earlier it might not have meant a thing. ABBA would have been just another hit group and nothing more. But the people now are ready for that type of image and they became much more than just another hit group.” Of course, there has been more to ABBA than the exceptional talent or writing and performing outstanding pop songs. There’s an operation behind them – so slick and effective that little is left to chance. In Britain, ABBA are on CBS. Consider list of hit singles last year. Mamma Mia came into the charts in January and started dropping after about ten weeks. When signs of a decline surfaced Fernando was put out and hung around for thirteen weeks before sales fell, when in August, Dancing Queen took up the baton, staying in the chart for the same lengthy period. And when it showed signs of faltering, out came Money, Money, Money. Obviously the same relay operation is being put into action this year. Money, Money, Money is slipping. The new single has already been nominated, Knowing Me, Knowing You is out on the 18th of February, 1977. But to get to the real backbone of ABBA’s ultra-business approach you’ve got to drift across Europe to Stockholm, to Polar Music and Stig Anderson in the suburbs of that beautiful city. Anderson has the entire situation off to a tee. The roundown is this, ABBA have their own publicity and recording company in Scandinavia, but throughout the world, their music appears on a variety of labels. CBS of course, in Britain; Atlantic in America; RCA in Australia; Polydor in Germany and other parts of Europe; and Disco-Mates – a subsidiary of the Tokyo Broadcasting System – in Japan. ABBA are signed to each of those labels for a maximum of only three years. The logic is that if the label doesn’t get it together, then they lose the group when their contract comes up for renewal. This ingenious system is all down to manager Anderson, whose 15-year experience in the music business has taught him a thing or two. He proudly spoke about his handling of their affairs. This is also something that never happened before, not even with The Beatles. With the publishing company, I learned from my experiences with all other European companies I handled for Scandinavia. I told the group that from the beginning, we must have a very good operation so that if it happened one day, we would be ready for it. It is really 100 percent control, over records, writing and publishing. “As far as the different record companies go, I knew that one big record company could be very good in one territory, but it’s not for sure that it’s good in all territories, so I picked them all by hand. That keeps it much more specialised and everybody knows that they’ve got to do a good job or else the contract is terminated.” The Japanese deal has just expired and America is due soon. No doubt, they will be put under Anderson’s microscope and all flaws pinpointed. Yep. ABBA’s home industry is indeed incredible. But ABBA, says Anderson, are careful that the business doesn’t get too tangled up in the music. They are aware that they work to something of a formula at the moment but they won’t stay that way. “We have discussed the development of the group. The philosophy is that we will try to come up with new things like the film. To do the same things all the time is boring. “But one of the reasons we have the success we have is that we think it’s fun to write songs and be in the music business. It’s a funny business and we love it. “Anything can happen in show business. Two years ago, nobody in the world would have dreamed that something like this would come in from the cold. Who the hell thought this could happen in Sweden? In this business, you see, you can be sure of nothing. “First, the States was the centre of music. Then, in the sixties, The Beatles came along and all of a sudden, English music became hot and London became the centre of the music world. But they forgot the rest of Europe, and then Sweden comes along and now the music people consider that anything can happen anywhere in the world. It’s good, not only for Sweden but all the continent. “If a man comes from somewhere like Belgium now with his group, they will listen good. They are starting to learn that music is something that belongs to all of the world, not just to one part.” * Justin Hayward: I think they’re the best quality record – making machine in the last ten years. I’m not sure about their image, but I suppose they need to do something like that to help sell. My wife is their number one fan. I’ve got tickets for their concert.” * Eric Stewart (10CC): “They’re an excellent commercial group and their records are superbly produced. I loved the bass part on their last record. I think they fill a very necessary gap in the market. Musically, I’m impressed. They’re a competent band.” * John Miles: “I admire their production technique. They’re great singers, too. I always enjoy hearing them on the radio, although I don’t play their albums at home.” * John Entwistle (The Who): Greatest Hits is the one I’ve got. The clothes are a bit up the wall and their image is a bit up the wall but their records are very good. We don’t see much of the fellas in the group. They always seem to be off camera. I know just how they feel. I like them a lot but there’s something vaguely depressing about two Swedish ladies singing in English. Maybe they record their vocals backwards and it comes out that way.” * John Ellis (guitarist with The Vibrators): “Actually, I think ABBA are very good. It doesn’t really matter what they look like as long as they make your feet tap and you can enjoy them. We both play music. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t like ABBA and ABBA shouldn’t like The Vibrators.” * Pat Travers: “I’ve always got off on their singles. They’re really good quality. I don’t mind hearing them on the radio but I don’t think I would buy a ticket for their concert. Whoever writes their songs is musically interesting.” * Nigel Pegrum (Steeleye Span): “I admire them tremendously for their business set-up. Even when I saw them on the Eurovision, I thought they stuck out a mile as having universal appeal. I’d go to their concert if I could, more out of curiosity than an evening’s entertainment.” * Duncan Mackay (Cockney Rebel): “They’re a great middle of the road group, probably one of the best in the world. They’re very well produced with a very clean sound.” * Ariel Bender: “I’m not that familiar with them apart from their singles but they are certainly the best in that field’. Although I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy or listen to one of their records, I wouldn’t object to listening to them.” * Kevin Coyne: I like them. They make well-produced records with lyrics that suggest concern for humanity, like money. I’ll give it four.” Photo: ABBA behind the exceptional talent of writing and performing outstanding pop songs is a slick operation that leaves little to chance. Melody Maker – 19 February 1977 (Page 19) Caught in the act: ABBA lose the magic – a sorry live debut. By Ray Coleman Photo: Frida rests her left hand on Benny’s right shoulder and has her right hand on her right sided hip during the performance of Why Did It Have To Be Me? She is wearing trousers here rather than shorts during a performance in the Royal Albert Hall. Ah well, it’s back to the glorious records for ABBA fans. Perhaps it was unreasonable, after all, to expect them to convert a brilliantly precise, manufactured studio sound to stage, but whatever the reason, the band was a cold and clinical disappointment at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Monday. Tickets up to £7.50, with touts doing a roaring trade, and British concerts which could have sold out hundreds of times were a testimony of the worship by the Silent Majority of a sound which is undeniably one of the finest in pure pop. But they failed to build on their excellent music when it came to the stage. Instead, we saw merely a sterile and wooden performance which aroused little reciprocation from an audience apparently quite happy to see and hear them slog their way through all the hits. ABBA performed slickly, their sound technically acceptable most of the time, but with a zero personality coming across from a total of sixteen people on stage, scarcely anything held the attention. There was, of course, the obligatory mini-light show, but apart from this and some tame smoke effects the only riveting aspect of the night seemed to be the attractive contours of the lady singers, Anna Fältskog and Frida Lyngstad. The latter’s voice, especially, was pure joy, combining range, power and warmth and holding the show together almost as much as their physical presence. Musically, ABBA did everything right. Waterloo, SOS, Jeanie, Jeanie, with a delightful reggae flavour, and Money, Money, Money preceded the interesting and less well-known He Is Your Brother. Then came I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do and Knowing Me, Knowing You, the beefiest sound of the night, a great little song throbbing with life. Mamma Mia, a fine Fernando and an encore with Dancing Queen which forced the sedate audience to its feet, and this wholly middle-class crowd appeared. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with ABBA’s show, but when a group has sold zillions of records and then goes into performing, they are, for better or worse, expected to be able to add the little bit of magic to their music. Full marks to them for trimming their performance to a Spartan 90 minutes-performers of boring, extended works, please note – but a little self-deprecating humour does not a stage show make. It was, regrettably, the sort of blonde girl/boy guitarist instant pop replay so prevalent on video cassette records in bars and cafes and discos in Europe. Plastic, disposable, untouched by human emotion, instantly forgettable. Long may ABBA continue to make fine records. Melody Maker – 5 March 1977 (Page 17) S.O.S. for ABBA In Melody Maker’s double page spread on ABBA (February 10) I was a little surprised that comparisons with The Beatles should be put forward with such eagerness. The analogy is of course perfectly valid when one is talking about ‘units shifted, etc.’ – (we always hear of ABBA outselling The Beatles two times over, etc.) and also when one is describing what sectors of the market the groups appeal to. It was obvious from the article that ABBA are respected by members of the respectable rock elite as well as by its lower-caste members, and this of course was true for The Beatles as well. However, when people compare ABBA with The Beatles in terms of records produced and the type of feelings produced, then The Beatles have got ABBA licked every time. Every one in your article described ABBA as technically excellent or superbly produced; the singles stand up as a complete unit in themselves. However, ABBA lack the most important ingredient necessary to raise themselves above the good ‘average’ pop-group status to that of masters of their art (music), such as The Beatles were: spontaneity. The Beatles were able to make you cry with Yesterday. ABBA on the other hand will always invoke the feeling of sterile admiration. By Nicholas Owen, Kirtle Road, Chesham, Bucks. Melody Maker – 31 December 1977 (Page 10) Best Sellers of 1977 Photo: ABBA – top single with Knowing Me, Knowing You and fourth most successful artists. No.1- Knowing Me, Knowing You (ABBA) , 2- A Star Is Born (Evergreen) (Barbra Streisand), 3- Silver Lady (David Soul), 4- I Don’t Want To Talk About It/First Cut Is The Deepest (Rod Stewart), 5- Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Julie Covington), 6- Chanson D’amour (Manhattan Transfer), 7- Rockin’ All Over The World (Status Quo), 8- Angelo (Brotherhood Of Man), 9- Fanfare For The Common Man (Emerson, Lake and Palmer), 10- Lucille (Kenny Rogers), 11- Ma Baker (Boney M) / Way Down (Elvis Presley), 13- Don’t Give Up On Us (David Soul), 15- When I Need You (Leo Sayer), 26- We Are The Champions (Queen), 27- The Name Of The Game (ABBA), 35- How Deep Is Your Love (Bee Gees), 46- Torn Between Two Lovers (Mary McGregor / We’re All Alone (Rita Coolidge). 1977’s Best-Selling Singles Artists No.1- David Soul , 2- Boney M, 3- Showaddywaddy, 4- ABBA, 5- Donna Summer, 6- Elvis Presley, 7- Rod Stewart 8- Stranglers, 9- Brotherhood Of Man, 10- Status Quo, 11- Electric Light Orchestra, 12- Leo Sayer, 13- Deniece Williams, 14- Smokie, 18- Stevie Wonder, 19- Queen, 20- Barbra Streisand / 10CC, 28- Boz Scaggs 36- Eagles, 40- Barry Gibb, 44- Bee Gees. Melody Maker – 7 January 1978 (Page 4) New ABBA album ABBA, whose song Knowing Me, Knowing You was the best-selling single of 1977, are due to release a new album in the near future. Their record company, CBS, have not yet fixed a definite release date, but the album is called ABBA - The Album and contains seven tracks, including their last hit The Name Of The Game. The album also features The Girl With The Golden Hair, which they played on their recent tour and described as “a mini-musical”. All the tracks were written by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, and the album will be followed by a film, to be released in the Spring, documenting the band’s tour of Australia, with other scenes shot in Sweden, where the album was recorded. The tracks on the album are: Side one: Eagle, Take a chance on me, One man, one woman, and The name of the game. Side two: Move on, Hole in your soul, and The Girl with the Golden Hair. Best Sellers of 1977: These are the most popular albums of 1977. This chart is based on awarding points for a record’s entry and duration of stay in The Melody Maker albums chart. (Page 8) No.1- Arrival (ABBA) , 2- Rumours (Fleetwood Mac), 3- Hotel California (Eagles), 4- A Star Is Born (Soundtrack), 5- Endless Flight (Leo Sayer), 6- Greatest Hits (ABBA), 7- Stranglers IV [Ratlus Norvegicus] (Stranglers), 8- A New World Record (Electric Light Orchestra), 9- 20 Golden Greats (Shadows), 10- Going For The One (Yes), 11- Animals (Pink Floyd), 12- 20 Golden Greats (Diana Ross and The Supremes), 13- Songs In The Key Of Life (Stevie Wonder), 14- Exodus (Bob Marley), 15- I Remember yesterday (Donna Summer), 16- Deceptive Bends (10CC), 17- The Johnny Mathis Collection, 18- Evita (Various artists), 23- 20 All Time Greats (Connie Francis), 27- The Beatles At The Holliwood Bowl, 29- Moody Blue (Elvis Presley). Photo: ABBA – most successful album with Arrival and top album artists. 1977’s Best selling albums artists No.1- ABBA, 2- Eagles, 3- Fleetwood Mac, 4- Strangles, 5- Leo Sayer, 6- Elvis Presley, 7- E L O, 8- David Bowie, 9- Shadows, 10- Yes, 11- Pink, 12- Slim Whitman, 13- Diana Ross, 14- Donna Summer, 15- Stevie Wonder, 16- David Soul, 17- 10CC, 18- Johnny Mathis, 19- Bob Marley, 20- Queen, 21- Jean-Michel Jarre, 22- Rod Stewart, 23- Status Quo / Muppets, 25- Frank Sinatra, 26- Connie Francis, 27- Genesis, 28- Cliff Richard, 29- E L P, 30- Neil Diamond, 31- Beatles, 32- Peter Gabriel, 33- Rolling Stones, 34- Smokie, 35- Bread, 36- Hollies, 37- Sex Pistols, 38- Manhattan Transfer, 39- Wings, 40- Bryan Ferry, 41- Showaddy Waddy, 42- Santana, 43- Elton John, 44- Thin Lizzy, 45- Boston, 46- Gladys Knight, 47- Joan Armatrading / Steve Winwood, 49- Space 50- Glenn Miller. Melody Maker – 14 January 1978 (Page 30) ABBA: ABBA–The Album (Epic EPC 86052) Last week the record company didn’t know when it was coming out, now they’ve made up their mind. The album contains The Name Of The Game, as well as one long track, described as a mini-musical called The Girl With The Golden Hair, plus five other new songs. Melody Maker – 21 January 1978 (Page 20) ABBA: Take a chance on me – (Epic). Single reviewed by Ian Birch A new ABBA single should herald a bank holiday for the rest of rock ‘n’ roll, especially when it’s of this class. On the one hand they are two cozy couples who define affluence in the Western World. On the other they are an extraordinary Euro-pop conglomerate/institution, not completely real. Marionettes imbued with unsettling talent. Fantasy over. The single erupts in a multi-decked a capella bonanza only to settle on an utterly simple (so simple it hurts) rhythm that is bludgeoning pop at its best. ABBA: ABBA – The Album (Epic EPC 86052). Reviewed by Harry Doherty (Page 25) ABBA ABBA Hey: ABBA attempted things that are well out of their depth. Björn Ulvaeus (guitars and vocals) and Benny Andesson (keyboards and vocals). Frida Lyngstad and Anna Fältskog (vocals), with: Rutger Gunnarson (bass), Ola Brunkert and Roger Palm (drums), Lasse Wellander and Janne Schaffer (lead guitars), Malando Gassama (percussion). Produced by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus at Marcus Music and Metronome Studio, Sweden. From the home of the Hits – Stockholm £1 million’s worth of sales, making it platinum before its release. Ever feel your words are falling on deaf ears? Should you be one of the silent majority (or one of the heads that won’t admit to liking ABBA) that hasn’t yet bought this album, let me tell you that this is probably ABBA’s weakest album since they first hit the big-time. I just don’t think ABBA are an album band. With due respect to all concerned, I don’t feel they can maintain the power of their singles on long players. I’m waiting patiently for the next Greatest Hits set, which, on my reckoning, should be due next year with the passing of another three or four singles. As with the other ABBA studio albums (the notable exception being their first, the amazing Waterloo set), only about half of The Album actually comes off, although when it does click, it’s with a vengeance. But the Swedish sensations have tried things here that are well out of their depth. It was a mistake, for instance, to include the tripartite mini-opera, ‘The Girl With The Golden Hair’. I praise the ambition in such a project but it was obvious when ABBA played at the Royal Albert Hall last year that it wouldn’t work. They fall into almost every trap in the book during the 14-minute segment that taker in three tracks, Thank You For The Music, I Wonder and I’m A Marionette. Only the attractive chorus on the melancholy I Wonder and a beautifully haunting 10CC-influenced intro on I’m A Marionette does them justice. Otherwise, it’s wimpish, mundane and well over the top. They should leave that sort of stuff to more accomplished writers (in other areas) who do it better. One Man, One Woman, a sloppy forgettable ballad, falls flat, too, as ABBA move from their neutral position into a bland MOR field. Otherwise, it’s good danceable stuff. I even like Move On despite the cringing biblically spoken intro that makes the slushiness of Deck Of Cards sound sinful and Eagle with a lyric that is practically a Lord’s Prayer to The Eagles. Move On is an effectively mellow ballad, while Eagle is in line to become a motorway favourite, perfectly capturing the West Coast feel. The Name Of The Game is possibly the most understated and subtle ABBA single ever. For a change, it creeps up on you and possesses more aural longevity than most of the band’s numbers. As for Hole In Your Soul, if I didn’t know I was listening to ABBA, I would have mistaken its intro for Thin Lizzy. What a compliment! This dynamic dual guitar crash (very much like Lizzy’s Wild One) introduces a nifty piece of raw rock that is further heightened by the delectable ladies’ sub-primal screeches. A pity about the overly sophisticated disco verse, and middle section, that slowed the proceedings down. The undisputed highlight of the entire album is Take A Chance On Me, one of the best tracks ABBA have ever recorded. It’s got a seductive female chorus, interestingly punctuated by the boys’ bass voices, evolving into a track absolutely bulging with pumping pop power. ABBA at their most magnificent! Photo: Frida on stage in 1977 singing. She’s wearing the 1977 live concert performance costume for Dancing Queen. Melody Maker – 16 September 1978 (Page 15) Disco Ducks – ABBA: Summer Night City (Epic 6595). Single Reviewed by Chris Brazier It wasn’t so very long ago that I considered ABBA the best singles band of the seventies, and that despite the embarrassing lyrics, the MOR steering-lock, the Charlie’s Angels synthetic Scandaloll come-on. That was before the single was given a transfusion of young blood, but their supreme ability to craft instantly memorable, perfectly produced 45s can’t be questioned. It was only a matter of time before they sidled into the Gibb Brothers’ disco penthouse with their trademarked sound intact and success inevitable, and I don’t object though I probably should. Melody Maker – 30 December 1978 (Page 5) The Charts: Gold Diggers of Best Selling Albums of 1978: Here are the most popular albums for 1978. This chart is based on awarding points for a record’s entry and duration of stay in The Melody Maker albums chart. No.1- Saturday Night Fever - Bee Gees & Various Artists, 2- The Album – ABBA, 3- Out, Of The Blue – Electric Light Orchestra 4- Grease – Soundtrack, 5-War Of The Worlds – Various Artists, 6-Rumours – Fleetwood Mac, 7- Nightflight To Venus – Boney M 8- New Boots And Panties – Ian Dury, 9- And Then There Were Three – Genesis, 10- The Kick Inside – Kate Bush 1978’s Best Selling Album Artists No.1- Bee Gees, 2- ABBA, 3- Electric Light Orchestra, 4- Fleetwood Mac, 5- Boney M, 6- Ian Dury, 7- Kate Bush, 8- Genesis, 9- Don Williams, 10- Thin Lizzy Melody Maker – 6 January 1979 (Page 5) The Charts: Gold Diggers of Best Selling Singles of 1978 No.1- Rivers Of Babylon/ Brown Girl In The Ring – Boney M, 2- You’re The One That I Want – John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John, 3- Night Fever – Bee Gees, 4-Summer Nights - John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John, 5- Smurf Song – Father Abraham, 6- Three Times A Lady – Commodores, 7- Baker Street – Gerry Rafferty, 8-Rat Trap – Boomtown Rats, 9- Wuthering Heights – Kate Bush, 10- Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs – Brian And Michael, 11- Dreadlock Holiday – 10CC, 12- Denis – Blondie, 13-Take A Chance On Me – ABBA 1978’s Best Selling Single Artists No.1- Boney M, 2- John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John, 3- Bee Gees, 4- Darts, 5- Blondie, 6- Boomtown Rats, 7- Showaddywaddy 8- Electric Light Orchestra, 9- Rose Royce, 10- Donna Summer, 11- Kate Bush, 12- Father Abraham, 13- ABBA, 14- Chick, 15- Wings Melody Maker – 27 January 1979 (Page 24) ABBA: Chiquitita (Epic Epc7030). Single Reviewed by Simon Frith Their UNICEF number. long, pretentious saga, appropriately of reconciliation; their close harmony chanting still touches me. Photo: Benny and Björn in a Stockholm Polar Recording Studio office. Björn: “Oh no! Not the Melody Maker singles page!” Benny: Relax. It’s only Simon. He thinks our stuff is significant.” Melody Maker – 21 April 1979 (Page 3) ABBA: New album ABBA who release a new album early next month, are close to finalising details of the long-rumoured British tour. They have been tentatively booked in for four nights at the 8,000 seater Wembley Arena at the end of October and the start of November, but there has been no confirmation of these dates or any other planned concerts from the band’s label Epic. Epic did confirm that ABBA are due in Britain at that time, “but as the moment three promoters have put in bids for the band.” The new ABBA album, Voulez-Vous?, is released on May 4, and a single, Does Your Mother Know? is out on Friday next week. The single was previewed on the BBC ABBA in Switzerland programme on Easter Monday. Melody Maker – 12 May 1979 (Page 20) Album: 21 views of ABBA - Our team of ethnomusicologists, sociologists, psephologists, semiologists and bebopologists get a minimum of one word and a maximum of 50 to sum up the state of the Swedish economy. ABBA: Voulez-Vous (Epic EPC 86086) * No one is excluded as The Corporation deliver ten off-the-peg items to fit any size or occasion for today’s leisure-wear customer. Gruelingly perfect, terminally alienated and supremely synthetic wardrobe Muzac. – Ian Birch. * Non. – Brian Case * Visually, they’re stupefyingly dull and robot-like, antiseptically tailored for page 5 of The Sun – but let nobody deny ABBA’s music. Their hooks are always magical – and this album adds love stories with bite. It’s a warm and compelling collection of handsomely – crafted hit singles. Bring back the Light Programme. - Ray Coleman. * I’d buy it because (a) it’s trés ABBA (the white chic), (b) it’s sly (Angeleyes – pure pop) and even subtle (Does Your Mother Know? – shift of vocal emphasis), and (c) it provides no less than six nominations for ‘Greatest Hits Volume 2’. – Harry Doherty. * Starts like the Wombles, ends like the Three Degrees, but in between ABBA’s mawkish decline proceeds. They used to be the toothpaste, but their centre’s gone soft. They’re becoming part of pop’s decay. – Simon Frith. * ABBA is a booming industry. The name sells the products – the products sell themselves. Voulez-Vous: ten songs, every one a winner, already two are big hits. ABBA aren’t my cup of tea but I admire them for their consistency in combining quality with appeal. Voulez-Vous cannot fail – Steve Gett. * ABBA dabba doo. I won’t play this and neither will you. Unless I’m driving on the motorway – Breezes blowing hair away – Racing cars to violins – Then it might be worth a spin. ABBA dabba dabba din. – Viviaen Goldman. * Less an album than a collection of disparate, intelligent, inventive, breathlessly up-to-the-minute singles, each with the potential to be a number one hit. A brilliant achievement. – Stan Hey. * Stainless and steely as ever, it’s departure-lounge perfection. Overlooking Björn’s plastic macho and the frightful I Have A Dream, this beats dynamite, Volvos and Alfred Nobel. Your international passport to listening pleasure – Susan Hill. * Today’s music-while-you-work: tomorrow’s affectionate nostalgia. For half-time, when you’re losing by an own goal. For biscuit factories and Tupperware parties. For dull thrills. For romance without sex. Frigid. Calculating. But they still eat Boney M alive, and the choreography’s wonderful - Colin Irwin. * Hello! Pliss esscuse this Inlish. I ham onely pure Svedish chump. I hev no tim for ABBA, blotty frankly mayt. I cont more to ask Chris Velch all he iss knowink about Homble Pie. Pliss – vot iss Greg Ridley doink now? Bot eniff of this armless binter! Goodbye minfrind Chris – Nalla Senoj. * Every track’s a hit, every hit’s a foregone conclusion. As safe and sure as the Swedish economy (they are the Swedish economy) with a timely disco dash to the predictable potpourri. At last – the ABBA – rage Trite Bland album – John Orme. * It would be churlish to admit that ABBA have got it – the above should read “Churlish not to admit” which however would spoil the suffocating symmetry of it and that just wouldn’t do in A review of Voulez-Vous. Not that I know. What the word ‘Churlish’ means Anyway (Fifty, including ‘fifty’) - Andrew Nickolds. * ABBA’s singles are as ingenious and as Kleenex. But who wants to own them, let alone an entire album? Wrong size, wrong speed and with nothing to compete against, it all sounds the same. But ABBA are closer to Blondie than you think… - Christopher Petit. * Perfect international pop music for the Eighties: Sleeker than Concorde, more successful than Sir Freddie, more durable than jet-lag, and as soulful as a stewardess’s smile – John Pidgeon. * Consider a business: instead of zinc, cars, soap, they sell dreams. And music: perfect, brilliant pop records. For a world market, emotions, fantasies, images are fed into democratic computer. 1979 model, to include New! Improved!! Universal language – disco. Eurovision, global-pop-middle common denominator. AHR ABBA. Babel into Babble – Jon Savage. * The new Jefferson Starship album is a killer! Carefully disguised as wimpish love songs, those ten new tunes contain outrageous statements on everything from the Ottoman Empire to the Clash, more than justifying the band’s reputation as the world is leading folk group. Fail to make Voulez-Vous your mantra, and 1975 will never arrive – James Truman. * Sharply calculated de-sophisticated disco for Torremolinos tourists scared of Alicia Bridges. Laminated sound, preposterous strings, Nana Mouskouri impersonations, all redeemed by Angeleyes: St Paul’s choir meets the Four Seasons. The writer puts the track on repeat – and is lost. Absolute pop corrupts absolutely – Penny Valentine. * Nice girls and nice men from nice country with nice music in nice English for nice families on nice occasions = Swedish gross national product. Nice schtick if you can work it – Michael Watts. * The Brechtian Angle: ABBA conquered the world because they understood the appeal of Swedish women singing in English with very slight accents (distance lends enchantment). Kisses Of Fire may be a masterpiece – Richard Williams. * No revelation – but up to expectation; with one innovation – an inevitable discofication. Open to accusation of cold calculation – and lyrical affection is a minor irritation; but oh, those Yamaha synthesizer oscillations! If ‘The Album’ was a slight aberration, this one should restore their reputation – Pete Wingfield. Melody Maker – 26 May 1979 (Page 16) Now, about that mental ABBA-ration… I don’t really expect you to print this letter, but please read it through and show it to all your critics before you throw it away. I was reading your 21 views on ABBA and would like to know where you got your team of ethno-musicologists, etc. Just give them a posh name and they think they’re really IT. Well, I can tell you something: they’re a load of excrement. You have probably gathered by now that I’m an ABBA fan, and to me your 21 bums that wrote the reviews are really a bit weird and way out. If an LP can go straight in at No. 1 and go platinum after a couple of days of release, how can it be bad? Melody Maker, you’re not moving with the times. Forget The Who and The Rolling Stones, they went out with the ark. You’re about a decade behind the times – From Cary Parks, Stuart Road, Barton-le-Clay, Beds. Well, Melody Maker, you’ve finally broken the clapometer. How does it feel to have, at least, the courage of your own restrictions? I’m of course referring to last week’s Ali-Abba and 21 views - the other 19 had the oil invective boiled out of them. Sorry, but a paper with as many brains does not a cerebellum make. Nor, I presume, does your type of mass support give you the spine you to earnestly desire. Such a “clever” review must leave all concerned with a rather unrestrained feeling of pride – it should, because your fall would feel so lonely without its company paving the way. Now, really, the idea of Richard Williams and his merry men bashing away at our rich Swedes in the stocks, more realistically resembled a gang-bang than a rustic runaround. Or was it some strange initiation ceremony for journalists? Shame on you, Melody Maker and wash that blood from your hand – From John Lee, Angus Street, Glasgow. Melody Maker – 2 June 1979 (Page 3) …And ABBA will knock the Arena for six nights ABBA have finally set the details of their British tour in November, with ten concerts that take in Wembley, Glasgow, Dublin and Stafford. The tour marks the group’s first UK shows for nearly three years, and follows the predictably rapid rise into the charts of their new album, Voulez-Vous, which was released three weeks ago and achieved platinum sales status in the first week. ABBA kick off their tour with six nights at the Wembley Arena, from November 5 to 10, then play Stafford Bingley Hall on November 11 and 12, Glasgow Apollo on November 13 and Dublin Royal Dublin Society Hall on November 14. Tickets for the shows are available as follows: Wembley – from June 16, priced £7.50 and £6.50, by personal application from the Wembley Box Office or the Harvey Goldsmith Box Office, 50 New Bond Street, London W1, or by postal applications, acceptable immediately, from the ABBA Box Office, PO Box 4TL, with postal order and s.a.e. Stafford – from June 8 by postal application only, tickets priced £7.50, £6 and £5, from ABBA concerts, 2 Swinbourne Grove, Withinington, Manchester M20 9PP. Cheques or postal orders payable to Kennedy Street Enterprises, plus an s.a.e. Glasgow – available by personal application at £7.50, £6.50, £5 and £4.50 from the Glasgow Apollo box office. Dublin – available at £8.50, £7.50, £6.50 and £5.50 from Golden Discs, Sound of Music or Switzers (Dublin) or Harrisons (Belfast). Melody Maker – 30 June 1979 (Page 32) ABBA: Angeleyes/Voulez-Vous (Epic SEPC 7499). Single Review by Ian Birch Taken out of the context of the album, both cuts sound oddly plodding. Neither are a patch on the (almost) wonderful Does Your Mother Know? Melody Maker – 10 November 1979 (Page 3) ABBA tickets Five hundred tickets for each of ABBA’s Wembley Arena shows this week are available at £7.50 a piece. The tickets are at the side of the stage, and have become free because the staging takes up less room than was imagined. The seats are now available from the Wembley box office or Virgin’s London Megastore ticket machine in Oxford Street. Melody Maker – 10 November 1979 (Page 39) Caught in the act: ABBA at Wembley Arena. By Susan Hill Arguably one of the greatest musical phenomena of the decade, ABBA showed their mettle, or rather their tinsel, in a show that was a sort of glossy retrospective. With ponchos hiding paunchos, cracks about former wives, and Agnetha’s allegedly forthcoming retirement, there was some impression that these four proper grown-ups were just a bit jaded, and the concert was energetically back-ward-looking. I didn’t see them when they played here three years ago, but this time there was a shade too much posturing and prancing, a few too many pats and primps of new hair-dos and a curious science fiction/Doctor whose line of costumes that suggested nostalgia for earlier rock theatrics of the decade. Slightly nervous, particularly Agnetha (whose fabulous voice was intermittently shaky), with one or two false starts and some ropey harmonies (which weren’t helped by a sound system in need of care and attention), the show didn’t quite match expectations. The recordings have lead us to expect precision-made steely excellence, but here they were shrill, harsh and oddly shambolic at times. A particularly nasty moment came when a choir of school-kids (the black one dead centre) joined them on stage for I Have A Dream. It’s impossible, however, not to be left gawping at so many near-perfect pop songs and one, Knowing me, Knowing You; utterly flawless. They did them all – SOS, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!, Fernando, The Name Of The Game, Money, Money, Money, Voulez-Vous and many others from their recent album. An effective eight pieces of instrumental and vocal back-up, with outstanding synthesisers, made a hefty noise, and ABBA tried very hard to muster enthusiasm in the crowd. No need, it was not the kind of audience that needs encouragements. Melody Maker – 29 December 1979 (Page 6) The Charts: Gold Diggers of 1979 No.44- Chiquitita – ABBA / Ain’t no stopping us now – McFadden & Whitehead No.47- Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! – ABBA / Angel Eyes – Roxy Music. (A tie of two songs for the 44th and 47th placings.) 1979’s Best Selling Single Artists No.1- Blondie, 2- ABBA, 3- Earth, Wind And Fire, 4- Police, 5- Chic, 6- Sex Pistols/Sid Vicious, 7- Electric Light Orchestra, 8-Squeeze, 9- Roxy Music 10- Three Degrees. Melody Maker – 5 January 1980 (Page 6) The Charts: Gold Diggers of 1979: Here are the most popular albums for 1979. This Chart is based on awarding points for a record’s entry and duration of stay in The Melody Maker Charts. No.1- Parallel Lines (Blondie) , 2- Breakfast In America (Supertramp), 3- Discovery (Electric Light Orchestra), 4- Outlandos D’amour (Police), 5- I Am (Earth, Wind And Fire), 6- Voulez-Vous (ABBA), 7- Spirits Having Flown (Bee Gees), 8- Armed Forces (Elvis Costello), 9- Replicas (Tubeway Army), 10- Manifesto (Roxy Music), 11- Dire Straits, 12- The Very Best Of (Leo Sayer), 24- Off The Wall (Michael Jackson), 45- Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (ABBA) / Singles 1974-1978 (Carpenters) / Bob Dylan At Budokan, 48- Greatest Hits (10CC). 1979’s Best Selling Album Artists No.1- Blondie, 2- Police, 3- Earth, Wind And Fire, 4- Electric Light Orchestra, 5- Supertramp, 6- ABBA, 7- Dire Straits 8- Ian Dury & The Blockheads, 9- Tubeway Army, 10- Barry Manilow, 11- Bee Gees, 12- Elvis Costello, 13- Roxy Music, 14- Rod Stewart, 16- Leo Sayer, 17- Bob Dylan, 18- Chic, 19- Boney M, 20- Gerry Rafferty, 21- Wings, 26- Queen, 28- Led Zeppelin 29- Michael Jackson, 34- Fleetwood Mac, 36- Boomtown Rats, 39- Elton John, 41- Carpenters, 49- 10CC. Melody Maker – 9 August 1980 (Page 12) ABBA: The Winner Takes It All (Epic). Superstars: Single File reviewed by Martyn Sutton Yet another solid gold hit – it will probably be number one. ABBA’s contribution to popular music has been to take simple musical statements, inject complex arranging and production techniques and produce timeless pop hits that appeal to millions. Right then, that’s summed up why they’ve sold trillions of records in 27 words. Melody Maker – 22 November 1980 (Page 26) ABBA: Super Trouper (Epic 10022). Reviewed by Lynden Barber The ABBA Route to easy escapism! It’s so easy to slag ABBA…as the Melody Maker reviews editor must have thought when he handed me this album with reluctance, obviously imagining critical incisors being sharpened for the Scandinavian jugular. Superficial pap, commercial suga ‘n’ spice, music for the bank manager, etc., etc. And, it has to be admitted, ABBA do sometimes set themselves up as easy meat for bloodthirsty hacks. When they include unintentionally hilarious lyrics like: “This guy was coming up to me/He said “Who am I and who are you and who are we?/What’s our situation ? Do we have some time for us/ I said I was not exactly waiting for the bus” (from On And On And On). But dwelling too long on their soft edge, their banal words their sexist image, is perhaps missing something. For unlike some of their contemporaries in the mass market place (like, say, Wings and Supertramp), ABBA write great pop songs that have magic – that ethereal quality which no critic can define, analyse or rationalise. The Winner Takes It All, included here, is perhaps the supreme example of this magical ambiance. Unusually for ABBA the lyrics have personal cutting power (presumably a reference to the split between Agnetha and Benny, or was it Frida and Björn, or Björn and Agnetha?). Many of the tunes on Super Trouper share its shimmering qualities – On And On And On, Lay All Your Love On Me could all be deserving number one hits. The final tracks Lay All Your Love On Me and The Way Old Friends Do – are more than just songs, their hymns, uplifting in the same way as their earlier Arrival LP. Unfortunately there’s a depressing side to all this. The terrible The Piper, sounding too close to Mike Oldfield for comfort; and Happy New Year, less of a hymn and more of a Christmas carol. Yes, ABBA are a marketing exercise (“Win A Saab” is emblazoned across the cover). They are – at least in places – sickly. But as long as they go on churning out such high quality pop I’m prepared to turn one blind eye at least. Is unadulterated escapism any worse than the gloom and defeatist pessimism of, say, Killing Joke? Maybe not. Melody Maker – 27 December 1980 (Page 2) 1980 Charts of the year: Singles No.24- The Winner Takes It All – ABBA, 45- Super Trouper – ABBA 1980 Top Singles Artists No.1- Madness, 2- Blondie, 3- UB40, 4- Police, 5- ABBA, 6- Sheena Easton, 7- Diana Ross, 8- David Bowie, 9- Odyssey, 10- Beat. Melody Maker – 3 January 1981 (Page 2) 1980 Charts of the year: Albums No.30- Greatest Hits Volume 2 - ABBA 1980 Top Albums Artists No.1- Police, 2- Michael Jackson, 3- Madness, 4- Roxy Music, 5- Sky, 6- Specials, 7- Status Quo, 8- Joan Armatrading, 9- Pretenders, 10- Rose Royce, 11- Genesis, 12- George Benson, 13- ABBA. Melody Maker – 21 February 1981 (Page 3) ABBA Split Shock (again!) The dark haired bird (Anni-Frid Lyngstad) and the one with the beard (Benny Andersson) are getting divorced. The divorce was decided upon “following mature consideration and in full accord.” (So much accord, so much divorce). The couple claim that neither their divorce, nor that of the blonde-bird and the one who looks like Jimmy Carter will affect the future of the group… Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson released a very brief statement in regards to their divorce to the media claiming that: The decision has been taken after considerable consideration and mutual agreement. We realise there will now be speculation in the Press but we shall have to accept that. Our private life is our own affair and has nothing to do with anyone else. This step won’t affect our participation in ABBA. It is of a completely private nature. BENNY: Frida and I are still friends. What keeps us all together now is that we respect each other for what we can do together musically. I don’t know how other people deal with this. It’s all new to me. Frida and I did discuss whether the group would be able to stay together after our break-up. We were very close to splitting for a while. But we figured that the group had weathered the break-up of Björn and Agnetha so they could handle ours as well. We decided to stick together for the sake of the music. After all, we do enjoy what we do. Mona Nörklit is my new companion. Call her that. FRIDA: I’ve learned from my mistakes in the past. I don’t want my new man facing all the publicity and the questions and that’s why I’m keeping his name a secret. But you can tell everyone that I’m in love and Frida has a new fella. He’s not in this business and I love that. He’s a part of my life but I realise now that it’s important to develop interests outside show-business. Marriage is no longer important to me. Love is. We’ll have to see what happens. My children are already grown up. I’m not sure I want to begin again. Now that Benny and I have broken up, we’re able to work together better. Our relationship is more calm and relaxed. Benny and I are good friends and we really do like each other. There’s nothing sad about it. We’ve just grown apart because of our different interests in life. We’ve always been honest with one another. We talked and talked and talked and finally agreed that a divorce was the only answer. Melody Maker – 7 March 1981 (Page 3) Knowing Me, Knowing You …. caused two dedicated ABBA fans to nearly commit suicide outside Benny Andersson’s home. The two teenage girls were so upset that they couldn’t get to meet their hero, they swallowed 100 sleeping pills, and lay down to die in the snow outside. Only swift intervention by Benny’s seventeen year old son, Peter Grönvall, stopped them dying… Melody Maker – 11 July 1981 (Page 2) ABBA: Lay All Your Love On Me (Epic). Single reviewed by Ian Pye Ah! Real-estate investors, get down and boogie! Over a Euro-disco backdrop the two perfect couples weave their anthemic magic. A lovely record for Prince Charles to put on the royal turntable before consummating the wedding of all time! Lady Di should love it. Melody Maker – 1 August 1981 (Page 2) Single Chart Of The Week: No.5 - Lay All Your Love On Me (up from No.8) Melody Maker – 19 September 1981 (Page 3) …ABBA flew specially in for the CBS Convention in Bournemouth last week, and spent some time chatting in their own respective languages to the man behind the Starsound. Other strange bedfellows were three Nolans, the Slits and Barbra Dickson. Melody Maker – 2 January 1982 (Page 2) 1981’s Top 33s (Abums Chart) No.42- Super Trouper – ABBA 1981’s Top 33s Artists (For Albums Chart) No.41- ABBA Melody Maker – 27 November 1982 (Page 24) ABBA: The Singles – The First Ten Years (Epic ABBA 10). Reviewed by Colin Irwin Christmas up the road, persistent rumours of ABBA’s demise, and a couple of recent singles whose unseemly grappling with the lower reaches of the charts suggest their extraordinary run of commercial killings may at last be on the skids. All that and their tenth anniversary – it was an offer Epic couldn’t refuse, so here it is…the definitive ABBA collection. The album trendy rock writers will have ostentatiously nestling in their collection between Bob Marley and The Fall; the album insurance salesmen in Hemel will turn to get them through the night; the album that will still be dominating the LP charts when Musical Youth are making concept albums and Martin Fry is recording duets with Paul McCartney. For such an awesome mega-product it’s a relatively modest package. A mere double-album – 23 tracks, gatefold cover, and picturesque inner sleeves. But no posters, detailed biographies, track-by-track analysis, no firework displays. Just 23 hits from Ring, Ring through to their next one, Under Attack, and apart from a market increase in sophistication and a few new toys like vocoders, they don’t sound radically different. “The Singles” is a telling title. Divorced from their proper environment – which is an innocuous and sweetly incongruous accompaniment to daily routine backed up by a slickly glamorous video – the tracks here sound uniformly naff. Maybe the pure pop squadron hold ABBA as a reference point when they claim that singles should be momentarily fab and then disposable – but none of ABBA’s singles are, by stretch of the imagination, classics, and placing them back to back on an album merely serves to display their one-paced tweeness and their cold, sexless money-making machinery. They emerged from a tradition of pop-MOR that encompassed The Carpenters and The New Seekers and has since spawned Bucks Fizz and Dollar, who have themselves acquired a similarly dubious hip credibility in chic circles. It’s an indictment of us all that we keep falling for it. Okay, so they’ve churned out bland day time radio fodder with remarkable painlessness and professionalism – and I’ve been seduced by the coy choruses of Fernando, Dancing Queen, The Name Of The Game, Chiquitita, Does Your Mother Know?, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!, Super Trouper and One Of Us as much as anybody. But you can’t escape the fact that in any terms beyond the blandest, most superficial areas of brain diversion, they just aren’t very good. The ladies don’t sing very well, and the boys couch their arrangements in an obnoxious pseudo – scientific calculation that’s shown up for the pompous vacuum that it is when laid out so unemotionally in album form. It could be a museum. Or a morgue. Lynden Barber’s just wandered by and commented that he likes Dancing Queen and The Winner Takes It All, others among you will no doubt be wildly thrilled by the prospects of titles like I Have A Dream, Mamma Mia and Money, Money, Money (a laughable lyric view of ABBA’s reputation as shrewd accountants and Sweden’s richest export outside of Saab) under one roof. But believe me, after a brief, token rush of thrill, the tracks blur into one another and you curse again the irritating quirk of human nature that not only demands but spends fortunes on music that doesn’t even begin to challenge or test the sensibilities. And you curse the cynical opportunities who perpetrate it even more bitterly. Melody Maker – 10 September 1983 (Page 3) ABBA: No split! ABBA have hit back at rumours in the national press that the group has split. Reports have claimed that their involvement in the Swedish Kuben Investment Company scandal could lead to their eventual break-up and financial demise. But an ABBA spokesperson told The Melody Maker that the group’s involvement in the crisis was only as shareholders. Melody Maker – 5 November 1983 (Page 17) ABBA: Thank You For The Music (Epic). Single Reviewed by Blancmange: Stephen Luscombe and Neil Arthur Stephen: “Immaculate as per usual; this is beyond the realms of kitsch. Who cares if they’re rich? I do! They’re better looking than a Volvo and they sound nicer as well.” Neil: “Thanks a million ABBA – for giving it to me! I really like this, they can re-release it as many times as they want as far as I’m concerned.” Melody Maker – 8 June 1985 (Page 33) Agnetha Fältskog: Eyes Of A Woman (Epic). Album reviewed by Barry McIlheney Life after ABBA must be fairly awful prospect for all those concerned. No more instant number ones, no longer the undying affection of boys and girls around the world, not quite as many bigger – than Volvo jokes, and really just the royalties to fall back on. And for Agnetha Fältskog, the added bonus of knowing that grown men once wept over what they claimed was the most exquisite backside in Western Europe. Don’t really know too much about that one, being a bit of a Song-man myself, know what I mean, and, on this account alone Agnetha appears to have re-emerged smelling of wonderful harmonies and first-class middle-eight is in the wake of the tragic split. Naturally enough, she doesn’t write anything here herself (except for the music to I Won’t Let You Go), quite content to grace the works of various other lesser mortals with her immaculate, sugar-sweet voice. Jeff Lynne and Justin Hayward both of whom used to be quite well-known, are just two of the desperadoes who obviously sweated blood to get on here and thus ensure endless respect from their grandchildren and, if their efforts are not quite up to the Benny Andersson is god-standard, they are still considerably better than anything else they have done in the last 35 years. Neither Paris Edvinson (great name) or Marianne Flynner are even half as well known as old Jeff and Justin, but their co-credit on the title track here should go some way towards reversing this unfortunate position. Classic stuff really, three short introductory verses, an essential ABBA-style chorus, and in “good without the evil is a cob without the corn”, a line to set alongside such other all-time greats as the opening run to Take A Chance On Me or the Glasgow reference on the seriously underrated Super Trouper. Similarly, a certain Paul Muggleton can come on down this instant for his sterling effort on Just One Heart, showing off the more up-tempo, slightly breathless Agnetha delivery, while The Angels Cry is so good that it immediately makes one harbour all sorts of uncharitable thoughts towards Bucks Fizz and wonder aloud why this woman does not have a BBC series of her own at the very least. Melody Maker – 9 January 1988 (Page 4) ABBA, who recently threatened to sue The Justified Ancient, Of Mu Mu, have had the tables troubles turned on them and are being sued by Swedish Government for tax evasion. The Government claims that Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog owe them about £700,000 in tax on stocks and shares bought and sold in 1985. The pair are contesting the case. Melody Maker – 30 January 1988 (Page 27) Agnetha Fältskog: The Last Time (WEA) & Donna Summer: All Systems Go (WEA). Singles reviewed by Carmen Keats Old stage queens take their revenge, from two opposing standpoints. While effete blonde Swede laments the passing of the good times with the lover boy, begging in concentrated empty beatlessness to hold him once more etc. etc., Donna braces her ligaments, lifts a bullworker and makes the nerves in the hoariest old body go slishy-slushy. It’s the title track off her now-and-then mighty album, all tears and smiles. This is a carefree as Audrey Hepburn at Tiffany’s, long-limbed as a giraffe, itchy as Paris in Springtime and the bit where Donna’s meteorological larynx goes “go” over 11 syllables is rainboid. Melody Maker – 23 January 1988 (Page 7) ‘Original Artists’ responsible for Jamm: Single Shock! The continuing saga of sampling renegades The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu took another staggering twist yesterday that left top pop commentators reeling. Said Paul Mathur: “The whole thing snacks of heist through and through”. Said the NME: “It’s just scam after scam! This is the new sub punk art thrash noise cut-up Fairlight robbery that is quite literary terrorising every man, woman and child in the country!” For the JAMM’s Bill Drummond NOW claims that the record “Twenty Greatest Hits” was in fact perpetrated by the original artists – top pop names such as The Rolling Stones, Madonna and ABBA! “Yes, it was them all the time,” quipped the roguish Drummond. “I was just pulling the strings and pulling the wool over the eyes of the fat cats.” All this comes after last week’s astonishing revelation that Alan McGee, rebel head of Creation records had “had a hand in the distribution side of things” and the bombshell that the single includes extracts from Pete Crenshaw’s letter of resignation from Maverick label One Little Indian Summer Of Success, although WEA have now put the cat among the pigeons by issuing a press release to the effect that copies of the new single have been held up “because of difficulties at the production end”. But the biggest shocker has come from the Musician’s Union who claim that The Justified name is a breach of copyright on the initials MU. Bill Drummond hit back yesterday with a (oh, shut up – Ed) Picture of a drawing involving a condom being used: “It’s quite safe – I’m wearing a condominium!” Melody Maker – 25 April 1992 (Page 12) True Stories not! Tra-la-la-li-li-li alert! Here’s a true story from sweetie-pie band The Popinjays. Last week, Wendy went out to buy toys for the cover shot of their rodential new single, “Monster Mouse”, when who should walk in to the toy shop? None other than, and wait for it, Björn from, oh, for Chrissake, you know damn well from. (No, actually, I don’t – Divoid Ed). Jezz, Björn from ABBA, of course. Naturally, Wendy thought she’d died and gone to heaven, so there she stood open mouthed, watching her hero buy toys for his sprog and nattering on in Swedish. She couldn’t wait to tell her friends that she’d stood right next to him and that he wasn’t with Agnetha, either. Thing is, aside from the fact that Björn’s been divorced from Agnetha for years, don’t most Swedish men d’un certain age look a lot like Björn from ABBA? Melody Maker – 16 May 1992 (Page 2) Erasure are set to release “ABBA-Esque” – an EP of ABBA songs – on Mute on 1 June 1992. Track listing is: Lay All Your Love On Me, S.O.S., Take A Chance On Me and Voulez-Vous. The duo have long been ABBA enthusiasts, and previously recorded Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) as the B-side of their early single Oh L’Amour. They intend to include an extended selection of ABBA songs in their forthcoming series of live shows, which open at Manchester Apollo on the 7th of June 1992. Erasure’s interpretation of Take A Chance On Me features ‘a rap by MC Kinky, the vocalist on E-2ee Possee’s hit Everything begins with an E. Melody Maker – 6 June 1992 (Page 13) Live! U2 - Let there be satellite - Earl’s Court, London By Jon Wilde Moments to treasure: The halfway point of Until The End Of The World when Bono takes another strut along the catwalk, grabs a camcorder, aims it straight at his bulging crotch and delights in watching the image flash up on 60 video screens; ribcaving deliveries of Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, Bullet The Blue Sky and Even Better Than The Real Thing; impromptu snatches of Unchained Melody and Dancing Queen; a rousing acoustic version of Angel Of Harlem; the opening verse of Where The Streets Have No Name, where Bono offers an unexpected parody of Neil Tennant’s camp delivery. In short, nothing less than a revelation. U2 have regained the world. Melody Maker – 20 June 1992 (Page 14) Live! Erasure – Apollo, Manchester By Paul Mathur And what frustrates me most is that somewhere, deep down, they could be much more. Songs like Ship of fools, Chains Of Love, Blue Savannah and Oh Sometime have a lush, irresistible energy, a dynamic beauty that transcends any demands of credibility. Unfortunately, for every classic, there’s half a dozen duffers, like the covers of Somewhere Over The Rainbow and Stand By Your Man (Yeah, we geddit). Worst of all, there’s the ABBA covers. That Mute, unquestionably the most influential electronic pop music label of all time should have their first straight-in-at-number-one chart smasheroonie from a throwaway karaoke run-through, is deeply saddening. Melody Maker – 27 June 1992 (Page 30) Live! U2 - G-Mex, Manchester Review of the concert: ….Unchained Melody and Dancing Queen are rendered flat as a freshly-pressed flounder. True Stories (Page 55) Aren’t the Swedes lucky? (Um, reasons why on a post card sent to the usual address, and well send a placcy bag full of obscure and trendy band tee-shirts.) When U2 played there last week, Björn and Benny from ABBA got up and made their first appearance in years with an impromptu version of Dancing Queen. That was this week’s great moment in rock ‘n’ roll history. Melody Maker – 22 August 1992 (Page 27) ABBA: Dancing Queen (Polydor) & Abbacadabra: Dancing Queen (PWL International). Singles Reviewed by David Bennun Hindu and Buddhist devotees, on the other hand, believe in the principle of Karma, whereby status in this life is determined by the soul’s behaviour in previous incarnations; it follows that how you conduct yourself this time around will decide what happens to you next. If you model yourself on Gandhi, St. Francis of Assisi and Bob Geldof, you may be lucky enough to come back as one of ABBA, in which case you will have a chance to create records as thrillingly life enhancing as the original Dancing Queen, Lay All Your Love On Me and The Day Before You Came (all on the longer format), buy most of Sweden, and finally cash in on your own comeback. Should you live a life of the foulest depravity, then find that your application to join the family rodentiae has been turned down, you may well return as a member of Abbacadabra. The eternal wheel of divine justice stops for no man. Melody Maker – 30 October 1992 (Page 34) Top 50 Network Albums Chart: No.1 – ABBA: Gold-Greatest Hits (Polydor). Melody Maker – 12 December 1992 (Page 31) ABBA: Thank You For The Music (Polydor). Single Reviewed by Jennifer Nine Not a top effort, sadly, from this promising young Swedish quartet. The B side, Happy New Year, however, is an exquisitely bitter and uncelebratory disembowelment of the hellish holiday in question. Required listening for resentful wallowers, come New Year’s Eve. Melody Maker – 28 November 1992 (Page 34) Mike Mills of R.E.M. talks about the songs that end his world as he knows it. 1) Bob Dylan: “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again” (from Blonde On Blonde). 2) ABBA: “Waterloo” (from Gold - Greatest Hits) – I heard this and I thought, this is how to write a pop song. This is how to make a pop record. And I’m a huge ABBA fan. You don’t listen to it for lyrical content, but as far as constructing and producing pop songs goes, there is nobody better. Are they an influence? Probably! It’s not like I consciously try to write songs like Björn and Benny, but if you want to put on well-done music that makes you happy, this is probably about as good as it gets. It’s everything a sunny day should be.” 3) Al Green: “Belle” (from Belle); 4) The Velvet Underground: “Sunday Morning” (from The Velvet Underground); 5) Nirvana: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (from Nevermind); 6) The Fith Dimension: “Go Where You Wanna Go” (Single); 7) The Beach Boys: “Waiting For The Day” (from Pet Sounds); 8) Big Star: “The Ballad Of El Goodo” (from No.1 Record).
Message from Samuel Inglles who compiled these articles and many others used on ABBAMAIL's website: All the research I spent into collecting ABBA articles since the late 1980’s are dedicated to my fellow ABBA Fans who have given us all so much joys with all their respective hard works. I sincerely thank you all who have also inspired me to do this: Paul Carter – All your endless colourful work has made you a Legend forever now! I enjoy and appreciate all your efforts so much! They’re just simply Phenomenal. Enjoy your well deserved break! Claes Davidsson – I love your ‘Agnetha Fältskog Archives’ website, and lots more. Keep up all the Excellent hard work, for always! Graeme Read and everyone else involved in all these wonders … – My wishes and dreams concerning ABBA have been made come true through the many ABBA internet websites! Thank you to you all, for all your love and enthusiasm through your participation and hard works!
|
