Review

From Dutch morning-paper "De Volkskrant" this review of "Bright Lights, Dark Shadows" by Carl Magnus Palm.

"FOUR SWEET STARS"

In Sweden there's no tradition in writing books about popstars, this is what Carl Magnus Palm is stating in the introduction of his book "Bright Lights, Dark Shadows", sub-titled "The Real Story Of ABBA". He continues to tell that Brittish and American music-journalists are mainly interested in Anglo/Saxon and Afro-American artists. He claims that ABBA isn't an interesting subject.

Maybe Palm is right, but it's strange that, apart from The Beatles and Elvis Presley, the worlds best selling popfenomena has so little good documented books written about them. There are some photo books, and some waek biographies and there is some very well written information available in the liner-notes in the CD-Box "Thank You For The Music".

That's all ABBA-fans got.

And the number of ABBA-fans is growing, not only looking at the sales of the "ABBA-Gold" CD (over 20 milion copies sold), but also the success of the Australian Cover Band Björn Again who are touring the Dutch Theatres these weeks.

So, it's not strange that Omnibus-Press, publisher of Pop Books, thought the time is right for a real ABBA Study. And it isn't strange that they approached a Swedish writer either. Since there aren't that many Anglo/Saxon, Swedish speaking writers with the knowledge of ABBA. The choice was made, it had to be Carl Magnus Palm.

8 Years ago, he published the pretty impressive "ABBA-The Complete Recording Sessions". And, as he let's us know, he uses a lot of the research material (interviews with all involved) again for this book.

And he's intitled to do so, but as a reader you're getting the impression that, eventhough it's over 500 pages, he made it a little too easy for himself. It didn't take him more than a year to finnish the book. Not a long time for such a big subject. And it's also a little strange that he didn't find it nessisary, or he didn't get premissiion, to interview the four members personally, something that Palm leaves unmentioned in his book. And that's amazing, Because one might expect that this time round he needed more specific information about Björn and Benny, Agnetha and Anni-Frid, at least more info than he needed to write "The Complete Recording Sessions".

Especially when the subject is about the personal side (As well as Björn and Agnetha, also Anni-Frid and Benny were a married couple), Palm should have done a better job. These private histories are a very important part in their musical history. Much more than is common in Popgroups. This is where Palms problem is revealed most clearly: his admiration for the members of ABBA is far too big, for him to take a critical distance.

These are four very sweet people who didn't do anything wrong in their lives. The fact that both marriages ended in divorce had nothing to do with the members themselves, because they are far too noble and nice to cause that to happen. No, it was the outside world that caused them to divorce.

When hard words are spoken, it has to do with their manager Stig Anderson, who died in September 1997. It wasn't ABBA that was greedy, rude and hateful, it was him. Could be, but Palm isn't writing about the misconseption in popmusic that all managers are basterds. Non-sence ofcourse, everything a manager does is because the artist wants it to happen that way. After a few blunders at the beginning of ABBA's carreer, Anderson did a few very clever things. Financially and Artistically. Palm doesn't do a lot to give him credit for that.

It was due to his efforts that kept the members of ABBA away from the 'killing' promotional-circus, by accompanying every new sinlge release with a video-clip (which was very unusual in the Seventies) And it was Anderson who knew that ABBA was much better in the studio than preforming their songs on stage. He didn't respond to the countless requests for ABBA to preform live.

But for ABBA to have success in the America, a concert-tour was nessisary. Not an easy thing to do. A lot of ABBA's unheard qualities had to to with the fantastic production of Michael Tretow, a technition obsessed by Phil Spector and Brian Wilson. It was Michael Tretow who created ABBA's clear and bombastic, outstanding sound. Palm would have done a some what better job, had he involved Michael Tretow more when he wrote the book. Especially since Björn and Benny don't seem to tell much about their way of work in ABBA.

Palm is doing a good job when it comes to the rise and fall of ABBA. The way they meet eachother (all 4 members were already famous in Scandinavia before ABBA), their first hits, and their definitive breakthrue after winning the Eurovision Songcontest in 1974 with "Waterloo", the following success, their slow fall due to personal circumstances at the beginning of the eighties.-You can all read it in clear detail-.

Dutch readers are going to have some fun when reading about the rude Willem Duyn, member of the duo 'Mouth and Mc Neal', which ABBA also thought would be a big success at the Eurovision Songcontest in 1974, singing their song "Ik Zie Een Ster" (: I see a Star (3rd rank). Or about the by ABBA much liked Eddy Becker.

But after reading this book, one question stays on your mind: "What really happend?" Palm keeps it too simple. We'd loved to have read more about the popmusical climat during the mid-Seventies. All Palm writes about is the long bearded progressive Jeans-wearing poplovers. It also would have been nice if Palm had done some reseache on ABBA's sudden popularity in the Ninties. It's something he only notices, and he writes about Björn's problem about ABBA's popularity amongst Gays, that's all.

"Bright Lights, Dark Shadows" isn't a bad book, but it would have been better if Palm didn't want to stay friends with everybody involved. One other thing is, that every chapter ends with a 'cliffhanger', perhaps for fear that readers won't finnish all 500 pages of his book?

If Sweden isn't the country of writers of Popmusic, isn't it the country of readers of pop either?

Gijsbert Kamer (Volkskrant 01-02-2002)

Translation by ABBAMAILer Lex Corbach, Groningen, The Netherlands