Saturday (April 5th) marks the 64th birthday of Agnetha Fältskog, a Swedish musician who long ago fell off the radar of most culture-commentators. It might not seem like a momentous occasion to normal critics. But I find it interesting enough to exploit for the 100th episode of this experiment in free expression, Muse of the Weird ("blogpost" is such an ungainly portmanteau, I've euphemized it with a TV-serial term).
As a matter of fact, Fältskog's anniversary provides the perfect opportunity to confess an embarrassing secret: I sincerely love some pretty saccharine pop-music of yesteryear. And I don't just mean the Bee Gees, one of the most common guilty pleasures among the cognoscenti of music journalists, bloggers & fans.
My weak spot for well-crafted pop-songs is deeply rooted. My adolescent tastes were largely shaped - perhaps distorted is the better word - by absorbing a constant parade of puerile teeny-bopper hits (e.g. "Sugar Sugar" & "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy") as well as the occasional adult song ("Lay Lady Lay" & "What's Goin' On") on American Top 40 radio in the 1960s & '70s. But when it comes to the Bee Gees, at least, I've really got nothing to feel guilty about in those fraternal harmonies.
The eldest Brother Gibb, Barry, co-wrote, arranged, produced & co-performed several of the greatest pop songs recorded in the rock era, from the Bee Gees' transcendent double-hit single "To Love Somebody" b/w the psychedelic weeper "New York Mining Disaster 1941" (1967: Have you seen my wife, Mr. Jones?) all the way until "Too Much Heaven" in 1979. A generous Aussie-turned-Manxman (resident of the Isle of Man) who eventually moved to Miami, Barry Gibb shared the surplus of his abundant gorgeous material with many other artists, a list that includes Melbourne native Samantha Sang ("Emotion"), youngest brother Andy Gibb (1958-88; "Love Is Thicker than Water") & even Barbra Streisand (who duets with Barry on "Guilty").
More psychedelic bubblegum tunes like the Box Tops' "Cry Like a Baby," the Shondells' "Crimson and Clover" & the Lemon Pipers' "Green Tambourine" usually uplift me, like dancing always does. The radio hits generated by the Scandinavian group in question, however, evoke more complex emotions. This act's first big single was released in 1974, following their triumph on the internationally televised Eurovision Song Contest.
As though foretelling the band's global success & subsequent demise, "Waterloo" echoes Napoleon, with lyrics in the voice of a burned lover: couldn't escape if I wanted to . . . / finally facing my Waterloo. Their final release, a dreary New Wave-influenced synthesizer-infested album entitled The Visitors, barely dented the US charts in 1981. The group, now a mutually divorced foursome who lacked cohesion as well as creative direction, split the following year.
That's right, I'm talking about the legendary Swedish chart-toppers ABBA (1972-82). Recently, while watching a retrospective British documentary called ABBA: A Music Masters Collection 4 DVD Set (2012), I was encouraged to take their songs more seriously. Witnessing Fältskog gently sway & lip-sing in a tacky polyester costume on Polish television in 1976, I empathized with her. Was her career actually sidetracked - or even ruined - by joining ABBA? As Agnetha pretended to harmonize with the others on the introspective smash hit "Knowing Me, Knowing You" (ah-haaah) I felt strangely sorry for the beautiful 26-year-old blonde singer.
By 1976, of course, Fältskog was rich (even in highly taxed, fairly egalitarian Sweden) & widely famous. She'd been a successful songwriter & pop-star in Sweden since age 17, having dropped out of school at 15 in order to commit herself to show-business. Trained as a pianist, Agnetha rarely got to display her instrumental chops in ABBA. The unlikely geniuses who formed the band, keyboardist-composer Benny Andersson & guitarist-lyricist Björn Ulvaeus (who married Fältskog in 1971; they divorced in '79, with a boy & a girl to raise), were content to let the ABBA ladies, soprano Agnetha & the ginger-haired mezzo-soprano Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad (temporarily married to Andersson), function onstage primarily as singing, dancing eye-candy, enticingly underplaying their natural sex appeal.
On a 1979 ABBA tour, Agnetha seized the chance to perform her own composition "I'm Still Alive" (with lyrics by Ulvaeus) solo on piano & vocals. The song, however, was never recorded. A multi-talented performer, Agnetha Fältskog had also been a theater star. In 1972 she played Mary Magdalene in a Swedish production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Her early solo sound was folkier; she cited as her strongest musical influences such diverse '60s artists as Marianne Faithfull, Aretha Franklin & Lesley Gore.
Agnetha relaunched her solo career at least three times after ABBA dissolved, failing to attract much attention in the States with either her '80s albums (e.g. Wrap Your Arms Around Me, 1983), her critically acclaimed 2004 CD My Colouring Book, a big Euro-Australian success, or her 2013 album A. In November of last year she performed a moving duet ("I Should've Followed You Home" with Gary Barlow) for a children's charity TV show in London, her first stage performance since 1988. Agnetha's relaxed beauty & inspiring talent were on ageless display.
The most reclusive ex-member, Fältskog seems ambivalent about ABBA's legacy. In May 2013 ABBA The Museum opened, with Agnetha participating in a low-profile way. This massive tourist draw is housed inside the Swedish Music Hall of Fame facility in Stockholm. Meanwhile, Andersson & Ulvaeus parlayed their diverse ABBA hits into a campy 1999 London stage musical (source of the follow-up 2008 Hollywood film), Mamma Mia. The 1992 collection ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits continues to sell untold millions of copies.
The most reclusive ex-member, Fältskog seems ambivalent about ABBA's legacy. In May 2013 ABBA The Museum opened, with Agnetha participating in a low-profile way. This massive tourist draw is housed inside the Swedish Music Hall of Fame facility in Stockholm. Meanwhile, Andersson & Ulvaeus parlayed their diverse ABBA hits into a campy 1999 London stage musical (source of the follow-up 2008 Hollywood film), Mamma Mia. The 1992 collection ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits continues to sell untold millions of copies.
ABBA's best work presents a blend of styles, ranging from rousing hook-driven pop-rock ("SOS") to Spanish flamenco meets Andean flute concoctions ("Fernando"), Latin-flavored military marches ("Chiquitita") & operatic bad-romance ballads ("The Winner Takes It All" & "One of Us," both featuring Agnetha's subtly emotional lead vocal). In their prime ABBA was a four-headed musical force of nature, hardly your typical European flash-in-the-pan pop act, á la Dutch rockers Shocking Blue (1970's "Venus") or West Germany's enigmatic Nena ("99 Red Balloons/99 Luftballons," 1983).
I can assure you, based on personal experience in US & western European discotheques of the late '70s & early '80s, that few songs filled a dance floor faster than ABBA's syncopated, symphonic breakthrough "Dancing Queen" (1976). Even the inane chorus has its naive charms: You are the dancing queen / Young and sweet, only seventeen / Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine / Oh yeah / You can dance, you can jive / Having the time of your life / See that girl, watch that scene / Dig it, the dancing queen. Having grown up on the neutral frontier of the Cold War, these four talented Swedes managed to capture the zeitgeist of the escapist decade par excellence while performing in a foreign language.
Many of the hits feature baroque melodies, orchestral strings and/or chord progressions borrowed from Bach ("Voulez-Vous" & "Mamma Mia"). They shamelessly exploit hypnotic rhythms & repetitive phrasing ("Money, Money," "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme" & "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do"). ABBA was all over the place & their fans embraced most of these intriguing hybrid tunes.
ABBA's greatest songs are timeless (unlike their typically hideous stage gear) because, in part, they incorporate good musical ideas from earlier eras. It's a revelation - as well as a relief to sore mirrorball-blinded eyes - to see Agnetha, Frida, Benny & Björn in late 18th-century finery performing their mod hits on a 1978 Swedish TV broadcast from Stockholm's grand opera theater.
Although their repertoire didn't reach the level of aesthetic perfection to which Andersson (a wannabe contemporary Mozart) & Ulvaeus (a poser-poet) aspired, their oeuvre is rich in musical gems nonetheless. If you doubt the complexity of ABBA's records, try listening to the irresistible four-minute single "Take a Chance on Me" through high-fidelity headphones.
Remarkably, despite a public image that suggested bourgeois Nordic eroticism, ABBA was considered safe enough by Communist censors to appear on Polish television in the mid-'70s. At a time when few Western pop acts passed muster in the Eastern bloc, perhaps their coming from (non-NATO-member) Sweden helped ABBA. Ironically, the title track of their final album, "The Visitors (Crackin' Up)" concerns a political dissident disturbed by constant government surveillance. It's hardly surprising that ABBA's liberating sound found an audience in countries (such as the USSR, Czechoslovakia, East Germany) whose narrow-minded leaders used to denounce the alleged decadence of Western rock 'n' roll.
ABBA always did its most impressive work in the recording studio, where engineers & producers can layer instruments & vocals into masterpieces that still satisfy hordes of casual listeners. They were also technological pioneers, recording digitally a few years before compact discs hit the market. ABBA's spacious Polar Music Studio, housed in an old movie palace in central Stockholm, had cutting-edge equipment.
Although she put on a brave public face, I wonder whether Agnetha Fältskog felt like a dissident in the cult of ABBA. Her post-ABBA solo work was tepidly received by the American market. If she became periodically fed up with an industry that only respects record (now also download) sales & sold-out arena concerts, who could blame her ?
Born in Jönköping, a trading city of 90,000 souls in Småland province (south-central Sweden), on 5 April 1950, Fältskog was the elder daughter of middle-class parents. Musically precocious, she wrote her first song ("Two Little Trolls") at age six, started piano lessons at eight & also sang in a church choir. Young Agnetha must have dreamt of a fulfilling artistic future. Did she get her wish?
Let's examine the evidence. During a 1981 television special, with her marriage in tatters & ABBA's heady days behind them, Fältskog looks tired & sad. She hesitantly answers Dick Cavett's awkward questions in the bored company of her soon-to-be ex-bandmates. By then, at age 31, Agnetha had long stood on the mountaintop of pop stardom. She might've found the view more distressing than thrilling by that point.
Agnetha has categorically ruled out participating in any ABBA reunion ever since the group evaporated in December 1982. Except for this: I found a New Musical Express (London - Nov. 2013) article which quotes Agnetha as being open to a brief ABBA reunion this year ("Waterloo" plus 40 ans). Rejoice! Will she or won't she? Dig it, the Dancing Diva. Here's the link for more details: http://www.nme.com/news/abba/73746#mL2Bh8LQd5X8SqTR.99
Agnetha has categorically ruled out participating in any ABBA reunion ever since the group evaporated in December 1982. Except for this: I found a New Musical Express (London - Nov. 2013) article which quotes Agnetha as being open to a brief ABBA reunion this year ("Waterloo" plus 40 ans). Rejoice! Will she or won't she? Dig it, the Dancing Diva. Here's the link for more details: http://www.nme.com/news/abba/73746#mL2Bh8LQd5X8SqTR.99
Given their considerable artistic & commercial accomplishments (they're the third best-selling recording artists ever), ABBA deserves more respect than most music fans are inclined to give them. The over-enunciated vocals may seem cheesy, the arrangements might sound melodramatic, but it's hard to argue with international popularity on the scale of the Beatles & Michael Jackson. ABBA was inducted into the (US) Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Barry & Robin Gibb in 2010.
Agnetha, Benny, Björn & Anni-Frid (A-B-B-A) made several enduring works of pop art. For nearly a decade, they pulled off the miracle of being complementary professional as well as marital partners. The blonde soprano Agnetha (aka "Anna") was the most charismatic member of the group to most guys like me (ten years younger than her & possessing a sense of sight). But what do I know?
Paraphrasing the unfashionable Karl Marx: the critics have only interpreted the culture differently; the point, however, is to change it. And ABBA certainly did. But there's a caveat, from (who else?) pop-culture critic Chuck Klosterman: "By the end of the twentieth century, it was far more contrarian to hate ABBA than to love them."
With gratitude, sympathy & a note of nostalgic desire, I send this love-letter to the lovely Agnetha Fältskog. May it venture out into the vast mystery of cyberspace & find its mark. Muse of the Weird, still rolling along - an unmossy stone at the 100 post-mark, wishes you a very Happy 64th Birthday indeed. May I have the next dance, ma'am?
Postscript: Dig this link to the Dutch magazine Hitkrant's 1978 article noting that ABBA (politically neutral yet commercially ambitious) intends to conquer the pop-music markets of the (then nominally Communist) USSR, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc. It also features photos of Agnetha & ABBA. It's late-Cold War disco madness!
Wikipedia notes this curious coincidence about a big 1975 ABBA single: "'SOS' has a number of musical fans. John Lennon declared that it was one of his favourite pop songs, and Pete Townshend in particular said it is probably his favourite pop song. Ray Davies also said that he was taken with the song after seeing the group perform it on the television show Seaside Special."
On Friday (April 4th) chicorymoonchick wrote from Honolulu:
I love this blog. I lived in Sweden when I was seventeen til I was 18 and a half. I remember anytime we were lucky enough to get on a boat in Stockholm's archipelago people would drive the boat past the ABBA complex out on a little island in the archipelago: "Look, look it is Bjorn and Benny from ABBA!" and we would squint to look throught the fence posts. I was like ... WOW these people really love this band. Every single disco and bar in that country used the song "Dancing Queen" as their signal to the young people that it was bar time. It was ALWAYS in every place the last song of the night. Like a uniform code across Sweden. The last shot, last dance, last bit of public fun was to that ABBA song. I also have often wondered what happened to her since it seemed like a pretty male-dominated band. This was a great post.
Happy 100th! Aloha from Hawaii!
- Meaghan Owens (singer-songwriter, originally from Wisconsin)
© 2014 by Joe Crawford Mrazek
- Meaghan Owens (singer-songwriter, originally from Wisconsin)
On Sunday (April 6th) michel.martens@telfort.nl wrote from the Netherlands:
Here in Holland, ABBA has been popular from the beginning of their career (the single ‘Ring Ring’ was a top 5 hit here, even one year before their victory in the Eurovision Song Contest) until the end (‘Under Attack’ went top 5 here a well, as far as I know it only reached the top 5 in Holland and Belgium). Agnetha's and Frida’s solo records have been successful here as well. Agnetha’s latest album ‘A’ (2013) reached number 14 on the Dutch charts with zero promotion.
Best regards,
- Michel Martens (whose blog posted the 1978 Hitkrant article about ABBA)
© 2014 by Joe Crawford Mrazek
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ReplyDeleteHappy 100! Aloha from Hawaii!
ReplyDelete- Meaghan Owens