But could they be found, a year from now, raising hell at a DIY noise-rock show? For most, that seems out of the question, a different faith altogether. This is how ideology works: by presenting a convincing, sometimes disingenuous account of your culture and identity. Yet one raised eyebrow can bring the whole facade tumbling down. Sociologists propose that when the Iron Curtain fell, it changed not just the present but the past: Now that it is over, we always knew it was doomed. It became possible that they might be great, and so I knew it at once, had known it all along.
Loving ABBA was then a personal cornerstone. These songs were a site of passion: arguments declared, playbacks initiated, inebriated friends counseled and finally persuaded, sober friends bewildered and still bewildered, partners sympathetic or euphorically in agreement, house-party attendees bored or furious, snatching back the aux. What was perplexing was not my love of the music so much as its suddenness. To celebrate, Warwick Thompson takes a closer look at the ABBA songs that were always destined to last through the years.
But now all world experts agree I jest not that these terms should be superseded by the much more powerful acronyms AN and AC.
Can a greater historical sea-change exist than between the dark ages when ABBA was a subject of derision, and the glorious epoch we now inhabit in which they are acknowledged as creators of the greatest pop songs ever written? ABBA lyrics were no guide to grammar, at any rate. Then there was the overworked reliance on heaped-up idioms and mixed metaphors.
Remember the determined — even pathological? How we laughed; how we imagined that we knew better. More fool us. ABBA disbanded in , but somehow those pesky melodies had lodged in our ears. With all this renewed interest, we wondered if it was possible to break down scientifically why the music is so irresistible. The multitracked harmonies of singers Agnetha Faltskog and Frida Lyngstad awaken the part of our brains in which our inner caveman is still enjoying a Paleolithic hootenanny with the rest of his clan.
In other words, if a caveman encased in ice were to be thawed out, revived, and immediately given a full iPod, he would respond more immediately to ABBA or a gospel choir than, say, free jazz. He might eventually dig Ornette Coleman, too, but the presentation of Knowing Me, Knowing You would sound more familiar.
You want to finish it, so with an eight measure or a 16 measure or even a 12 or a 24, the listeners feel balance and resolution. And the main piece of the brain puzzle is the simplest of all: repetition, repetition, repetition. And ABBA songs allow for both of those things to occur. We hear the words repeatedly, start to sing along, relate to the words and tunes emotionally with either a happy or sad reaction, and thus an earworm is born.
He adds that the simplicity of the lyrics, the small number of syllables in the hooks, and the consistent backbeat all factor into the insidious nature of the tunes.
Her bandmates would certainly agree. While some groups may have thrived on the live concert experience, for ABBA the real kick came from using the recording studio as a laboratory, developing and fine-tuning their musical creations. During their active years, this devotion to their art was sometimes held against them, as if there was something wrong in doing everything you could to realise the best version of each and every song.
But nothing could be further from the truth: ABBA were feeling their way intuitively through the writing and recording of each and every song. When the two songwriters had a song they were happy with, it would be brought to the studio. Often, these phrases would make up the so-called working title for the song: a preliminary name used while work continued on knocking the song into shape. The first step in recording the song was to put together an instrumental backing track.
This was recorded with the help of session musicians: usually a guitarist, a bass player and a drummer, with Benny himself playing the piano; sometimes there would also be a percussionist present. As a part of this process, one and the same song could be attempted in many different kinds of arrangements: it could be a waltz, a disco number, a tango, a rocker — there really was no limit to the styles they would try out.
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