And here are my ABBA LPs. All except Arrival (an Italian release on Dig-It Records) are original Swedish pressings on Polar. (I got Voulez-Vous for my fifth birthday in 1979.)
And I never gave a fuck about how hideously uncool ABBA were in the 80s. Always loved them, always will. So there.
Celebrating the 50th anniversary with the original Swedish pressing.
I don't remember the Eurovision victory myself, because I wouldn't be born for another three weeks (and yes, I'm an old fart), but my late mother once told me that "Waterloo" was probably the first song I heard on the radio, because it was played a lot at the time. I didn't become a fan,though, until I was about four years old and "Take A Chance On Me" was a hit.
A bit of celebration tonight. As an ABBA fan since 1978 of course I watched the press conference, and I am not ashamed to say that both my wife and I started crying with joy when the news broke. ❤️
ABBA ‘Greatest Hits’, 1975. - cover painting by Hans Arnold
ABBA: SUMMER NIGHT CITY (LIVE AT WEMBLEY) (1979; Andersson/Ulvaeus)
Today it’s the northern solstice, and on the shortest night of the year, what’s more appropriate than a tribute to Stockholm in summer?
ABBA: WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE (1981; Andersson/Ulvaeus)
My parents started buying the ABBA albums for me, but the last two (Super Trouper and The Visitors) they bought for themselves. Of course I took them with me when I left home. They had hardly used the record player in the living room for three years, and they have never missed those LPs.
I am certain there are other middle-aged Swedes who have the same experience from their childhood and youth. It’s hardly surprising: musically and lyrically, ABBA matured a lot over the years. Björn certainly got better at writing English lyrics, but the subjects got more grown up: songs about divorces, lost youth, the Pied Piper used as a metaphor for fascist populism, Soviet dissidents... There was simply a stronger appeal to an older audience. Even long before this, of course, there was a strong streak of melancholy in their songs — see, for example, “S.O.S.”, one of the saddest pop songs ever, or “Kisses of Fire”, where a really strong passion is tinged with the fear of losing the lover. And, on The Visitors, there was this: an upbeat, almost happy divorce song. (I recommended it to a close friend when her boyfriend broke up with her in 2006. It comforted her, at least a bit.)
The video, like (I think) all their videos, was directed by Lasse Hallström, who turns 72 today. Happy birthday, Lasse!
ABBA: HAPPY NEW YEAR (1980; Andersson/Ulvaeus)
As I’ve said many times, I’m an old ABBA fan. This video was always shown on Swedish TV on New Year’s Eve, about ten minutes to midnight, when I was a kid; if there’s any better day to post it, I don’t know what it is.
When I started this blog it was my ambition to post a video every day, and I am proud not to have missed even one day and only posted two duplicate videos. Thank you for staying with me throughout this year, and I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I did.
I’m not shutting down the blog, but will keep posting for as long as it’s fun.
ERASURE: TAKE A CHANCE ON ME (1992, orig. by ABBA 1977; Andersson/Ulvaeus)
...and 15 years later Erasure had a huge hit with their cover. I’ve posted a couple of the other videos from the ABBA-esque EP over the past year, but I’ve missed this one.
ABBA: TAKE A CHANCE ON ME (1977; Andersson/Ulvaeus)
Today, 40 years ago, ABBA released The Album.
BLANCMANGE: THE DAY BEFORE YOU CAME (1984, original by ABBA 1982; Andersson/Ulvaeus)
One of ABBA’s last singles, covered only a couple of years later by Blancmange. (I have both the original single and the cover version, of course.)
The original:
ERASURE: VOULEZ-VOUS (1992, original by ABBA 1979; Andersson/Ulvaeus/Anderson)
I’ve said before that I started listening to ABBA in 1978, at the tender age of four and a half, and never stopped liking them, even when they were at their unhippest.
Neither did Vince and Andy, apparently. As I wrote back in February, their ABBA-esque EP was one of the factors behind the 1990s ABBA revival.
And the original:
ABBA: SUMMER NIGHT CITY (1978; Andersson/Ulvaeus)
ABBA: EAGLE (1977; Andersson/Ulvaeus)
ABBA: KNOWING ME, KNOWING YOU (1976; Andersson/Ulvaeus/Anderson)
