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Many years ago some friends and I were channel surfing while tripping on acid when we hit upon ABBA: The Movie (1977) on VH-1. So we watched it for the cheese factor and had a few giggles.

For the next four days solid Dancing Queen was LODGED in my head and wouldn't go away. I tried everything from hardcore punk to bubblegum pop to shake it loose but every time there was silence here came that idiotic descending piano lick (da-ding, da-ding, da-ding) and "You can dance, you can jive ..." over and over for hours on end. By day four I was ready for the booby hatch. To call it an unpleasant experience would be an understatement.

It's in there now and it ain't leaving. The worm has laid its eggs. Sometimes I'll go for weeks, months without hearing or thinking about it then I'll catch a snippet from a passing car or somewhere and I walk around for the rest of the day gritting my teeth and twitching. "Friday night and the lights are looowww ..."

By the way, Dancing Queen will forever be the Drunk Overweight Sorority Girl Dancing On The Bar At Last Call Anthem.

So even though I like a few of ABBA's other songs (Waterloo, Take A Chance On Me) I have to vote crap. Oh god, here it comes again ... da-ding, da-ding, da-ding ...

I get the arguments made for their greatness, but I remain unmoved by their music and can't ever imagine why I'd listen to them out of choice.

Crap for me, friends.

Absolutely not crap. Waterloo is just an unspeakably good bit of pop music. ABBA, Glenn Miller & Fats Domino were my grandad’s favourites and I can’t hear them and not think of spending time with him.

M.H wrote: Fri May 17, 2024 3:43 am I get the arguments made for their greatness, but I remain unmoved by their music and can't ever imagine why I'd listen to them out of choice.

Crap for me, friends.

+1

I've never understood the appreciation for ABBA, either. It's music from my nightmares.

I've got respect for Cyndi Lauper after watching a documentary, but her music is still god awful.

Incredible band. NOT CRAP.

I think most of their records are great front to back, but I'll especially go to bat for The Visitors and Super Trouper.

Should anyone be interested in what this particular internet dude would put on a ten-song best-of-ABBA compilation, well, here it is:

- "Disillusion"
- "Don't Shut Me Down"
- "I'm a Marionette"
- "Like an Angel Passing Through My Room"
- "S.O.S."
- "Summer Night City"
- "Super Trouper"
- "Tiger"
- "Under Attack"
- "The Visitors"

Not crap, duh.
Only came here to post that I think it's super cute that Dancing Queen is Lou Barlow's favorite song of all time. And also this, from the ABBA Museum:
https://www.instagram.com/loubarlow/p/C8ATcwDRgV0/

Well crafted? Sure if your target is broad appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Mcdonalds for the ears.

CRAP.

First record I ever acquired was ABBA's Greatest Hits Vol II. It is excellent, and I got all their records from there, backtracking as needed.

ABBA's commercial instincts were ravenous, and as such they did have a perhaps narrow, definitely diabolical focus on figuring out how to utterly condemn the listener to replay their tunes in one's head ad nauseum (you have my sympathy).

None of that necessarily allowed them to make a single record that is great start to finish, but as has also been noted, there are a surprising number of deep cuts that are very good. The hits albums, unstoppable.

Anyway, I'm a big fan, got all the records, and I have a lot of time for them to this day.

Knowing Me Knowing You probably my favorite but there's a lot to choose from. It's very very easy for me to understand how Dancing Queen could be Lou Barlow's favorite song--I don't know his reasoning, but it has the same blend of surface-level cheeriness and bone-deep melancholy that buoyed the Carpenters (also great) through the early part of that decade.

A good extension/perversion/inversion/wtf of ABBA from more recent times is The Facts of Life by Black Box Recorder, not that that's all it is. The Facts of Life is a weirder, less settled, and more wholly-realized album than ABBA ever would've managed. Maybe better, on the whole, hits albums aside. But it won't drill its way into your brain the same way. Nothing else really does. Buzzcocks maybe.

NC

They had

Thyklopth wrote:

M.H wrote: Fri May 17, 2024 3:43 am I get the arguments made for their greatness, but I remain unmoved by their music and can't ever imagine why I'd listen to them out of choice.

Crap for me, friends.

+1

This.