As live flesh-and-blood performers, it has been more than four decades since Agnetha Fälkstog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad performed to a public concert audience.
For the casual listener, that would be visually in order the blond one, the clean shaven one, the bearded one and the redhead.
But today, seven times a week, up to 3,000 people trek to London’s Pudding Mill Lane to watch a full-blown concert by digital, holographic “Abbatars” of the band, resplendent in their ‘70s finery, “perform” a show with all their biggest hits, backed by a live group. And the joyous audience members collectively sing, sway, scream, and generally lose their shit.
Such is the power of ABBA, still, long after their roll call of catchy pop and dance hits like “Dancing Queen,” “Knowing Me, Knowing You,” “Take a Chance on Me,” “Fernando,” “The Winner Takes It All,” “Money, Money, Money,” “Chiquitita,” “Waterloo,” “Mamma Mia” and more were on the charts.
That last song the title for a hugely successful worldwide musical and two movies. And their popularity in the U.S. is a mere shadow of how they’re celebrated in other countries.
So, it is with great hope fans will crack open the new book The Story of ABBA: Melancholy Undercover (336 pp., $30, St. Martin’s Press). Even more so as author Jan Gradvall has interviewed all four members over the years.
Unfortunately, the resultant tome does not deliver on the promise of its title, which instead should have been called The Story of a Lot of Things in Which ABBA Might Play a Part In. Those expecting a rich biography on the musical, creative, and personal lives of ABBA will be disappointed.
Sure, Gradvall hits many of the Wikipedia highlights of the band’s story. And some welcome details on each of the four members’ pre-Abba musical careers (each successful on various levels prior to joining forces) and the raggare music and dansband culture of their native Sweden.
Instead, many pages are devoted to topics ranging from Swedish radio and television practices, national politics, international band appeal, the band’s influence and fans in gay and disco subcultures, and charmingly-named Abba-inspired cover and tribute bands (The A-Teens, Bjorn Again). There’s even a lengthy profile in the story writer for the Mamma Mia! musical all amidst shifting timelines.
Gradvall himself says in the afterword that he didn’t set out to write a “traditional” music biography, and he certainly succeeded in that. A more solid look can be found in Carl Magnus Palm’s recently-updated Bright Light Dark Shadows.
Still, The Story of ABBA will find a home on the shelves of superfans (of which there are a legion), forever entranced by the utterly unique and magical combination of Agnetha’s soprano meshed with Anni-Frid’s mezzo-soprano voices, and those happily ear worm-worthy and lasting melodies of Benny and lyrics of Bjorn.
