STIG NEGATIVE IMPACT

Stikkan anderson may be the real dynamo behind the success of Abba , they could never achieve it without him , his stupid arrogant attitude (wich was justified against the swedish media ) has a lot to do with Abba's bad reputation of money grabbing machine !

Bjorn who was in fact the most positif element (with little less Agnetha) against the media , though he admitted wrongly the weakness of his lyrics , had been the real cohesive element !

the lyrics , as bad as they could be , were not the worse lyrics in pop music , and the music is so strong that it could cover it all !

bjorn , may have been lyricist but without his contributon , benny could never achieve those perfect 3mn-6mn masterpieces .he always knew when to stop him and had good flair for the hooks just look at benny's out put since he collaborated less with bjorn !

things like sugary or cheesy melodies is really unjustified , because if you take a pop hit like 'video killed the radio star' , there's no more cheesy than that but the attitude of the musicians , the producer and the fact that girls were just backing objects made all that , in a anglo-american world of the seventies-eighties music , macho like no other ) a perfect masterpiece for the critics of the era , though that hit could never be as good as the worst Abba song !!!!

stikkan made his first mistakes thinking that swedish media would be as fair as the american media , but they revealed themselves worse than the British !

saying sweden is a Little pool (ABBADABADOO!) compared to the world is mean for every swedish folk !

he said it in a rage against the constant attack of the swedish media which were very hypocritical , accepting that elton john or beatles win fortunes along with having a rock attitude , while criticizing Abba for being natural is really mean and cheap !!

sting anderson may not having been a saint but he was spontaneous and straight !

he had a very hard life before being rich and famous thanks to music , and that's perhaps why he was like that ! he felt like an unfairness against Abba (which was true ) and couldn't bear it !

BJORN'S ROLE

Bjorn was a sort of engine .

his most important contribution was to put Benny on track because he was always going out of reality !

Bjorn was more practical and less dreamer , and we can expect the failure of his marriage with Agnetha because of their great similitude of temper , they were both very mature and aware , while Benny and Frida were both childish and immature , this gave a good balance within the group but was and for sure , the main reason for the divorces !

Just look at the works of Benny without Bjorn , he's completely lost , composing and releasing very bad tunes within his BAO albums !

Bjorn is not more clever than Benny of course , Benny is the genuis but just like those kind of people , he wasn't aware at all of his potential and lacked pragmatism .

as a lyricists , Bjorn did improve over the years , and he only managed to write perfect lyrics with the record ABBA the Album of 1977 , before that , the lyrics were average , without any imagination nor sense of humour .

he mastered writing process with the album Super Trouper , and songs like Our last Summer or the Winner takes it all seem to prove it .

he rarely gave his opinions at the time , just like all the others , which was very honourable because an artist has to put his work for the people not his own opinions , except for great political events (Iron curtain , dictators , guerillas , prisonners camps ) .

and in recent years , he seems to get out of his mind telling assertions against religion and so on , shameful , but nobody seems to listen to him as he's not the brilliant philosopher he thinks he is !

FRIDA'S ICON IMAGE

was frida's icon image an important ingredient in Abba image ?

of course yes !

but is the impact positif ?

not at the time , because frida's camp and foppish image , her choice in costumes for both her and Agnetha was remarkable for the success of the band but gave that stamp , which they couldn't get of , even if in 1979 , they were not wearing those ridiculous costumes anymore !

her flamboyance , maybe to attract attention because Agnetha was monopolizing all male attention is understandable , but she sometimes went over the top , just look at her make up in the clip of the yarwood show !

maybe i'm wrong but she's the real gay icon ,not Agnetha ,the blonde one never took seriously the fashion side of the show , she wear what frida chose for her and it's only after the end of ABBA , with her first english album that she finally chose clothes and what a difference !

there's no surprise why she was fashion legend by ELLE months ago , she rarely posed as a model but she was a model unconsciously !

frida posed a lot with all sorts of clothes no matter how they suit her (just look a the "HEAD OVER HEELS" video where she wears more that ten costumes while Agnetha keep one classy black suit !!)

this campy fashion made a lot of harm to the image of the group ,keeping the media focusing more on the bad taste than the music !

so despite the distinctive unique voice of frida and the lovely harmonies with Agnetha , the band was categorized as bubble gum pop (which was true for 10% of the songs ??) because of the fashion !

BENNY'S GENIUS ?

Benny's genius , if it is , didn't blossom quickly and he did a lot of 'bad' work before he composed his first masterpiece 'SOS' on the ABBA album of 1975.

if we look retrospectively on his career , it seems that Agnetha and Frida were the muses behind his genius , they inspired him with their charisma and work !

even he seemed to forget their talent when in the mid eighties he declared that Karin Glenmark of gemini was more talented than both singers and had more aptitudes !!!!

he often declared such idiotic remarks : lovelight , should i laugh or cry , elaine were not worthing inclusion in albums because they were split between imcompatble versus / choruses !!!

so his genuis had to be tempered by Bjorn who was lot more able to judge their works and he rarely declared idiotic remarks .

but genuis are like that , they are so strong in their field that they completely miss control on other sides !

lately since his masterpiece saknadens rum in the second BAO album , he seems to be unable to put a piece worthing his old works .

he revealed recently his triumph on alccolism , maybe that was also an engine ?

AGNETHA'S UNIQUE APPEAL

agnetha was and still is the main attraction of the band ,frida may be the icon but the attention is always got by Agnetha no matter what she does !

even if the media , especially swedish and british tried to make her appear like psychotic ('behind the blonde , the winner takes it all' documentaries ) she's the most pragmatic and balanced of the band , she 's only afraid of the crowd like many of us , that's all !!

beside her incredible impact , she managed to bring two wonderful happy children , she permitted , in the name of love , to her daughter , to live away from her , a certain momentum of time (something very few mothers would accept )

even the story with her stalker didn't destroy at all her image , even if it ravaged herself !

charisma is something we're born with !

she seems to attract a fascination as a singer for the fans and as a person for the ordinary people who don't like her singing (though it's very hard to resist to that angel voice)

there's something unique to her appeal , even outside that blonde Viking image , actresses like Bergman and ullmann did have a great appeal like Frida .

but Agnetha has that tragic-fatal image just like Garbo that makes her unique !

some people may think that like Garbo , it was calculated , well this doesn't matter , as it's not for money nor instant fame but for longevity , something legitimate !

MORE OR LESS SUCCES

the success of Abba as a band and a phenomenon is still and again bringing material for debates every where .

if some people never understood why they were so successful , i can tell them that i never understood the success of the beatles !

if 'Pet sounds' is the ultimate masterpiece , that marmelade called "sergent paper " doesn't deserve all the buzz !

Abba can't be appreciated by people :

- too much old (15 -17), you must discover them at 5-9 years or before !

- arrogant and self satisfied , you have to be able to take yourself not too much seriously !

- happy and fulfilled , Abba brings something to the hole in your soul , many abba fans are orphans (like myself) or from divorced parents ! that happy image of a couple (father and mother ) is a lot !

but seriously Abba was unique :

1) the music was so perfect that justifiably a crtic said :

there's more melody in one Abba song than in all the top twenty reunited and this summerize

perfectly well the matter !

2) the arrangements extremely rich like an orchestrated symphony , no matter what could be heard , Benny wasn't stingy in matter of music and tracks !

the music can only be compared to classical criteria , that explains the difficulties for analysing that rock critics had at the time .

3) the emotion , even if in the early out put , Agnetha didn't put particularly emotions (the exception was disillusion on the Ring Ring album) the music just like in classical , reflects emotion without vocals (Hasta Mañana , my mama said )

4) the seductive image of the girls .

5) the skills of the musicians.

6) the particular sound which combined the beauty of the continental clean sound (french italian german schlager) , the phil spector wall of sound (much talked about ) , the echoes of pink floyd (rarely talked ) , the clever multilayered vocals and backing vocals of the girls (Agnetha is responsible for a great proportion and if you don't believe me look at the (making of wrap your arms) documentary' !

ABBA IN FRANCE AND ITALY

Abba success in france and italy have been limited for a unique reason which is logical , contrarely to Britain or the states , many pop artists in both france and Italy were doing exactly the same music and the most evident example is the italian experimental pop band 'Matia Bazar' , they had the same wonderful melodies , the same arrangement's aptitudes (completely absent in anglo-american pop , except stevie wonder ) the same perfectionism , the same female vocalist with large scales and flamboyant personality !

in france , many people in the media considered that they didn't bring anything new to the music scene , because they thought that french pop artist like gainsbourg , hardy or balavoine did the same pop ! of couse they didn't take the sound as a reference !

french and italian like to appreciate artists very different from their own (which is logical !)

in the USA , it's the opposite , american public like music very similar to the mainstream (rock pop or dance ) so if you want to succeed in america , you have to change your style of music , the way you sing and even your attitude (Celine dion did it !)

another important element was that few anglo-saxons acts did succeed in france and italy in the seventies early eighties apart from dance-disco hits .

ballads have to be understood so sung in the local language !

Belle from abbacadabra was a huge hit by Frida because of the french lyrics !

and hits like 'something's going on' and 'one night in bangkok' were huge hits in Italy like no other Abba hit simply because they both sound very different from the music of the era !

finally there's the political impact which could be the most determinant , in both France and Italy and even in Sweden ,there was the 'dictatorial good taste ' and if the media (left in majority in those countries ) said you are bad taste , then you're dead !!!

ABBA IN USA