MusicRadar has so far mostly only asked me to write about music that I like, but once in a while I have to put my own preferences aside. I did it for Wonderwall, and this week I did it again for ABBA.
So here’s a question. Is ABBA a good band? Is “Mamma Mia” a good song? Alex Ruthmann, my grad school advisor, always asks: “Good for what, good for whom?” There are uncountably many people around the world who love ABBA, and they are not wrong to; the songs are well-constructed and well-performed, and they are easy to sing along with. ABBA is deeply uncool, which as a younger person I cared about, but as a middle-aged dad, being cool isn’t on the table anyway. I like my pop songs edgier and funkier than “Mamma Mia”, but I also believe in not yucking other people’s yum.
I do know a lot of people who despise ABBA, and I see where they are coming from. A little of their music goes a long way for me. But we don’t all have to like the same things. You could think of recorded music as being like psychiatric medication. For some people, a certain pill might be a lifesaver, while it might make some people sick or miserable, and meanwhile it might have no effect at all on everyone else. ABBA doesn’t bind with my particular neurotransmitters, but if they cure what ails you, that is great.
I’ll have to give “Mamma Mia” a closer listen, but my memory claims it as much crap. That being said, I’m not a hater of any music (don’t get me started on Bach or Mozart, but) “Dancing Queen” is clearly (to me) one of the best dance songs of the 20th century. Being of Norwegian descent, I did get the “nordic” feeling when originally exposed… slightly not standard for pop productions of the time, something of a feeling about *them. I’ll get deeper into your analysis while listening… if I can dig my cassette out of the depths. BTW, thanks for all the multi teared analysis I’ve been following over the years.
Jascha Heifetz was once asked if he liked pop music. He said, “Of course, you don’t expect me to listen to Beethoven while I’m shaving!” I never understood the ABBA haters. As one who has always had very eclectic musical tastes (the two greatest shows I feel I ever went to was Flipper at CBGBs in ’85, and Henryk Szerying at Alice Tully Hall in ’77,) I always found their greatest hits, notably “Waterloo,” “Mamma Mia,” and “SOS” to be wonderful fizz-bubbles, and during the seventies I loved it when they came on the radio while I was cruising down the N.J. Turnpike.
BTW, I would recommend Susan Sontag’s essay “Against Interpretation,” which I feel convincingly argues that all art is experiential, and that criticism and interpetation is a fool’s errand.