The deep secret of Abba’s “music without nostalgia” and the time they met the Pistols
Description
Abba’s biographer Jan Gradvall met and interviewed Abba many times and builds a fresh picture of their internal chemistry in his new book Melancholy Undercover. Highlights of this illuminating pod include …
… how Sweden rejected their early hits for not being sufficiently “socialist”.
…. the discomfiting early life of Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
… what Max Martin and Denniz Pop thought made Abba’s music so durable.
… Strindberg, Bergman, the climate, the eight months of darkness and the role of melancholia in Swedish pop culture.
… the influence of the Human League on their later catalogue.
… why manager Stig Anderson “became a burden”.
… “Norway has Grieg, Finland has Sibelius, Sweden has Benny …”
… the first band to write about divorce.
… the Abba song with 57 chords and the only two samples Abba ever approved.
… Elvis Costello, Joe Strummer and Ian Dury backstage at a 1979 London show.
… when Sid Vicious ran into Abba at an airport on the Pistols’ 1977 Swedish tour.
… the role of the Lionesses football team, Kurt Cobain, Erasure, U2, Madonna and the Sydney gay community in the Abba revival.
… why the Abbatars are better than Abba.
… the myth of Agnetha as “the Greta Garbo of Pop”.
… and why The Day Before You Came is more than the Abba swansong.
Order Melancholy Undercover here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-ABBA-Melancholy-Undercover/dp/0571390986
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