HOW A SWEDISH POP QUARTET BECAME A CROSS-CULTURAL PHENOMENON
Living inthe ABBA universe
It’s not easy becoming Bjorn Ulvaeus. ¶ When Mark Thomas visits UB’s Center for the Arts on Nov. 9, it will take him a solid hour to step into character as the lead singer of the Swedish band ABBA. Thomas, the force behind the group ABBA Mania, must don his blond wig, which duplicates Ulvaeus’ legendary bowl haircut. He has to apply chest hair, a nod to an era that valued that look. His speech has to change, too. He has to dump his thick Welsh accent and take on a thick Swedish accent. ¶ Finally, he has to get inside Ulvaeus’ mind. ¶ “It’s not just a physical thing,” Thomas says earnestly on the phone from Wales. “It’s getting yourself psyched up for the show as well. Even having spent two years writing the show and knowing just how well these songs are crafted, I almost feel like you’ve got this very precious resource that you don’t want to mess with, that you want to do your best by. You’re this custodian of the music and you have to do right by it.”
All his effort is paying off. ABBA Mania’s show, which premiered in London’s West End, has been merrily rolling around for 10 years now. Its UB is part of a tour that touches 20 cities in a little over a month.
And ABBA Mania is not the only ABBA event coming up in Western New York in the near future. The show “Dancing Queen,” starting Friday and continuing through Nov. 15 in Avalon Theatre of the Niagara Fallsview Casino, brims with the band’s glam and glitter.
Clearly, there’s a market for all things ABBA. The band spawned the musical “Mamma Mia,” which spawned a movie, which spawned a whole new generation of ABBA fans.
Which, in turn, spawns a question.
Together from 1970 to 1986, derided by many as kitschy Eurotrash, ABBA should have been just a sparkly flash in the pan.
What is it about this band that makes its music last?
ABBA the Brave
“I don’t know what it is about ABBA. It’s almost like the Beatles,” says Rick Walters, weekend deejay for 97 Rock. “I’ll play ABBA for the kids, they’re catchy, poppy things.”
Walters thinks this catchy quality appeals to people. “Also, they didn’t know what they were singing,” he points out, alluding to the band’s sometimes quaint English lyrics. “That makes it even funnier.”
ABBA lyrics, with their touch of awkwardness, do have a charm of their own.
There is the funny “watch that scene” from the famous “Dancing Queen.”
The bouncy “When I Kissed the Teacher” sounds as if it were sung by an exchange student: “I was in the seventh heaven when I kissed the teacher.”
Then there are the words to “Waterloo,” the band’s breakthrough 1974 hit:
My my, at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender
Oh yeah, and I have met my destiny in quite a similar way
The history book on the shelf Is always repeating itself Thomas does not like to admit imperfections in the band’s work. “There are certain lyrics you can look at, you get a little bit of a smile,” he says.
“But then there are some incredibly clever lyrics,” he quickly adds. “Especially when you take into account that this wasn’t their mother tongue.”
Hilariously, Thomas admits that he listened to “Dancing Queen” just a few hours before. He listens to many ABBA songs, he says, on a daily basis.
“There’s something very special and magical about them,” he says. “Even having performed the songs for such a long time, I don’t know what that one ingredient is. I’m sure it’s a different ingredient for everybody. The whole package. Even how simplistic the name is. There’s the symmetry – the name, the two girls, the two guys, all good-looking people. And just a really nice, clean image.
“And the bravery. To keep releasing a different type of song. So many bands are sort of formulaic. They find something that works, and keep releasing it. ABBA could go from ‘Fernando’ to ‘I Do, I Do’ to ‘Dancing Queen.’ They’re always so different. That was very brave.”
ABBA the Serious
Thomas discovered ABBA in 1974, when he was 10. At the time, he says, it was uncool to like the band. “There were other things a bit more male that you should have been listening to,” he says.
As he grew up and became a musician, his admiration grew. “You can’t help but pick up on those things. The vocals. They didn’t have editing back then. What you hear is what they sang. And the music. Go through an ABBA album and look for a note that is even slightly out of tune. You can’t find it. They were careful about what they did. You couldn’t help getting caught up in the quality.”
If that quality was magical, it did not appear magically. Thomas says that beneath ABBA’s fluff and glitter were smarts and ambition.
“Having seen every bit of video footage they’ve ever recorded, these people were absolutely deadly serious about producing the best popular music they could,” he says. “They lived and breathed high-quality stuff, day in and day out. Their approach is not like a normal musician’s. They had a shed – do you use that word, shed? – on an island in the Swedish archipelago outside Stockholm. And they turned out every single day for years, from 8 a. m. in the morning till 6 in the evening. Every single day. There was a piano and a guitar and a sharp pencil and they would work.
“It was a totally and utterly relentless work ethic they applied. And that’s one of the reasons why it sounds like it does. The other reason was because they were entirely talented.”
He marvels at how the songs have held up well enough to attract fans of all generations.
“We have people in the audience from 6 to 96,” he says.
Yet another reason for ABBA tribute bands’ popularity is the slim chance that ABBA will ever reunite.
“At this point they’re one of the top three bands that people wish would get back together,” says Walters, of 97 Rock. “Pink Floyd is another, and Guns ’N Roses was in there for a while. But people also think that ABBA is the least likely to get back together.”
That unlikelihood is chiefly because of the two ABBA divorces. The two couples – Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and Ulvaeus and Agnetha Faltskog –both split before the band broke up.
“They dealt with it in typical Swedish fashion. Cool in a way that only Swedes could do,” Thomas says. “They’re just really relaxed about it, philosophical. They had something great. It lasted for a while and now it’s not working. As if, ‘We’ve got new wives, let’s all have a drink.’ Very, very mature, very positive.”
All four ABBA members showed up in Toronto several years ago for the premiere of the musical “Mamma Mia.” However, as The Buffalo News noted on that occasion, things looked chilly.
Health issues and the passage of time further hurt the chances of a reunion. Ulvaeus has admitted to memory problems over the last few years.
Thomas, though, considers the man as timeless as the music.
“I saw him recently, probably about six weeks ago,” he says. “There was a very, very, very big show in Hyde Park, in London, to celebrate ABBA’s music. And he was there.
“He and Benny are very, very humble about what they’ve managed to create,” he says. “It was just great to see them and thank them.”
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