ABBA - “Mamma Mia”
To swipe a phrase from my other favourite band, we are now into ABBA’s “imperial phase”, their shift from one-hit wonders to the world’s biggest pop group sudden and complete. The world had, in fact, been patient with ABBA - “Mamma Mia” is the fourth single from their self-titled album, the others - “So Long”, “I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do”, “S.O.S.” - having been each more popular than the last. That triad looks like an evolution now, but they were all on the same record, so the development is in the band’s (and Stig Andersson’s) understanding of what they were commercially capable of: a play-safe “Waterloo” throwback, a lilting bit of light pop and then the fully unleashed melodrama of “S.O.S.”, indelible melodic hooks melded perfectly to the song’s emotional beats.
“Mamma Mia” is more iconic than “S.O.S.” but it’s not as good. The ABBA sound still has a bit of glam in it - those glittery smeary guitars over the intro; the boys getting near the mic - and this would gradually fade, but this record is a mish-mash of ideas done well here but better elsewhere in their catalogue. The nervy stacatto piano bed, for instance, shows up again with more confidence on “Money Money Money”. The shouty “JUST ONE LOOK!” hook calls back to “Waterloo”. The record’s best moment - that sudden sweep into “Yes, I’ve been broken hearted…” - is its most ABBA-ish, showing their flair for (forgive my lack of technical terms!) inserting ballad-y hooks into upbeat songs. And finally, I don’t think the lyrics are up to their later standards - the “Mamma Mia!” refrain itself feels like a working title to fit the melody which just hung around because they couldn’t think of anything better.
Some people’s tolerance for ABBA is low because their music is so inescapable - I respect that point of view but if anything I feel I don’t hear enough ABBA, there are swathes of marvellous Andersson/Ulvaeus songs which get overlooked in favour of the usual five or six. But of those five or six, this is the one where I can most sympathise with the ABBA-weary: its lack of an emotional catch for me makes it more vulnerable to overplay. 7
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Tom on April 22nd, 2008
I never really know how to define “cheese” intothefire - cos I’d have said, in terms of how it’s USED (lead song from the musical, Muriel’s Wedding, etc etc) “Mamma Mia” is one of the ‘cheesiest’. But then sometimes “cheese” seems to mean ’sentiment’ (and it’s one of their less sentimental songs), sometimes ‘anything we’re a bit embarrassed by’….what is cheese exactly?
(I was in a focus group w/some teenage boys recently and they all insisted that cheese was a genre and rolled their eyes mightily at my feeble poptimist requests for a definition.)
a logged out p^nk s lord sukråt wötsit on April 22nd, 2008
previous discussion here, in “waterloo” thread obv, actually takes quite a difft shape than i remembered (and i see i promised an explanation and/or clarification of some hard-to-follow on-the-fly claim which — shockah! — i never gave)
FT's DJ Punctum on April 22nd, 2008
Re. #22: isn’t it Frida singing on “Like An Angel Passing Through My Room”?
FT's DJ Punctum on April 22nd, 2008
Re. sinkah post #13 on “Waterloo” thread; I think there was a little more connectivity going on with Abba but not oppressively so - possibly best worked through as we come to each individual number one, particularly the next one as I plan to do some Tommy Cooper-style sleight of hand theorising with that.
(actually it’ll be more in the line of forgotten by everyone except Mark and me James Burke BBC1 series Connections)
Dan R on April 22nd, 2008
re #28, yes I’m sure it is Frida.
FT's Matthew H on April 22nd, 2008
“Leave me now or never” is the hook that really suckers me, the “ne” of “never” offering more room to play than the “sist” of “resist”. But perhaps that’s just me.
I’m still feeling young here but can’t remember a time without Abba - and they soundtracked my childhood even more comprehensively when big sis started buying records. That’s years away yet.
rosie on April 22nd, 2008
[FX: Jumps up and down excitedly]
I remember James Burke’s Connections! Iffy science, dodgy history, but brilliant television!
Also, going back even further, The Burke Special. And, apropos of a couple of number ones ago, the BBC’s voice of the Apollo missions. Nowadays, the erudition that was once a must-watch for much of the population is now frowned on as ‘elitist’, and for anything of this sort a ‘celebrity’ must be drafted in. It all seems very counterproductive to me.
FT's DJ Punctum on April 22nd, 2008
These days it would be Alan Titchmarsh doing the voiceover and “ooh isn’t it a funny old world?”
Many of JB’s connections and intertwining threads were extremely tenuous but it provoked the viewer to think (laterally rather than linearly) and it went out on peaktime BBC1 (Thursdays?). Very much a formative influence on my own theories about music writing and, as you say, a reminder of an age where public broadcasters aimed to stimulate the highest common denominator of its audience rather than patronise the lowest.
FT's Alan on April 22nd, 2008
i also recall connections, and JB’s other shows. they had quite an impact on me, and my academic direction.
Billy Smart on April 22nd, 2008
I’m too young to remember James Burke, but anybody who got a namecheck in a Human League song (The Black Hit Of Space) was obviously a person of considerable merit.
rosie on April 22nd, 2008
The really brilliant thing about Connections (apart from the charismatic Burke, who rather confirms the point) is that it made public the bleedin’ obvious (to me) point that things happen because they are ready to happen, because all the things that need to happen first have fallen into place, not because some lonely, driven genius is working away in isolation. The names that get themselves associated with big changes; the Newtons, Mozarts, Einsteins, and yes, the Brian Epsteins and Malcolm McLarens, do so because they are skilled self-publicists more than they are innovative geniuses in a vacuum.
So, what’s about to happen to pop is going to happen, not because anybody had a sudden spark of inspiration, or got into a studio and stomped, but because social, economic and technical influences were coming together in a particular way.
That’s my theory, anyway, and I’m sticking to it!
Erithian on April 22nd, 2008
As I recall “Connections” was on a Tuesday night, and for much of its run it was in a double-header with the drama series “The Voyage of Charles Darwin”. Quality stuff, I didn’t usually get much homework done on a Tuesday at that point.
Griff Rhys Jones in “Not the Nine o’Clock News” did a great parody of James Burke’s style (Google tells me it was broadcast on 14 April 1980!) along the lines of: “The whole thing could be explained very simply. So why isn’t it? … (much more in same vein) It all boils down to five words. I’m. Clever. And. You’re. Stupid.
a logged out p^nk s lord sukråt wötsit on April 22nd, 2008
hee my dad HATED j.burke — i will have to ask him why exactly — and i picked this up and DISDANED him as only a teenager can, ie by massive haughty yet unjustified proxy
FT's Alan on April 22nd, 2008
there was much to make fun of with JB. his columns in the Sci Am read a bit like parody.
crag on April 22nd, 2008
Thanks to Tom and Billy for the ABBA advice! Unfortunately i gave up on the turntable a few years back but I managed to download most of the tracks recommended-you’re right, Bill, “When I Kissed the Teacher” is a stormer(check out the vid on youtube in which Frida is the coolest woman in the world!)and I will keep my eye out for More Abba Gold in the future! Cheers!
Billy Smart on April 22nd, 2008
Ha ha, that promo is great - Bjorn and Benny as the world’s oldest schoolboys!
Particularly touching is the way that it evokes real human awkwardness on the part of both the kisser and the teacher - as would actually happen in real life. A contemporary video would add a familiar veneer of psuedo-sexiness to the thing and ignore the vulnerability.
crag on April 22nd, 2008
Re- the WIKTT promo vid- obv the baseball shirt look was very IN circa ‘76(check our next entry..)
fivelongdays on April 22nd, 2008
I’m really, really sorry, and I know it makes me sound like a grumpy old rockist, but I can’t stand Abba. Sorry.
Although their worst is yet to come…
FT's Tom on April 22nd, 2008
No need to apologise - I am a little surprised that the pendulum on ABBA has swung *so* much back in the other direction (though I suspect this website has a skewed sample).
Ken L on April 23rd, 2008
RIP Ola Brunkert
Ken L on April 23rd, 2008
Oh, I guess that happened a month ago. Never mind.
fivelongdays on April 24th, 2008
Tom - absolutely spot on. My guess (and I might be a little too young to have got the drift, but I hope you’ll understand what I’m aiming at) is that - this ties in to the whole “Guilty Pleasures” concept - there is a reason why they’ve been rehabilitated.
At some point in the early 90s, someone, somewhere, with a bit of ‘cred’ said that they actually quite liked Abba, and a lot of other people who felt they’d be mocked for it all went ‘Look! Hip Person X likes Abba, so it’s OK for me to like it too.’
And then all the (sensible) people who didn’t give a rats hoot for hipness became, for want of a better word, validated, and it all grew up and exploded.
This does not, however, excuse some of the abominations we’re about to hear *hides from spoiler bunny*
FT's Tom on April 24th, 2008
That lop-eared tyrant is also watching discussions of the 90s ABBA revival closely, it should be said.
wwolfe on April 24th, 2008
I look forward to reading (what I anticipate will be) the many ABBA entries, and responses. Because, as an American, ABBA:America has always existed as such a very different entity and experience than ABBA:Europa (or would it be more accurate to say ABBA:Earth[sansUSA]?) In America, ABBA had one big hit “(Dancing Queen”) that was percieved as simply one song in the big disco wave, and a few mid-level hits (Waterloo, Fernando, and Knowing Me, Knowing You). So while I was vaguely aware that this was THE all-conquering band that defined its era for pretty much the rest of the globe, they were never that big a deal in the States. (To pick one obvious example from roughly the same moment, Peter Frampton was much, much more *present*, simply as a part of everyday life in America, than ABBA ever was at that time. For which I truly apologize.)
So I’m eager to read what everyone has to say, both critical analysis and personal recollection. Because it’s an odd feeling to have missed out on the phenomenal aspect of a pop phenom - particularly one that has now shown itself to be a permanent part of the cultural landscape (a landscape that now includes America, thanks to “Mamma Mia” - the musical, that is).
As for my reaction at the time, I thought “Waterloo” was exciting and fun, “Dancing Queen” was lost on me due to my blinkered Midwest white guy’s kneejerk dismissal of anything remotely disco, “Fernando” was a puzzler (”Really? A song about the Spanish Civil War?”), and I don’t think “Knowing Me, Knowing You” registered much one way or the other. I think my common reaction to each record was how strange they sounded, simply because there seemed to be a total lack of black influence.
Now I like a lot of ABBA - although I lean more toward the peppy, up-tempo numbers, versus the ones that sound more like show tunes. In fact, I think hearing “Bang-a-Boomarang” on the B-side of some single was the moment when I first thought, “OK, I think I’ve missed something here,” which led me to buying the two Greatest Hits CDs, followed by the first few albums. They still seem strange in their lack of black influence - although better informed listeners may very well point out what I’m missing on this count - but they also often times seem wondrous in their pop glory, and their deep love of the whole idea of Pop.
FT's Tom on April 24th, 2008
wwolfe my biggest example of “ok this is a huge cultural thing which I have virtually *NO* foothold on” is KISS! - which I guess was contemporary to ABBA’s success.
Billy Smart on April 24th, 2008
Wwolfe - You might find Voulez Vouz (1979) an interesting album, because its them trying to complete the circle and break America by sounding a bit like The Bee Gees, and hence more disco than elsewhere.
Talking about this album won’t upset the spoiler bunny, because its the one which didn’t spawn any UK number ones.
It’s great, obviously, but I’ve never met anyone who’s said its their favourite ABBA album.
FT's Tom on April 24th, 2008
Yeah Voulez-Vous is weird - actually crag if you want another ABBA album track to hunt out find “As Good As New” from V-V: it’s like they’ve heard a Chic record and gone, “Ah, disco uses strings”, but the only way they can possibly imagine of using strings is prissy string quartet stuff so the track ends up being this really weird combination of incredibly uptight nonfunk and Michael Nyman hurried prettiness. (with ABBA piano)
rosie on April 25th, 2008
String quartets are prissy? Wash your mouth out, young Tom. None of this Beano stuff here!
After all, the first use of a string quartet in a pop context produced one of Popular’s towering monuments…
Tom on April 25th, 2008
No no string quartets the way ABBA used them on that track are prissy! - I think they’re trying to get the precision of the string parts on “Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah)” but they end up at ‘fussy’ instead.
wwolfe on April 25th, 2008
Tom, the KISS analogy is very apt. For I was indeed a member of the mighty KISS Army at exactly this moment. My best friend and I were standing on our folding metal chairs in the sixteenth row at the Cleveland Coliseum this very year, in fact, singing along with “Detroit Rock City” and all the rest.
I still haul out an album to hear a track or two now and then. But, ironically, I probably listen to more ABBA.
And it just occurred to me both bands have all-caps names. Hmm…
FT's Doctor Mod on April 26th, 2008
I had taken “Far From The Madding Crowd” to read and being in a children’s ward, this was something of a curiosity to the nurses, one of whom had actually been to my primary school, funnily enough. I recall an older doctor asking me what I thought of Thomas Hardy. I told him I was only reading this particular book because I was in love with Julie Christie.
OMG!! Oh, Waldo–I thought I was the only one!! I have told many a soul that I’m an English professor today thanks to Julie Christie all those years ago! Every time I have a class that requires a Victorian novel in the curriculum, I assign FFTMC, if for no other reason than it gives me an excuse to show the film to my class. (And I sit there in the dark, saying under my breath “She’s soooo beautiful!)
I, too, was in love with JC–maybe I still am.
(Rosie, loved your story, too.)
And, um, on the subject, I quite agree that “Mamma Mia,” is fine, well-crafted pop–but not as good as “SOS” or “Waterloo.”