have not spent enough time at this discoplace to be anything but vague but it definitely includes “Mamma Mia!”, “Dancing Queen”, Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” and almost certainly “Time of My Life”

i think it is cheese if you can belt it out while slightly drunkenly dancing to it in a large circle. lots of pointing. synth/bass based of course. crux: that it has existed long enough as an embarrassing song to dance and belt along to that it is in fact no longer embarrassing

suspect equation is ‘guilty pleasure’ + time = cheese

however an a posteriori approach is not recommended, since said discoplace also played “Bad Romance”

edit: a given event either plays all cheese all the time or it is a cheeseless set. if you were to drop “Mamma Mia!” into an otherwise noncheese evening there would be complaints

(your poptimism is useless here!)

@wwolfe # 49: I think you may have undersold ABBA’s US success. While it’s true that they weren’t ‘Kings’ the way they were everywhere else, they were certainly consistently successful from ’74 – ’81 just like everywhere else. ‘Waterloo’, ‘The Winner Takes it All’, ‘Take A Chance On Me’ were all top ten hits. ‘Dancing Queen’ was a # 1. ‘The Name of the Game’, ‘SOS’, ‘I Do I Do I Do’, ‘Fernando’, ‘Knowing Me Knowing You’ were all top twenty hits. ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘Honey Honey’, ‘Chiquitita’, ‘Does Your Mother Know’, ‘When All is Said and Done’ were all top forty hits. So they were very successful throughout the years. The reason they never really became the world-beating stars they were everywhere else was simple; they hardly ever toured. Agnetha hated flying, and they only did one proper US tour (and it was small). This meant that their albums never went as high or stayed around long enough, and the singles had to chart without support. ABBA were big, they did have fans, but in the US more than anywhere else; if a band doesn’t show up and play – they aren’t going to be as successful. The success that ABBA achieved without even being there just underscores what they could’ve achieved if only they had been there.

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.”

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…

After all, the first use of a string quartet in a pop context produced one of Popular’s towering monuments…

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.

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.

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*

Although their worst is yet to come…

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.

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.

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!