ABBA parodies and the false assumptions behind them

It has been a while since angry, ranty Becky has appeared on this blog, and well, she's back, and she's angry lol.

Okay, so recently I came across this video on instagram that was sort of supposed to be a parody lumping together all ABBA songs to make a stereotypical ABBA song, or like Every ABBA song, and it kind of made me mad for a few reasons.  Number 1, there really is no way to make a stereotypical ABBA song.  ABBA have so many songs over a 10 year catalog + the songs recorded for Voyage after a 40 year hiatus.  Their albums showcase a variety of different styles, genres themes, songs of melancholy and songs that emanate pure joy.   There are songs about breaking up, the pain of divorce, and songs about loving one another. Songs about being a parent, and songs about pure love. Then there are the songs that make you laugh, and songs that are really just a joke, like Two For The Price Of One and Crazy World.  Honestly, the punchline of Two For The Price Of One still cracks me up, especially because without that last line you'd be like WHAT THE HECK IS THIS SONG?  THIS IS SO CREEPY!!, and then all of Crazy World is like this huge misunderstanding and how the main character sees something, completely jumps to the wrong conclusions, and then it all turns out to be a big nothing.  It's FUNNY!  But I digress. 

 

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There really is no way to sum up all of ABBA's songs into one parody song.  ABBA's gone through so many different styles of songs, the only thing that remains common is the ABBA sound, the harmonies, the layers of vocals, the magical sound of Agnetha and Frida's combined vocals, with added backing vocals from Bjorn and Benny.   All of that makes an ABBA song, but there is no one single topic that all ABBA songs cover.  Now I've always been one to point out common themes and phrases that show up throughout their entire discography. That's literally what my YouTube channel is about, yet these are things like using the word "blue" to as a feeling, or using "Aha" a lot, or making up characters in their songs.  Really, if you want to be making a stereotypical ABBA song, you should take notes by watching my videos haha, but honestly, there is no way to make a stereotypical ABBA song.  It's  nearly impossible to replicate their sound, or fit all their different genres into one song.  Like, not every ABBA song is going to sound like Dancing Queen or other popular hits from ABBA Gold.  And even on ABBA Gold, do any of their songs sound similar?  Does Fernando really sound like Dancing Queen, or Thank You For The Music like Take A Chance On Me?  No!  And that's because no ABBA song sounds the same.

What mostly really bothers me about this video is the fixation on adult & minor relationships in ABBA songs.  This video makes the assumption that ABBA's songs are in a way glorifying a relationship with someone 17 and younger being with an adult.  First of all, there are only two ABBA songs that mention ages, those being Man In The Middle and Dancing Queen.  I don't personally understand what being "only 17" means, like is it's trying to show how young the character of the dancing queen is, how mature she is for her age, how she's done so much in her life while only be 17, idk.  But the song doesn't in anyway say that she is actively like flirting with people older than her.  In fact the other people at the club she's dancing at, the king she's looking for, could also be 17!  You see what I'm getting at?

And then in Man In The Middle, the song I don't think in anyway is trying to say that the Man who is in the middle is doing a good thing.  The song mentions who the guy is 50 and the girl is only 17, but when you listen to and most importantly READ the lyrics, you can see how the Man is not a good man.  I've seen quite a few reviews where people really dislike Man In The Middle, specifically because of the line about the man being 50 and the girl 17, and yeah, I think we can all agree that's creepy.  But the song is trying to say how this man is not a good guy.  Especially in the third verse, where it says: 

But you see that man made a big mistake

even though he’s got all his servants and a mansion beside a lake

and the money too, all that he can spend

he can buy the most, nearly anything but he can’t buy an honest friend

 And then the whole chorus:

’Cause he’s the man in the middle 

never second fiddle 

just like a spider in a cobweb 

hard as a hammer not the kind of boss you double-cross 

’cause he’s the man in the middle 

knows the way to diddle 

he’s never bothered by his conscience 

deals with the devil ’cause he wants to be

 man in the middle, the middle, the middle in the middle

In my personal opinion, this song is not in any way glorifying this behavior.  It's specifically talking about a BAD man who does BAD actions.  But he doesn't care because he IS BAD.  Do I need to make it any clearer?  Of course you can dislike any song you want, but I think it's important to keep in mind that this is a bad character.  Okay?

Now, there is also the song Does Your Mother Know, which in all honestly, is a super weird song.  I will give you that.  The song certainly gives me a bit of an ick, as the man in the song is clearly an adult and singing about flirting with a child.  HOWEVER, when you actually listen to the words of the song, you'll see how it's actually about a man turning down the advances being made at him by a child because SHE IS ONLY A CHILD.  And he's actually asking her if her mother knows what she's doing?  At a time when there were so many rock stars in the 70s and 80s, and even earlier, who were ALLEGEDLY known to have relations with minors, which is really really REALLY bad and also ILLEGAL I should mention, can we just appreciate a song that is actually discouraging this behavior?  Yes I think the wording could have been done better, even flirting with a minor is not right, but the song is AT LEAST trying to discourage such wrong behaviors, especially where it is the adult's job in that situation to be the responsible one and make sure no ILLEGAL actions are being done, and actively discourage the kid from pursuing such wrong things.  But the responsibility ultimately falls on the adult.  Which the main character of Does Your Mother Know is trying to do.  

So all the more so, there are no ABBA songs that promote relationships between minors and adults.  Okay?

Also, very important to note, almost all of ABBA's songs are not about actual situations in their members' lives.  Unlike singers of today who like to write deeply personal songs about their own personal lives ((which is not a bad thing)), ABBA's songs are not like that.  It would  be dumb to think that ABBA in 1975 would have experienced a rough divorce like in Hey Hey Helen or be jealous of their partner for choosing their love for violin over interacting with them like in Dum Dum Diddle, etc.   There may be a fe2 of songs INSPIRED (emphasis on the word inspired) by real life events, like The Winner Takes It All, When All Is Said And Done, and Slipping Through My Fingers, but that is just taking inspiration and is not actually telling the story of the ABBA members personal lives.

Now, just last night I think it was, Saturday Night Live did an ABBA parody.  As you can probably tell by this whole ranty post, I really do not like parodies.  I don't like Mamma Mia, I don't like tribute bands (unless they can to it properly, but I've already ranted about that on my blog in the past), and that's just me.  If you like those things, good for you.  

So clearly, I'm not the target audience for this parody.  Especially as they got the costumes so inaccurate, like I know EXACTLY which outfits they're parodying, but if they went as far as they did to research costumes, and attempt to recreate them and even give them and decent wigs, can you at least try to make them more accurate?  Plus they're saying this FICTIONAL album came out in 1978.  Why then did they make them look like ABBA from 1974???  WHYYY?????  

 

But the thing I'm most upset by is the FIXATION on characters in ABBA songs being aged 17.  I literally just went over the number of ABBA songs that mention ages, that being TWO.  TWO SONGS out of a good 9 albums worth of songs.  If there were more songs that mention ages in songs, don't you think I'd have done a compilation on it by now?  

If the SNL skit had actually been more properly researched, maybe just maybe I could accept it and possibly enjoy it . Like I'm glad that ABBA are still getting recognition and are popular enough to even merit a skit being about them, but if you can't be bothered to get your FREAKING FACTS STRAIGHT and make sure there's an actual TRUE basis to your statements, I'm sorry but maybe don't try it at all.  You just end up making yourself look stupid.

Also, I know I'm being nitpicky, but there couldn't have been an Xmas version of Chiquitita released in 1978, as it came out in 1979.

If you enjoy these parodies, no judgement to you of course.  And no hate from me to the creators of these ill-researched parodies that were based on a completely false foundation.  I just hope they'll do better if they really feel the need to be a next time.  Let's pray there won't be lol.

Alright, there you go.  Enough ranting from me.