Happy 80th birthday, Bjorn!

 Today our very own Björn Ulvaeus celebrates his 80th birthday! Grattis på födelsedagen, Björn! ❤️🎉

 

Bright Lights, Dark Shadows... is it REALLY the definitive biography of ABBA?????

 I want to start this review with a quote from the book itself, on page 597 regarding the creation of Mamma Mia! the stage musical  "Everybody involved was careful to point out that the musical was in no way related to the story of ABBA, but when news of the project reached the press, some reports still made out that it was going to depict the group's emergence from Sweden out into the world.  Frida read one such article, and unimpressed, fired off an angry fax to Bjorn, asking what he meant by doing a musical about their career.  She calmed down and gave the project her blessing when he explained that the exact opposite was true: the last thing anyone wanted was the ABBA saga in dramatic form."

Almost exactly one year ago today I posted my initial review of esteemed ABBA historian Carl Magnus Palm's book Bright Lights, Dark Shadows, namely the 2014 edition.  As a kid I had always wanted to get my hands on this book because it seemed like a great window into ABBA's lives, giving the ABBA-obsessed child that I was a chance to really get to know my four favorite people in a more personal format.  So when the opportunity to buy it at a nice, discounted price on Amazon I think it was arose, I jumped at that chance, and the book ended up being more of a disappointment to me than enjoyable.  In my review I'm surprised that I didn't really put in to words how upset the book made me, trying to seem a little more positive, but in actuality, I really did not like the book.  

So why then did I go ahead and buy the new, 2024 revised edition in honor of ABBA's 50th anniversary that I only finally got my hands a couple of weeks ago?  Because Carl Magnus Palm had said that he was going through and fixing a couple of things, part of me had hope that he would maybe add in sources, or actually prove that events that he says happened actually happened.  But nope, nothing has changed.  In fact I would argue that the "post-2014" section was kinda messy and hastily put together.

One of my major concerns in this book is the characters that Carl Magnus Palm has created for each ABBA member.  Often times he'll take a character trait or fact about the person and decide that that entire trait encompasses that ABBA member. For starters, because Frida had a bit of a rough childhood and may have suffered from bouts of depression, suddenly Frida is the depressed one.  Because Bjorn showed interest in the business side of the things, suddenly he is the business man.  And of course, despite Carl Magnus Palm even mentioning how degrading it is to be reduced to a body part, namely the disgusting way media became obsessed with Agnetha's bottom, obviously that means that Agnetha is the sExY one, and is only ever the sexy one.  She may not have enjoyed being a sex icon, but no matter what, she was the sexy one!  Stig Andersson is ABBA's hot tempered angry manager.  No matter what he says, it will always be with negative or angry undertones.  Stig will never just "say", he will always respond with a snap, or an angry retort.  And Benny, well, dare I say, Benny kinda doens't have much personality in this book. He's always there to support Frida, he's loveable, and kind, and a musical genius, and he does like birds, but that's about it. There's hardly any mention of his goofball side, the pranks he'd pull on Michael B. Tretow in the recording studio as referenced in Bjorn's children book that he sells at ABBA the Museum, no mention of his sense of humor, like how he once replied to a fan questionnaire that his favorite food is Acorns and Milk. Also apparently Agnetha and Frida are always very temperamental and spend a lot of their time having temper tantrums, even during recording songs.

All of this, in my opinion, completely goes against what the ABBA members have said, as stated in this interview with Sveriges Magasin in 1977, in fact the characters that Carl Magnus Palm has created for the ABBA members sounds all too similar to the "characters" that the ABBA members are claiming are not true.  Especially when Agnetha says in this same interview that a Swedish paper falsely claimed that she had been close to calling off the tour because she was longing for her daughter and home too much, Agnetha continues by saying how all of that can be true, that of course she missed her daughter, but she never had the intention of canceling the tour.  Yet this book spends majority of its text trying to remind us that Agnetha absolutely HATED touring and was the one holding ABBA back from touring because she just missed her daughter so much and couldn't bare to leave her. And it would pain her that the other three members (while the book also reminds us how Bjorn and Benny - but not Frida because Frida ((who the book must remind you used to have bouts of stage fright but doesn't anymore but she also used to have stage fright and depression)) loved to tour - also didn't like the stress of touring) would overpower her and insist on touring and as a result Agnetha would spend the entire tour miserable.  Nevermind that the book will also talk about how exciting and exhilarating it was for ABBA to perform on stage in front of an audience, even during their miserable 1977 and 1979 tours, while also reminding us of how it was so painful to do so.  And I'm not arguing the fact that touring and being away from home and family can be tiring and exhasting and not the most fun thing to do, it's just the book spends way too much time pontificating on the negative parts and hardly going into the positive sides.

Because this book is supposed to be a dramatic tale on the ABBA members' oh so terrible and miserable lives, there is hardly any place for humor or just general positivity.  When something positive happens, Carl Magnus Palm always has to follow it with something negative, or if something extremely negative happens, only at the very end will there be a very subtle mention to something positive about whatever negative experience it was.

Also, I know that I already stated this in my previous review, but the way the author basically inserts his opinions on ABBA songs and shares them as 100% accurate facts bothers me.  He repeatedly will talk about how the tracks from ABBA's earlier albums, more specifically any song that features Bjorn and Benny on lead vocals, is just a bad song.  While the majority of "uneducated" people may think that ABBA is only a female-fronted band and then precede to get shocked and bummed out to find that good chunk of ABBA's songs feature Bjorn and Benny on lead vocals, that doesn't mean that having Bjorn and Benny on lead vocals makes the song bad.  Yet that's the view that the author seems to take.  And like, yeah, I get that I am an ABBA worshipper and I literally love every single ABBA song, even the "totally unlistenable" I Saw It In The Mirror, but just because a lot of people don't like those songs, it shouldn't discredit those who do like them.  You could say maybe that the majority of listeners don't like such and such song, and that could be true and doesn't in anyway act like the song on a whole is just hated by everyone.

In fact, another thing that really bothers me is how Carl Magnus Palm really doesn't like how disjointed ABBA's early albums, even Bjorn and Benny's Lycka album, are, with no consistent sound, with too many different styles and genres, making the albums sound all over the place, YET he also praises ABBA's Voyage album for doing that exact same thing, proving that ABBA have the ability to sing in any style, even to this day.  I've always loved how, despite all of ABBA's songs having that sparkling and magical sound, no songs sound the same. Each song is unique, each album displays a variety of styles.  But Carl Magnus Palm acts like thats a bad thing, while also sometimes acting like it's a good thing.

I also already mentioned this in my previous review, but the way Carl Magnus Palm insists that, despite Bjorn outright DENYING that songs like One Man, One Woman and Knowing Me, Knowing You had anything to do with his marital situation at the time, Carl Magnus Palm will continue to speculate and decide that Bjorn is obviously lying because he the author clearly knows more about Bjorn's personal life than Bjorn does, and includes this information as if it is 100% factual and true.  Yet songs that Bjorn has stated are actually inspired by (emphasis on inspired because no ABBA song is a direct retelling of their actual lives) personal things, like maybe how Super Trouper was inspired by him missing his then girlfriend while on tour, as he was quoted during ABBA's countdown to the release of the new songs on Social Media back in 2021, there's no mention of.  

It also bothers me that Carl Magnus Palm finds it necessary to compare both Bjorn's then-girlfriend/wife, Lena, and Benny's wife, Mona, to the B's previous partners.  I do not care if the media at that time was like "Omg Bjorn was seen with a new blonde who looks just like Agnetha!!" or "Benny has life his brunette wife for a new brunette girlfriend!" (nevermind that at the time of Benny and Frida's breakup, Frida was a redhead.) Falling trap to the whole comparing women to each other, whether appearance wise or personality wise or anything really, is just wrong.  Nevermind that Carl Magnus Palm in his book complains at how the media would constantly pit Agnetha and Frida against each other, yet he doesn't understand how wrong it is for he himself (and no, he was not quoting a magazine or tabloid when he said this) to compare women who are not Agnetha or Frida to Agnetha and Frida.  It's just wrong.  

I also find it interesting how Carl Magnus Palm shares the exciting events that were ABBA being presented an award by Princess Margaret, and ABBA getting invited to a royal dinner by the King and Queen of Sweden, yet still neglects to share how after the whole private jet turbulence emergency landing in Manchester NH situation, resulting in the cancellation of ABBA's Washington DC show, Bjorn, Benny, and Frida visited the White House and got to meet Amy Carter who was an ABBA fan and was looking forward to seeing them in concert the day before.  They even presented her with an ABBA necklace.  But you know, that event just isn't important enough to share in this 100% accurate and factual biography that Carl Magnus Palm has written.  (Also, fyi, as someone who lives in a small town in NH, Manchester is not a small town - it is a city.)  Jimmy Carter is at least mentioned now, however, as allegedly sending his personal doctor to Agnetha when she allegedly locked herself in her hotel room and Stig was allegedly pounding on her door and harassing her.

Also, Carl Magnus Palm suggests that the Official Photo Book released in 2014 doesn't offer much in terms of personal anecdotes and really doesn't offer anything new, yet in my opinion, that book does include some of the sweetest personal stories, including one from Agnetha that when the Hep Stars were in her area when she was a teenager, she had nothing for them to sign, so they signed her green parka. (And of course that story was no included in Carl Magnus Palm's book because why would he include that..?) It also includes a different view than the one that Carl Magnus Palm shares in his book, sharing that  Agnetha knew more about the gross sexploitation film that Bjorn and Benny did the soundtrack for in 1970 and was quick to put her foot down, absolutely forbidding Bjorn from taking on a role in the film, unlike in CMP's book where he acts like Agnetha innocently had no idea what the film was about and was like "Aw Bjorn you can't act don't do that hehe."   

Also, for a book who spends a lot of time reminding us that Agnetha was not this poor, tortured, heartbroken woman that the media made her out to be, Carl Magnus Palm sure likes to repeat this trope over and over again.  In fact he also loves to remind us that, despite Agnetha's dislike of being seen as just the sexy sex-icon who is super sexy and has a sexy butt, she was always seen as that.  Maybe, out of respect to the woman you're writing about, you could stop reducing her as such, and like, remind everyone that she is not just a sexy woman who is super sexy?

Also, maybe I missed it, but I also didn't seen any mention of the duet that Frida did with the band Ratata in 1987.  Maybe it wasn't included because it didn't fit the narrative that Frida completely disappeared from the music business after the "flop" of her Shine album.

And again, I will always find it concerning that, despite the author also talking about how tabloid magazines like Expressen and Aftonbladet would often share false stories and narratives about the ABBA members, he still includes plenty of quotes and lists these tabloids as sources for his book.  If these tabloids are known for sharing sensationalized and often false stories, can you really trust them? 

One more thing, I find it interesting how Carl Magnus Palm mentions on several occasions that ABBA were actually very into "WiLD PaRTiEs" and they sure knew how to party after every show or event or whatnot, but unlike other wild rock stars of that era there was no trashing the place, no throwing instruments out hotel windows, yet still fails to elaborate what these so called wild parties mean.  What did they do?  What happened??  All we know is that they had WILD PARTIES and LIKED TO PARTY, but that doesn't say much.

If there was any thing that I did enjoy in the book, it would be the sections added into this new edition that are directly from Michael B. Tretows tapes that were explored in depth in Carl Magnus Palm's ABBA on Record book.  If I hadn't read ABBA on Record already, then those few snippets referenced in this book would have made me so happy.  Other than that though, dare I say this book hardly gives any insight into recording sessions, the thought process behind why some songs were performed such and such way, or more detail to how Agnetha and Frida would contribute ideas.  Even some more insights on ABBA's costumes, and the various styles and ideas that ultimately became their costumes.  It would have been so cool to get more insight into the things that make up ABBA's presentation in both music and appearance.  But no, because there's no drama there, there's not much to be said there.

Again, there is no doubt that Carl Magnus Palm did a lot of research for this book, and dedicated a lot of time and energy, translating articles and writing it all down in a compelling and certainly dramatic story, but I just feel like the whole book is just a sensationalized piece of work that only adds fuel to the fire and doesn't do much to really share the whole truthful story.  There are pieces of information that are missing, a lack of clear cut sources, and the whole thing feels like nothing but gossip with only a few grains of truth, and just overall felt very disrespectful.  I really did not like this book, it made me angry.  I guess if you are a gossipmonger and you like learning all about "ABBA's DIRTY secrets" and are among the general public who only cares about the tracklist of ABBA Gold and the Mamma Mia! franchise, then yeah, this book might be for you.  It was definitely not for me.  If I had to rate it, I think I'd give it a 4/10. worse than my previous score.

(I was also thinking, if I had all the same sources and information that Carl Magnus Palm had, I bet the result would be a completely different story.  The only reason why I haven't actually considered this is that I unfortunately am not fluent in Swedish and could not translate a lot of articles... )

51 Years of ABBA

A simple drawing to celebrate 51 years since ABBA's global success story began in 1974! Happy anniversary, ABBA!

 

Happy 75th birthday, Agnetha!

Wishing a very, very happy 75th birthday to Ms. Agnetha Faltskog, our Queen of Hearts ❤️❤️❤️ I hope she has an incredible day celebrating with all her loved ones.

 

When two worlds collide

 I'm not really one to go sharing ABBA/ABBA related news because it's too hard to keep up and I don't have the motivation, but I had to share this considering one of my top favorite artists got to meet a member of my top favorite band today.  Considering Sabrina has been singing ABBA on many of her Short n' Sweet tour stops as a surprise song, and she's even named her cats Benny and Bjorn, I actually can imagine how exciting this must have been for her because I think I would feel the same way if I was presented with the same opportunity :') 

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AI ABBA songs...?

No this is not an April Fools post, but coincidentally today is actually my blog's 12 year anniversary I think...?  Wow.  Anyway, in recent months, AI ABBA songs have been becoming more and more prevalent on the various social medias, namely YouTube.  These AI ABBA songs range from "covers" where Agnetha and Frida's voices are basically slapped over existing vocals from other artists, or people are creating their own original ABBA songs with the ladies' vocals inputted over the creator's own vocals.

And I have a few thoughts on this, but I was hesitant to actually post this because I have this fear that the creators of these AI ABBA songs will see this post and learn to get better... and that's not what I want.

First of all, similar to what Bjorn himself stated in a beautiful post regarding AI, AI is becoming more and more powerful and it's impossible to not utilize it in some way.  I personally enjoy brainstorming with ChatGPT for ideas for my own books, and asking it questions I have about certain subjects and careers that I cannot possibly have any knowledge about and I have already extensively researched and couldn't find the answers I'm looking for (knowing full well that ChatGPT is not necessarily accurate.) How I use it I think only enhances creativity, and there are definitely other ways to assist creativity as well.  However, at this time, when it comes to AI art, whether it's music or art, AI is simply stealing people's work by being trained on it without the original artist giving explicit permission, and it is becoming a bigger and bigger problem.  

Considering the fact that ABBA themselves have always been very protective of their image, likeness, and rights, the fact that someone can simply take Agnetha and Frida's voices and put it onto someone  else's song and say it's an ABBA song, or generate completely new "unseen" ABBA images seems just wrong.

Now I don't really wanna go more into the morals of AI because it's all so confusing, but I am more than happy to talk about why AI ABBA songs are just in general bad, haha, and I think it will take a very very long time before they'll ever reach the level of actually sounding like ABBA.  And here's why:

A lot of these so called AI ABBA songs are generally created by someone taking pre-existing vocals from like, let's say I Know Him So Well by Chess, and using AI vocals that are trained to sound like Agnetha and Frida and placing them over the original vocals.  The result is you have a vocal that sounds kinda like Agnetha Faltskog but the phrasing, accent, and singing style is that of Elaine Paige, and same for Frida's general sound but sounding too much like Barbara Dickson because it is Barbara Dickson. And that simply doesn't work.  Don't get me wrong, I too want to hear Frida and Agnetha singing I Know Him So Well, but simply overlaying their vocals over the song doesn't get you that ABBA sound.  In fact, so far the creators of these AI songs simply don't understand how to capture the ABBA sound.

For starters, Agnetha and Frida, and Benny and Bjorn as well, each have their own unique timbre, accents, phrasing, and styles, that no one has managed to mimic for the base vocals.  I've heard AI songs where the singing sounds like a modern day pop-star, not even singing in Frida's range, with Frida's voice overlayed on top, and it doesn't sound like Frida.  The production of these tracks also don't understand that to get that ABBA sound is not just Frida singing with Agnetha singing the same melody or harmonizing alongside her.  To get that ABBA sound, you need to have those layers upon layers of vocals stacked on top of each other, and you also can't not include Bjorn and Benny's harmonies in there as well.  I talk about this enough times already but if you compare the Spanish recordings of ABBA songs, done solely by Agnetha and Frida, to the original English language versions that have Bjorn and Benny mixed in there, they just don't compare. (Not saying the Spanish versions are bad btw, I just prefer the fuller ABBA sound that the originals have.) And these AI ABBA songs can't even sound like the Spanish versions!

I believe a lot of these "original" AI-ABBA songs are likely written by AI as well.  Considering the general public who aren't obsessed with ABBA like I am already reduce ABBA in their minds to "fun disco group" who "sang the songs from Mamma Mia", and assume that ABBA are just one of those stereotypical 70s groups with the stereotypical disco sounds with satin and sequins and flared pants, it doesn't surprise me that AI doesn't know what ABBA truly is either.  And the result is, dumb lyrics, simple song structure, songs with crazy long instrumental intros that take up the whole song...  And even worse because ABBA are obviously just the "Dancing Queen" band, the dumb AI lyrics like to reference ABBA songs in their lyrics, like having them mention the words Dancing Queen in the lyrics, because ABBA would totally do that, referencing their top hits in their songs.  

Now common themes, phrases, subjects, is absolutely something that ABBA have done, as I was delving into in my song analysis series I was doing on this blog last year before getting severely burnt out, but AI doesn't understand that.  So AI is simply incapable of understanding the nuances of an ABBA song, Benny's ability to compose unique melodies, or Bjorn's unique lyrical style.

(Slight side note, but I was actually thinking recently how ABBA's Keep An Eye On Dan is basically ABBA's attempt at making a "stereotypical" ABBA song.  The song is an upbeat track, with kinda sad lyrics referencing relationship drama, namely a divorce and the tough feelings associated with co-parenting, having a character's name in the song: Dan - similar to Bobby and Bobby's brother, Suzy from Suzy-Hang-Around, and the many many more mentioned throughout ABBA's discography, and the nod to SOS, a previous hit, at the end.  The only thing that would make it more stereotypical ABBA would be if they referenced an animal of some type or used "feeling blue" as an emotion, haha.)

Also another thing that bothers me is a lot of people when generating these AI ABBA songs literally just apply a stereotypical 70s or 80s sound to the song, assuming that ABBA are just your stereotypical 70s/80s band, so the music just doesn't sound like ABBA at all.  Plus it's even funnier when they write a song specifically titled "80s style ABBA song", but the vocals they trained their AI models on are how Agnetha and Frida sounded in the early 70s.  That's like having Agnetha in her Hasta Manana or SOS singing style, singing One of Us from the Visitors album, and that historically couldn't happen because both Agnetha and Frida's vocals and singing styles had matured and changed throughout ABBA's career.

Considering a lot of these AI songs are likely created by amateurs, the songs just sound bad in general.  Bad mixing, with the vocals placed all the way at the front of the song while the rest of the instruments, which are all digital btw and as a result can never get that full sound or even come close to the wall of sound effect of ABBA's actual songs.  And like they kinda sound like, or even worse than, the simple instrumentals that ABBA tribute bands have their Agnetha and Frida sing along to, and like, simply having an Agnetha and Frida singing and dancing to an ABBA song doesn't capture the ABBA effect.

Anyway, although these AI-ABBA songs are generally bad, there are people in the comments who genuinely think that these are "new", "rare", or "bootleg" ABBA songs.  And while these tracks definitely don't sound like ABBA now, in time people are going to get better at making these AI ABBA songs without ABBA's permission, and it's just doing to end up ruining how people remember ABBA.  People are really going to be tricked into thinking these mediocre crafts are part of ABBA's history, ruining how ABBA want to be remembered.  Which is why I think it is extremely important that artists' rights and copyright are preserved, and the usage of their work to train AI models is stopped now.

Now, while I don't personally like to listen to ABBA covers or human-written ABBA-inspired songs, because as an ABBA purist I will only happily listen to ABBA, but there is nothing wrong with those.  With human intelligence, it's entirely possible to create something in the style of ABBA without infringing on ABBA's rights at all.  I think this video by Marti Fischer is the perfect example of how to do it right.

So yeah, those are my general thoughts on ABBA and AI music.  And if there are any AI music creators who are reading this post DON'T YOU DARE USE THIS POST TO ENHANCE YOUR MUSIC TO MAKE IT SOUND BETTER I DO NOT WANT YOU TO DO THAT!!!

Happy 14th birthday, Frida Dollstad

 14 years ago I put in the final stitches on my homemade Frida doll! :D

Inspiration and Influence

In February 1977, ABBA appeared on the show CountDown, interviewed by Ian Molly Medlrum, and Agnetha uses to word "Legends" to decribe the Beatles.  Benny mentions that he considers the Beatles to be "holy" and he doesn't want ABBA to be compared to the Beatles.  Then the interviewer asks if Bjorn and Benny find themselves influenced by the Beatles, and Bjorn's answer perfectly sums up the basis of this post, "Not on the actual music, but on the fact that we started writing because of them."

 

In the year 2024, I do not think it was possible to have not heard of Sabrina Carpenter in some way, shape, or form.  Her first single off of her latest album, the extremely catchy Espresso, became so popular upon its release, and the line "I'm working late cuz I'm a singer" was in no doubt ingrained in my brain for most of the last half of the year.  As I have mentioned plenty of times before, I have been a big fan of Sabrina Carpenter for close to a decade at this point.  I believe her single "Smoke and Fire" had just been released when my sister and I first became obsessed with the young artist, and Sabrina ended up being my first ever "big" concert in (and probably my last because I cannot deal with the logistics, crowds, and long lines of concerts - way too stressful haha).

I have always admired Sabrina Carpenter, and I couldn't be more proud seeing her gain so much popularity and fame over the last couple of years.

I've mentioned this before as well, that Sabrina Carpenter is an admitted ABBA fan.  As of right now, my compilation video is incomplete as it doesn't include the ABBA covers from Sabria's ABBA covers from her most recent tour, but this video I made does document her love for the band fairly well.  Her cats are even named Benny and Bjorn!  Plus she includes ABBA in her pre-show playlist that plays in the stadium before the concert, and she has included ABBA's music in her instagram reels.

 

 But the ABBA connection doesn't stop there.  ABBA seem to be quite inspirational to her in many ways. For her tour costumes, Sabrina mentioned that she and her designer took inspiration from the ABBAtar's costumes in ABBA Voyage (I believe it would be the turquoise and silver metal-y ones, not the ones that they featured in the video haha) ((Also i'm nitpicking slightly but THEY ARE NOT HOlOGRAMS)

 

these costumes

 And then in a lovely interview with her producer, Jack Antanoff, he includes ABBA among the bands that inspired them while making the track Please, Please, Please, I'm assuming specifically in the harmonies but it could be in multiple different ways. 

All of this to say - recently I saw a bunch of people online talking about Sabrina Carpenter and her ABBA inspirations, and then getting upset that they don't "hear the ABBA influence" in her songs, with others being like "omg she's trying to sound too hard like ABBA" and "she doesn't sound a thing like ABBA" and she "could never sound like Agnetha and Frida!  They're way better singers than Sabrina", (these are paraphrases, not direct quotes) etc etc.  But since when did Sabrina ever say she was a. trying to sound like ABBA, b. trying to sing like ABBA, or c. trying to sound like Agnetha and Frida?  

As I prefaced my post with the quote from Bjorn in 1977, Sabrina has only ever demonstrated a love and inspiration from the band, and being influenced and inspired by said band does not mean that she's trying to sound like her influences.  

To me this is just common sense, and I guess I just don't like seeing losers drag Sabrina through the mud due to a complete misunderstanding.  But thankfully, Sabrina has been I'd say mostly appreciated in the ABBA fan communities, with even the old people who typically don't like that "gosh darn modern music" appreciating her wit, stage presence, crafty lyrics, and insanely-dirty-but-in-the-best-way sense of humor.

So yeah, that was my Sabrina being an ABBA fan, Sabrina Carpenter appreciation, and ABBA appreciation rant for you. :D

Happy 14th birthday, Agnetha Dollskog

 Today marks 14 years since I added in the final stitches to my very obviously homemade Agnetha doll, the one that started my years long journey/need to recreate every single ABBA costume as accurately as possible in miniature form....  It's kind of crazy that my doll are now older than I was when I first started this blog back in 2013, lol.  I'm grateful and glad these dolls are still holding despite being battered and bruised, and I hope they continue to hold up. :')

Happy New Year!

  

May we all have a vision now and then, of a world where every neighbor is a friend <3