Happy 75th birthday, Bjorn!

Happy 75th birthday to 1 of the 2 songwriting masterminds behind ABBA's amazing songs, Bjorn Ulvaeus! I hope he has an absolutely amazing time celebrating his birthday with his loved ones. To celebrate his birthday, I've drawn this digital drawing of Bjorn in 1976. :)

 

And also if you're interested, here is a speedpaint I filmed as well. :)

Happy 46th Anniversary, ABBA!

Today marks 46 years since ABBA's victory in Brighton, England with the amazing song "Waterloo"!
To celebrate, here's this Waterloo-themed drawing.  I've been experimenting with a lot of different drawing styles lately, and this is the result.  I hope you guys like it. :3

Here's a speedpaint as well in case you were interested:

Happy 70th birthday, Agnetha!

Happy 70th birthday to our dearest Agnetha.  It's hard to believe all four ABBA members are now in their 70s!  I hope that, despite this difficult time, Agnetha is having a good time celebrating with her loved ones.

In honor of Agnetha's birthday, here's a digital drawing I did of her in 1981.  I've also recorded a speedpaint of the drawing which you can watch below if you'd like. :)

Happy 74th birthday, Frida!

Today, our dear Princess Frida turns 74!  Grattis på födelsedagen!  I hope she has an absolutely amazing day celebrating with her family and friends. <3

In honor of Frida's birthday, I drew this drawing of her from 1976 on the show Midnight Special.

I've also filmed a speedpaint (I accidentally recorded it in 480 instead of 720 like normal, oops, so the quality if kinda bad...), so you can check that out below. :)

Happy 45th Anniversary, ABBA!

Today marks 45 years since ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest with their incredible hit, Waterloo.  It was an absolutely iconic performance and ABBA were launched into immediate fame.

To celebrate, I drew this drawing.  It took quite a long time to get this drawing done as I had decided to try out a new style, but I'm happy with the end result.  I hope you enjoy.

Also, here is a speedpaint drawing I filmed.  Now you can see all the long hours I spent on this drawing go by in just 3 minutes. xD

Happy 69th Birthday, Agnetha!

Today, Agnetha celebrates her 69th birthday, and I hope she has an absolutely incredible day with friends and family.  I drew this digital drawing of Agnetha in honor of her birthday, and I hope you all enjoy. :)

Also, here is a speedpaint video that I filmed and uploaded to my YouTube channel so you can see how I did this drawing.

Doll Makeover

So I did something I never thought I had the courage to do - I remade my ABBA dolls' bodies because I was tired of how floppy and tattered they became over the last 8 years.

I have a detailed blog post about it over on Sew Amazing, and I also have a video for you all that I've uploaded to YouTube. :)

My comeback to YouTube

As I mentioned in my "Year In Review" post, I've made quite a comeback to my YouTube channel after letting it sit with no new content for a bit and some occasional drawing videos.  My sudden comeback has been a really good thing for my channel and has caused it to grow quite a bit, which I am honestly so grateful and honored by.  My channel is currently sitting at 485 subscribers!!

When i first created my channel, I had made it all about my Lego animations which definitely gave me a good start and attention in the ABBA fan community.  I pretty much stopped making animations in 2014, my last proper animation being "Me and Bobby and Bobby's Brother".   I had lost the inspiration to spend hours in front of my slow computer taking image after image to make those animations, so that ended.  And though I've tried to make new animations several times, I simply don't have that fuel anymore.  My channel started to become a bit inactive after that, but I did continue to upload videos, just not animations, like my Live at Wembley recreation, random drawing videos, more completely random videos, and so forth.

Just 4 weeks ago, I had a random idea after listening to a few ABBA songs with my friend to make a video about all the times ABBA use "Blue" in their songs.  I've had this idea before since I liked to turn ABBA blue in my animations whenever they mentioned the word, but I never did anything about it.  When the idea popped into my head again, I decided to make a completely random compilation video, and got a short 1 minute long video, but with the help of some lovely commenters, I made a second updated video that was 3 minutes long. 

With the success of that video, I was asked to make more videos in this style with common words/themes in ABBA songs and my next video about all the times ABBA say "Aha" in their songs is currently at 760 views!!  Even since, I've been taking requests in the comments and been making more videos like this, my most popular video so far being the one about the Evolution of ABBA songs!

I cannot tell you how much fun I've been having making these videos and all the attention that they have been receiving has been incredible!  It is such a nice feeling knowing that others really enjoy the videos that I put out.  This has definitely been a good thing for me as it's helped me feel like my old ABBA-obsessed self! :D

I'm really excited with the direction that things are going with my channel now and I can't wait to share more of my random compilation videos with you all!

Thank You For The Music Live Perth, 1977

While doing research for a video that I'm working on, I cam across this cute video.

I find it to be quite fascinating how the lyrics are different from the way they are in the studio version of Thank You For The Music. :)

Just For The Fun

Over the summer my best friend Eleonore sent me some ABBA singles, and I could not be more happier with them! I love playing them on the record player and hearing the songs the way everyone in the 70s and 80s would hear it! Thank you again Eleonore!!

One of the singles that Eleonore gave me was Tomas Ledin's Never Again (feat Agnetha!)/Just For The Fun single, and I was surprised that I had never heard the B-side before, so I decided to digitize the track and share it for everyone else to enjoy. It's a really upbeat song with a nice sound, and I really like it! I'm sure there are better quality recordings out here on YouTube without the record crackling sound that mine has, but I thought it'd be nice to share. :)

 Also if anyone can figure out the lyrics to the song, that would be incredible!  I think the chorus is in English, but everything else is probably in Swedish, which explains why I don't understand it! xD

When You Really Loved Someone Fixed Edition

I remember when the video for Agnetha's first single in 2013, "When You Really Loved Someone" came out, I had been quite excited for it.  Agnetha's first music video for her new album, talk about exciting!  Well, unfortunately I wasn't too thrilled by the music video as there wasn't much footage of Agnetha and too much of these two young people.  I know the music video is trying to tell a story, but I was not very happy with it at all.  So I've had this idea for quite some time to do a much nicer version of the video, and today I finally got around to doing it, so here you go! :D

Also, see if you can guess which ABBA music videos I used footage from! :D

Tribute band review: ABBALIVE

I remember many years ago when i would watch ABBA videos on YouTube every day 24/7 (I've probably seen every single ABBA performance there is on YouTube, from HQ videos to bad quality, bootleg recordings, you'd be surprised), I had found some videos of an Australian tribute band, Australia's most authentic tribute show, they say: ABBALIVE.  Now usually I can't stand tribute bands, and you guys probably know that already, but this one's actually pretty good.  That's pretty high praise coming from me, btw.  They've got the sound right, the voices are pretty good, as in they aren't perfect since nobody can sound just as unique as Agnetha and Frida, but they're good.  Appearance has always been a big deal for me when viewing tribute bands, but for these guys, it doesn't really matter since the sound is there and it's good!  Also I like how they're wearing costumes that tribute bands, or at least the ones I've seen online, don't seem to wear all that often.  Even better, these guys have them pretty authentic.  As a perfectionist I have to note that they didn't include the fluffy stuff on Frida's cape, but that's just me being nit picky. ;)

One thing I don't like is that they have a lot of synchronized dancing which ABBA didn't do when performing live (I'm talking about live concerts like during their 77 and 79 tours, not TV performances), like comparing ABBALIVE's "S.O.S" to ABBA's from the Movie,

but I can see how it is good to have some interaction with the audience. But as an upside, a lot of the synchronized dances are based off ones that ABBA did on TV performances and music videos.

Now if I ever got my way and made my tribute band that would totally work out, I would ditch the synchronized dances and try to make them act more like ABBA during their live concerts where there are like no synchronized dances besides the So long dance routine which is a must, but for this tribute band, I think they did it well.

What I don't like though is that they have those super weird fake stereotypical Swedish accents that don't sound like ABBA at all that most tribute bands do, and that's always a downer for me, but I'll ignore that for now because I really like that they didn't do the "Swedish Finger Pointing Dance" which isn't a thing either, so thumbs up here!

So I think I'm going to have to agree that ABBALIVE is Australia's most authentic tribute show, and I'd give them an 8/10. :D  I hope you've enjoyed this tribute band as much as I have and that you enjoyed reading my review!  :)

ABBA Live in Eskilstuna Audio Rework UPDATE

I finally found the recording of Sitting in the Palmtree, found the complete versions of Hey Hey Helen and Honey Honey, and found the correct set list, which means my Live in Eskilstuna Audio Rework is now complete! :D  Here it is once again and I hope you enjoy the complete version!

ABBA Live in Eskilstuna Audio Rework

The fan recordings of ABBA performing live in Eskilstuna, 1975 have always been among my favorites since it gives us a chance to hear what ABBA was like performing live before the 77 and 79 tours.  Of course there are the few live TV performances, but in my opinion these have a "richer" sound if you know what I mean.  (Especially the few flubs that they have when performing live.  I personally think those are beautiful, lol!)  The recordings we have access to, however, are a bit low in quality as they are amateur recordings, plus the speed and tempo are a bit off on several.  So I decided to challenge myself to fixing up the audio as best as I can and this is the end result.  I can't say it's perfect, but I think it sounds pretty good.  I hope you enjoy it and if anyone has access to the recording of "Sitting in the Palmtree," please let me know!  :D

Peter Loner's Incredible ABBA Mixes

I've been wanting to post about this amazing YouTuber for quite some time now but never did find the time to do a good post on it!  My bad. :)

Peter Loner is an absolutely amazing person!  He does some really amazing mixes of ABBA's songs, filtering out the main vocals and revealing some pretty amazing backup vocals/instruments in the tracks!  He does more than just ABBA - Karen Carpenter, Ted Gardestad, you name it!  You can check out his YouTube channel here or check out this thread on the ABBAChat forum where a member has gathered a lot of his mixes!  :D

"TopPop" Art Print

In preparation for The Story of ABBA, I've put up another illustration for sale on my RedBubble shop.  This picture didn't make it into the book, but it's such a good picture.  I even put up a colorizing video for this one.

The original image is of ABBA performing on the TV show TopPop in 1974.

Thank You - A Tribute to ABBA

I was listening to the song "Thank you" by Alcazar and was inspired to make this video. :)  I personally believe that Alcazar themselves wrote this song as a tribute to ABBA as I shall soon explain after the video:

In the song, Alcazar say:
"I'm paying my tribute for loving like I do
'cause knowing you was knowing me."

 "Knowing Me, Knowing You"...

Then there's the line
"Since I remember was always a happy new year
No one had ever been singing the music so bright and clear"

ABBA have the song "Happy New Year."  I know it's just a phrase that doesn't necessarily refer to ABBA's song, but I'm using it to support my reasoning. :)

"When dealing was done over doubts
They were gone and the winner waves so long"

Sounds very much like "The Winner Takes It All."

Even if I'm wrong about this song actually being a tribute to ABBA, it still makes a good song for a tribute video.  I hope you enjoy the video I made! :D

Threnody

A nice rare (or at least it's rare to me since I've never seen it before) video of Frida singing Threnody.  :) 

The video is finally here!

Many thanks to ABBATalk and Lasse Anrell for sharing this magnificent video, and thank you to my friend Alex for sending it to me!!  It's such a fantastic video and the girls sound AMAZING!!

Take a Chance on Me