ABBA Color Pencil Drawings

Back in February of this year, I had decided that I wanted to test out my new Prismacolor Premiere color pencils that I had gotten in November by drawing some nice portraits of all four ABBA members.  I had a particular photosession in mind and immediately got to work on drawing the first picture which was of Agnetha.  Unfortunately, I was having lots of difficulties, one issue being my color pencils were breaking and splitting lengthwise for some reason (I found out that it was because of my sharpener, btw) and another being the drawing just wasn't turning out right.  I ended up abandoning the drawing for a few months and picked it up again in July.  I ended up making decent progress and ended up finishing the drawing in just a couple of days.  With my new sharpener and a new set of color pencils (because I had worn out the white color pencil that I use for blending - my dad so kindly surprised me and bought a whole new set!!!), I was able to work on the remaining three portraits and just today I finished the last one and scanned them all on. :D

And here they are finally, the four portraits that I've been trying to work on for the past few months:

 Of all the drawings, I think I like the way Frida came out the best, but they're all really good and I'm really proud of myself.  Hopefully the next time I start a project like this it won't take as long to finish, lol. 

3000 subscribers!

What a surprise going to my YouTube channel and seeing that I've reached 3000 subscribers! :O  Thank you all so much, I really appreciate how much my channel has grown and seeing how much everyone enjoys my videos.  Thank you so so so much! :)

Is Mamma Mia! changing the meaning of ABBA?

You all knew another Mamma Mia! rant post was bound to happen soon, didn't you. ;)

 If you all noticed, I haven't actually said anything on the new Mamma Mia! movie since the day the trailer was announced a year ago. The reason being that I've been trying to ignore it's existence and pretend it doesn't exist.  :)  When the "When I Kissed The Teacher" video came out, I was really upset on the lyric changes (like I always am, lol) and decided I was just not going to post about it or complain about it because there's no point.  Now that the move has been released for a bit now and the soundtrack is available, I thought now I would be able to post about it.

With the release of the movie, I have been seeing Mamma Mia! everywhere.  I've been hearing ads for it on the radio (where they pronounce ABBA wrong, hehehe), I've been seeing people talk about it all over my tumblr and instagram feeds, and it's honestly making me annoyed.  I'm not annoyed at everyone enjoying the movie, people can enjoy it - no complaints there.  I'm annoyed at the fact that people are going to hear ABBA's songs and the first thing that'll come to mind is Mamma Mia!.  I know that sentence seems a little harsh, and no I don't mean that when they hear the songs that were featured in the movie, they think of the scene from the movie and whatever.  (Apologies if I'm rambling, I am trying to get a point across without knowing the right words to use, lol.)   I don't like that ABBA has basically become synonymous with Mamma Mia!.

I saw this post on tumblr a few weeks ago? (can't remember exactly when - I've been on and off tumblr lately, mostly off) and it made me really confused.

"ABBA goes so hard in so many different ways like they really have a song for every situation.. breaking up? getting married? defeating the french? Finding out you have not one but three possible fathers??? Really they covered everything"

I'm not trying to shame the original poster in any way at all BTW, I'm just using this as an example.

ABBA fans should know that ABBA's songs really aren't associated with the Mamma Mia! story line at all, it's just that the songs are being sang by these random Mamma Mia! characters (I can't believe they live in a world where ABBA doesn't exist... Those poor humans, lol) and some of the songs have their lyrics changed to fit the plot better.  I hate that they have to change the lyrics.  Why not try to find a song with more fitting lyrics or B&B can write new music??  Anyways, I digress.

When the tracklist for the soundtrack was announced, I will admit, I was a little hopeful that some of my favorite ABBA songs, the "unpopular" ones, would start getting recognized.  Songs like "I've Been Waiting For You" and "Kisses Of Fire", those songs have always been among my top favorites with "Tropical Loveland" being my all time favorite song, and though people are hearing of them now, I realize, yes, people are "hearing" the songs, but most of them now have new meanings and scenarios and lyrics, they aren't really hearing the masterpieces that the songs originally were.  People won't hear Agnetha and Frida's incredible harmonies or Bjorn and Benny's incredible songwriting.

This brings me onto another thing I wanted to mention.  When I think of ABBA, the first thing that comes to mind is the amazing harmonies of Agnetha and Frida's voices, the unique, magical sound that the two voices combined as well as alone make, as well Bjorn and Benny's backup vocals that add that additional touch to the songs.  I also think of the instruments, Benny's iconic synthesizer that is heard in so many of their songs, the melodies, and incredible songwriting talents that Bjorn and Benny have to tell such incredible stories with their songs.  When you hear the Mamma Mia! versions, you're not getting any of that.  Yeah, on some songs you're getting the original lyrics, but you don't get harmonies, that magical voices, the iconic instruments.  When I've listened to the Mamma Mia! soundtrack, I've always found the backup vocals to sound atrocious, they don't even sound like they're trying.  (This is just my opinion, btw.)  As I've mentioned in previous posts, these are all actors, not singers.  Yes some of them can sing, I know that Lily James can, I watched the live action Cinderella movie and she does have a lovely voice, and Amanda Seyfried can sing too, (Cher is a singer but honestly I don't like her voice and I think her album of ABBA covers that she's doing sounds horrible, but that's for another time, lol) but most of the other people in the movie can't sing. They can act, sure, but they can't sing.

Also when watching some of the interview clips of the Mamma Mia! actors that they've done when promoting the movie, I noticed that they say a lot something along the lines of (this is not a direct quote - this is written from memory) "yeah I'm a big fan of Mamma Mia... I'm a big ABBA fan." and  while there can be fans of Mamma Mia! and ABBA at the same time (a lot of fans have become ABBA fans because of Mamma Mia! - that's not how I found ABBA BTW lol), but I just wanted to point out that being a fan of Mamma Mia! and a fan of ABBA are two separate things, not the same, since Mamma Mia! and ABBA are different things.

Basically to sum it all up, I'm not liking that ABBA and Mamma Mia! are getting merged together nowadays.  They're different - ABBA is band from the 70s and 80s, two Swedish couples who were together and broke up, while Mamma Mia! is a musical about a girl who doesn't know who her father is because her mom was messing around (probably not the right word, I just want to keep my blog clean :3 ) and they like to break out into song.  Two different things.  :)

Anyways, that was a long post and my fingers hurt from all that typing, so I'll just end this here.  Before I go, I do want to share these two videos I made that were requested by an awesome follower, ManhattanMan.  :)

I have been waiting for these visitors...

I don't know if I've talked about it much, but in recent years, a lot of ABBA's later albums are starting to become my favorites. I always have trouble choosing a favorite album since honestly I love them all, but among my top favorites would be Voulez-Vous and The Visitors.  I got Voulez-Vous for $1 a a year ago at a convention and that was pretty cool.  But two years ago, in 2016, I had been at yet another convention where I saw the Visitors for sale for $5 which is awesome, but because I didn't have any cash on hand I didn't buy it.  (Stupid me, haha.)

From my instagram when I saw the Visitors for $5.

Just this Monday actually, I had a random idea to go look for records on Ebay and I happened to come across The Visitors again, this time for $7. Compared to the other 2 records that I've managed to find for $2 and less, this is more expensive, but $7 for a record is a great price so I grabbed it. :)  And today it arrived in the mail. :D

Honestly I was a bit scared about ordering records from online since I've heard horror stories of how records can break in transit, but this one arrived in great condition and it arrived really quickly too!!  Definitely a great first experience for buying records online. :)

And now here is my current collection of LPs.  I'm absolutely delighted to have them in order, from The Album to the Visitors.  this means I currently have 4/8 studio albums.  Now I just need to get the first half.... xD

One of the things I was a bit concerned about was that my copy of The Visitors has this printed on the front...  :S  thankfully I've been reassured that there's nothing wrong with my owning this record, haha.

 

I have yet to play this on the record player, but I really look forward to hearing it on the record player.  I'm definitely quite happy with how easy it was to buy this album through ebay, so I definitely plan on trying to complete my ABBA record collection and getting the first 4 albums on record now... wish me luck. :'D

July 6th, 1971

Today in 1971, Agnetha and Bjorn were married. :)