ABBA
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Profile and Interview by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 24 April 1976
What’s squeaky-clean, exquisitely produced, Scandinavian and goes OOMPAH? The answer to the riddle is ABBA ...and here’s MICK FARREN to ask it. ...
List of articles in the library
Review by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, August 1974
Sometimes it takes so long for greatness to be recognized that when it finally happens, most people wonder how such a highly-developed ability sprang into ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, 29 August 1974
Abba's emergence is one of the most cheering musical events in recent months. Just when the Top 40 was plumbing hitherto-unfathomable, moribund depths, along came ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Zoo World, 12 September 1974
MOST EUROPEANS would, quite rightly, give their balls to suck Slurpees at a 7-11 or grow up absurd on Yankee turf, but they don't get ...
Abba: Belly to Belly, Butt to Butt, Sweden Sends Us Rock and Roll Smut
Report by Ron Ross, Phonograph Record, December 1975
A LOT OF PEOPLE didn't like Napoleon, but nobody doesn't like gurls. Which may account for the success with which Abba's top five smash of ...
Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, January 1976
SOUND WAVES encircle the globe mesmerizing the populace of countries like France, Greece, Italy, England, etc., international explosive pop, created by Swedes (Abba for short), ...
Profile and Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 31 January 1976
THINGS WERE so bad in Scandinavia, an MM reader there informed us some months ago, that Abba were regarded as a progressive rock band. ...
Overview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 22 May 1976
AS IT WAS Stockholm, and as the ever-witty 10cc were playing there, Eric Stewart thought it'd be nice to pay a little tribute to a ...
Abba: Mamas & Papas of the '70's
Profile and Interview by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, November 1976
LOS ANGELES – The hottest group in the world recently flew into town, but only a scattered few knew they were even here. ...
Review by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 20 November 1976
How they made a billion while still in their twentiesWITH THE POP MUSIC OF TODAY ...
Profile by Alan Betrock, New York Rocker, December 1976
AT FIRST glance, Abba appears on the horizon as A Bunch of Beautiful Aryans. Others, less generous, label their rise to prominence as Another Banal ...
Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 4 December 1976
ABBA: Frida Lyngstad and Anna Faltskog (vocals), Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus (guitars, keyboards, backing vocals) with Ola Brunkert and Roger Palm (drums), Janne Schaffer, ...
Comment by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, 1977
"ABBA IS the most exciting pop phenomenon of the ‘70s," claims their bio, and for once it’s no hype. My admiration for this group knows ...
Report and Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 12 February 1977
On the eve of Abba's British live debut, Harry Doherty looks at the reasons for their amazing success — and asks the rock biz for ...
Don't step on my blue Swede shoes — ABBA: Odeon, Birmingham
Live Review by Tim Lott, Sounds, 19 February 1977
TIM LOTT (only previous contact with Scandinavian culture: a lunchtime viewing of Danish Dentist On The Job at the Greek Street Cinema Club, members only) ...
Money Money Money: How Abba Won Their Waterloo
Profile by Simon Frith, Creem, March 1977
IN ALL THE WORLD except America (which was too busy celebrating centennials and electing presidents) 1976 was the Year of Abba. ...
Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, April 1977
Gushing with enthusiastic naivete, here come those sibilant Swedes again, blanketing the globe with the affectionate harmonies of polar sirens! With the abracadabra of inventive ...
Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 14 July 1977
TO STIG Anderson, it's a familiar story. "I've seen it all a hundred times," says Abba's business manager, record company president and lyricist. "First, we ...
ABBA: Case No 584938657 (B) The Imperial State of Newave vs Ulvaeus
Interview by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 15 October 1977
Presided by Judge JoepublicCounsel for the Prosecution: Anne R. Quay, QCCounsel for the Defence: Joecon Sumer THE ABBA TAPES Transcription by TIM LOTT ...
ABBA: The Phenomenal Swedes Have Yet to Conquer America
Profile by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 7 May 1978
FREQUENTLY dismissed as vapid and sterile, Abba may well be the world's most popular rock band currently, but the Swedish quartet clearly has a ways ...
Review by Howard Wuelfing, Unicorn Times, October 1978
Girl Group Sound Filters Back into Rock Scene ...
ABBA: Voulez Vous (Epic Epc 86) *****
Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 12 May 1979
Fall fan's strange Abbaration ...
Report and Interview by Jim Farber, Rolling Stone, 15 November 1979
First U.S. tour ever ...
Live Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 17 November 1979
Breathe in that clean Swedish mountain air... and chew that high quality gum ...
Live Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, December 1979
JUST FOR that night "ABBA – World Tour 1979" nestled next to Motorhead and the Heartbreakers on my pet leather's lapel. Talk about extremes – ...
Abba: Super Trouper (Atlantic SD 16023)
Review by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, February 1981
OF THE four things Sweden is most famous for — blondes, clogs, suicides and Abba — Abba is certainly the most curious. Curious because of ...
Abba: The Singles, The First Ten Years (Epic)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 4 December 1982
HOW TO do everything, and how to do nearly everything right. In the rack of Christmas compilations everything else is a non-starter beside this one. ...
Eurovision: It's That Time Again!
Retrospective by Tom Hibbert, Smash Hits, 26 April 1984
On May 5 it's The Eurovision Song Contest. And — admit it — you'll be there in front of the telly cringeing as this year's entry, Belle And The ...
The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Plays ABBA Classic (Atlantic)
Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, 16 April 1992
IT'D BE REAL easy to make fun of this one. But think about it: It was ABBA, after all, that most successfully turned postrock pop ...
Report and Interview by Martin Aston, Q, July 1992
Australians impersonate them; Erasure cover their songs; U2 and Nirvana are on their case; and there's even a box set on the way. Martin Aston ...
ABBA: The High Priests of Euro-naff
Report by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 21 September 1992
The sateen-flared Swedes are back again. Caroline Sullivan on Abba — The Revival ...
Bjorn Again: You Saab Bastards!
Report and Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 19 December 1992
Are BJORN AGAIN the camp, knowing, so-bad-it's-good good-time covers band it's OK to like? Or the malignant cancer eating away at real rebellious new rock ...
Interview by Mal Peachey, Mail On Sunday, 23 May 1993
EXCLUSIVE: EUROPE'S POP VETERAN SITS BACK AND WATCHES HIS CHILDREN WATCH HIM ON TV Mal Peachey on a legend that will not be Björn again ...
ABBA: Welcome to the Palindrome
Review by Nick Hornby, MOJO, June 1997
Reissues: Their entire oeuvre freshly silvered, remastered and mid-priced. RING RING/ WATERLOO/ ABBA/ ARRIVAL/ THE ALBUM/ VOULEZ VOUS/ SUPER TROOPER/ THE VISITORS/ ABBA LIVE Agnetha, ...
Interview by Jim Irvin, unpublished, May 1999
Here a full transcript of the interview conducted with Bjorn Ulvaeus for a MOJO feature published in 1999 to mark the opening of Mamma Mia!. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 1999
THEY HAD a dream. It was November 1970, and the greatest pop group of the decade was about to get off to a very inauspicious ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, 'Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music', 2001
Benny Andersson, b. 16 December 1946, Stockholm, Sweden; Agnetha Fältskog, b. 5 April 1950, Jönköping; Anni-Frid Lyngstad, b. 15 November 1945, Björkasen, Norway; Björn Ulvaeus, ...
Book Excerpt by Carl Magnus Palm, Omnibus Books, 2001
An extract from Bright Lights, Dark Shadows: The Real Story of Abba, by Carl Magnus Palm, first published by Omnibus Press in 2001. (554pp, currently ...
Mamma Mia! ABBA's Music Is Bjorn Again
Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 19 August 2001
ABBA: the band whose biographical entry begins every pop music encyclopedia; the Swedish quartet composed of two couples — Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus and ...
Review by Kit Aiken, Uncut, October 2001
All the studio albums 1973-1981, digitally remastered with statistic-stuffed notes and bonus tracks previously only heard on 1994's Thank You For The Music box ...
Interview by Pete Paphides, The Guardian, 8 June 2002
People were often a bit sneery about Abba, born of Eurovision, duded out in satin and feathers, quintessentially pop. Only years after the group broke ...
Mike Ross-Trevor: "Are We Rolling?"
Interview by Paul Gorman, The Word, May 2004
In forty years of recording everyone from Dylan and Hendrix to Abba and Lena Zavaroni, a studio engineer sees a lot of strange things. ...
ABBA: Arrival (Deluxe Edition)
Sleeve notes by Carl Magnus Palm, Polar Music, October 2006
'DANCING QUEEN', 'Fernando', 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' and 'Money, Money, Money' – these four tracks all belong at the top of the list of ABBA's ...
ABBA: ABBA – The Album (Deluxe Edition)
Sleeve notes by Carl Magnus Palm, Polar Music, October 2007
AS CAREER trajectories for top-level pop groups go, certain aspects of the ABBA story could almost serve as a textbook example. "The first tentative steps", ...
Essay by Chris Charlesworth, Rock's Backpages, October 2008
FOR MANY years now I have been a closet Abba fan. This was not always the case. ...
A Matter Of Blood, Sweat And Tears: ABBA's Voulez-Vous (Deluxe Edition)
Sleeve notes by Carl Magnus Palm, Polar Music, 31 May 2010
HINDSIGHT IS A wonderful thing. When studying the track list of compilation albums such as ABBA Gold, or perusing chart statistics, it is easy to ...
Expanding the boundaries: The making of Super Trouper
Sleeve notes by Carl Magnus Palm, Polar Music, May 2011
FOR A BAND whose music has sometimes been described as being born out of the long dark hours of the Scandinavian winter period, it may ...
Overview by Graeme Thomson, The Word, March 2012
Because sometimes the only way musicians can actually talk to each other is by writing songs ...
ABBA: The Visitors (Deluxe Edition)
Sleeve notes by Carl Magnus Palm, Polar Records, 23 April 2012
The final phase: The making of The Visitors ...
Really Doing Something: The Making of the ABBA album
Sleeve notes by Carl Magnus Palm, Polar Music, November 2012
WHAT WOULD you do if you were a Swedish band who had just won the Eurovision Song Contest, a victory that resulted in the first ...
Review by Jude Rogers, bbc.co.uk, 19 November 2012
IN APRIL 1975, ABBA were worried that the heady days were over. 'Waterloo', their song about one girl's surrender in the battle of love, had ...
ABBA: Ring Ring (Deluxe Edition)
Sleeve notes by Carl Magnus Palm, Polar Records, October 2013
The First Step: The Making Of The Ring Ring Album ...
Reaching Out: The making of Waterloo
Sleeve notes by Carl Magnus Palm, Polar Records, April 2014
THE DATE IS April 6, 1974, and the scene is backstage at the Dome in Brighton, England, the spectacular building hosting the BBC's production of ...
Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, November 2014
ABBA NEVER REALLY wanted to bother with performing live at all. They would have preferred to be a studio band, a bit like Steely Dan, ...
Retrospective by David Burke, Classic Pop, December 2016
WE CAN TALK about the ephemeral magic of pop music. About the quick fix, the instant buzz, about getting off or becoming blissed out on ...
Report by Carl Magnus Palm, MOJO, July 2018
Abba authority Carl Magnus Palm examines their shock reformation. Plus! Benny on the tape archive. ...
Live Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, February 2023
"I CAN'T believe it," sang the Who in A Quick One. "Do my eyes deceive me?" ...
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