Mamma Mia The Phenomenon
My first album was ABBAs Greatest Hits so maybe I am biased but I love ABBA, I love their uplifting melodies yes I hate some of their songs Chiquitita for example but in general I love them, they also wrote great sad songs try One Man One Woman or I Wonder Departure.
I had not seen Mamma Mia on stage so imagine my trepedation when Mamma Mia the movie came out how could it possibly be any good.
But guess what it is fantastic, why ? well the songs are great, as are the performances and also it doesn't take it self too seriously, look at the figures the biggest grossing film of all time, the biggest selling DVD of all time.
Why ? because ABBAs music transcends barriers one word sums it up to me fun and guess what we all need a bit of fun now and again especially now
So is there anyone out there who still hates ABBA and who has not seen Mamma Mia if so why not any reasoned arguments against ABBAs greatness ?
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There are no reasoned arguments. . .
any more than there are reasoned arguments against the Fabs, reasoned arguments against Phil Spector singles or, come to that, reasoned arguments against fish. (Not against Fish, mind; plenty of reasoned arguments against are available there.) It's pure pop, and you either like it or you don't, although most people happen to.
I'd go further
and say there's no such thing as "greatness" in pop music. As Archie says, you like it or you don't but I'd add that there's a massive amount in the middle that you're indifferent to. There's no objective standard against which you can measure a song and say it's good, bad or indifferent. (And let's not confuse lots of sales with quality!) You just happen to like it or not. And you have to accept that as times move on, you find you no longer like what you used to like, love some of it even more and start to like something you previously hated. "Dancing Queen," "Mama Mia" and "SOS" all fall into my like box, the rest is in the middle. Except "Fernando" which vies with "Lady In Red" as the most puke-inducing, criminal waste of 4 minutes of all time.
Abba never gave good Hispanic
The whole Peruvian-pan-pipes middle period was a big, big mistake - "Chiquitita" is another duffer.
Still, in addition to your three likes, I'm very partial to a drop of "Su-pah-pah Trou-pah-pah", and this one - with hindhearing (I hated it at the time) - is also poptabulous:
Amazing the sounds you can get out of a grand piano, eh?
That
puts Björn Ulveaus' memory lapse into perspective. If there was a You Tube clip of me dancing like that on Spanish telly I'd try and erase any memory of having been there.
Agnetha starts that video
Agnetha starts that video like someone in a toilet cubicle doing a number two when there's wee on the seat.
Most but not all.
Q1: I still dislike Abba. (Hate implies passion!)
Q2: I have seen the film, more's the pity. And that godawful one from years gone by about the aussie music journo trying to get an interview, necessiating much concert footage.
Just don't see what all the fuss is about: just cringe-worthy sub-disco europop to my ears.
Did, to be fair, quite like Bjorn Agains "abbafied" versions of other songs at Guilfest 2001.
Dunno about Mama Mia
but this is very sad
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/2419526/Abba-st...
Abba
Always remember seeing Any Trouble perform a rather astounding version of Dancing Queen. It was certainly not done in a tongue in cheek fashion. A good song is a good song, as my auntie Keith used to say.
I think you have a point there...
It may be the whole Abba "deal" that I deplore. Strip away the gloss and the stylisation and there are reasonable songs, if lyrically suspect, lurking underneath. (BTW, wasn't it Name of the Game that Any Trouble did, included as a (live) B side of an early single). Danny Wilson did Dancing Queen.)
i can stand ABBA, but
i can stand ABBA, but everyone else i know whos seen the film loves it, julie walters IS very funny towards the end, but on the whole, meh! [meh, it's in the dictionary!]
Any Trouble
I saw them do Dancing Queen. Also remember them being Melody Maker cover stars back in the early 80s courtesy of Allan Jones. He reckoned they were the future of rock n roll. Ah well.
Hate inmplies passion!
and ABBA make me vomit in my mouth whenever I hear them. It could be the mental image of trollied hen night revellers stumbling around their handbags to 'Dancing Queen', the absence of anything resembling genitals or a desire to use them (ABBA is surely the most sex-less music in the world, no?) or any number of reasons too viscerally instinctual to go into here. The simple fact is that, like Queen and Pink Floyd, their music causes a physical reaction deep in my person, not dissimilar to watching someone getting kicked in the happy sack.
News to cheer you up: Queen + Paul Rogers
I see that their album is now in the 2 for £10 sale in HMV. Must have flopped.
Paul Rogers
What annoys me is not so much that they replaced Mercury, but that the other three are still alive.
The Dannies
Not sure about Dancing Queen, but they definitely did Knowing Me Knowing you. The a-ha's were performed with relish.
I liked
Sinead O'Connor's version of Chiquitita that she did live on a Saturday night show once (was it Danny Baker's).
I'm not an Abba fan - can live with about 4 or 5 tracks, the most horrible-ist of all their output has gotta be Thank you for the Music.
Abba and 'fun'
Not around the 'divorce' period!
I know this is post Abba, but how much fun does our Agnetha appear to be having here....I actually found this quite seriously disturbing....
having spent £30 in Smiths yesterday...
the woman on the till offered me the extra purchase of Mamma Mia for £6, which necessitated me pointing out to her that I wouldn't have taken a copy if they were giving them away.
Mamma Mia (The movie)..
..is the most dispiritingly awful film I've seen in a long while.
Nobody should have to hear Pierce Brosnan sing, and Streep's rendition of "Winner Takes It All" is so histrionic, it makes Liza Minelli look like Chris Lowe.
The Fastest Selling DVD ever, the reasons
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/nov/27/1