From Himmler to herring, a Swedish journalist offers unexpected angles on the 70s supergroup
t comes as something of a surprise, 22 pages into The Book of ABBA, to find yourself reading about Heinrich Himmler. But there he is, in between a description of how, surely the least likely musician in history to have once provided soundtrack for leather-clad, booze-fuelled gang warfare).
But the book also finds room to delve into such unlikely areas as Swedish birdsong , an Australian brain surgeon who listens obsessively towhile performing impossibly risky operations, and the grim effect of alcohol on the band and their circle: both Andersson and Ulvaeus are recovering alcoholics, their bassist Rutger Gunnarsson was being treated for alcohol addiction before his sudden death, and their manager Stig Andersson was apparently drinking a bottle of a whisky a day when a heart...
‘It’s difficult to look upon yourself as an icon’: Abba’s Agnetha Fältskog on fame, family and her secret songsThat said, you are occasionally aware that this is an artist-approved work. There’s a lot about Abba’s notoriously painstaking process in the studio, but not a great deal of critical scrutiny aimed at their output, which in reality often swerved from the sublime to the ridiculous, albeit with far more of the former than the latter.
But these are minor criticisms, just as the lyrics of Dum Dum Diddle and Bang-a-Boomerang are small blots on a copybook stuffed with pop music of dizzying perfection. The context this book provides makes Abba’s success seem even more extraordinary. Moreover, it’s hard to imagine even the most obsessive fan leaving Melancholy Undercover without discovering something new, even if it is about Himmler or herring.
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