The deep secret of Abba’s “music without nostalgia” and the time they met the Pistols

Word In Your Ear

Abba’s biographer Jan Gradvall met and interviewed Abba many times and builds a fresh picture of their internal chemistry in his new book Melancholy Undercover. Highlights of this illuminating pod include …

… how Sweden rejected their early hits for not being sufficiently “socialist”.

…. the discomfiting early life of Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

… what Max Martin and Denniz Pop thought made Abba’s music so durable.

… Strindberg, Bergman, the climate, the eight months of darkness and the role of melancholia in Swedish pop culture.

… the influence of the Human League on their later catalogue.

… why manager Stig Anderson “became a burden”.

… “Norway has Grieg, Finland has Sibelius, Sweden has Benny …”

… the first band to write about divorce.

… the Abba song with 57 chords and the only two samples Abba ever approved.

… Elvis Costello, Joe Strummer and Ian Dury backstage at a 1979 London show.

… when Sid Vicious ran into Abba at an airport on the Pistols’ 1977 Swedish tour.

… the role of the Lionesses football team, Kurt Cobain, Erasure, U2, Madonna and the Sydney gay community in the Abba revival.

… why the Abbatars are better than Abba.

… the myth of Agnetha as “the Greta Garbo of Pop”.

… and why The Day Before You Came is more than the Abba swansong.

Order Melancholy Undercover here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-ABBA-Melancholy-Undercover/dp/0571390986

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