Word: abba
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...rest of the world soon caught the bug. Except the U.S. When the band finally toured here in 1979 (ABBA, SWEDISH QUARTET, IN NEW YORK DEBUT, observed the New York Times), critics compared the foursome unfavorably to Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles and the Beach Boys...
...Abbaration?) Did the Beach Boys have a musical on Broadway? They did, actually. It died. Meanwhile, Mamma Mia! has been on Broadway since October 2001. Note the date--a moment when America sorely needed comfort food. It was as if the country had sent out a national sos and Abba supplied the perfect rescue vehicle...
...easier to revive the things that were reviled the first time. The Beatles and Shakespeare need no comeback and thus have less nostalgia value. But Abba has been making these incursions into American culture (Muriel's Wedding! The Gold album!) for 35 years. That persistence suggests the band offers an appeal beyond the obvious one of watching unathletic people in white catsuits and platform boots. Why the cultural valence...
...Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson's melodies. How their exchange-student lyrics imbued the songs with an innocence that is one of pop's purest pleasures. How the really powerful cultural forces are those that make you forget your dignity. (Yes, Meryl, we mean you.) We could observe that Abba's music is best enjoyed by those who know that events are not entirely in their control. Hence America, the unassailable superpower, had no use for it until recently...
...Mamma Mia!, the new movie based on the 1999 stage show with nearly two dozen songs by the Swedish pop group Abba that were hits some two decades earlier? One guess: a lot of the women who saw Sex and the City, plus kids who loved High School Musical, plus some gay guys. And, a big plus, most of those who saw the original musical, which by now has grossed over $2 billion--more than any movie has ever earned in theaters...