On Demand
Musical Wallpaper
Meryl Streep is rocking the big screen with Mamma Mia!, the film. Mamma Mia! the musical has been playing to packed houses on Broadway for nearly SEVEN years. And in record stores, Mamma Mia! the album is number three on the charts. Sarah Rodman, pop music critic for the Boston Globe, and Alan Connor, Senior Broadcast Journalist for the BBC, discuss how songs by Abba, and other artists, become "musical wallpaper."
Our blog: Love em or Hate em, they’re back
Weigh in: Why is ABBA still popular?
"Why are ABBA songs so infectious? Science has answers" by Sarah Rodman
"Secrets of writing a 'wallpaper' hit" by Alan Connor
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ABBA have the one thing missing from virtually all modern pop music... Songs.
It's what elevates them to a supremely high level in pop music. The Seventies for better or worse (In my case better) was THEE Era of the song and nobody did it better in pop music than ABBA. I sometimes wonder if Benny and Bjorn were aware of the incredible gift they possessed during their imperial period. They also have the distinction of being one of the few groups that transcended their Eurovision Award; a dubious success which has almost always led to a "Where are they Now" type of career.
The comeback of ABBA is one of the more unfortunate trends of recent years. They made some of the most insipid, sugary, cloying and simplistic songs of the 70s - an era that saw its fair share of trite music. And now I'm being subjected to yet more on NPR. Good grief!
White refined sugar sells.
Sex sells, the dirtier the "better".
Death and gore sells (if it bleeds it leads).
Disaster and tragedy sell.
Toxic carcinogenic pesticides sell. ETC etc etc
Abba is just one part of what Roger "Ailes" us. It seems to be innocuous and harmless superficial non sense; but it's part of a larger pattern that may ill lead to our eventual collective extinction.
And if the human race can't evolve beyond being able to resist our mostly immediate impulses; then, sadly, the extinction will be well deserved lest we infect the rest of the universe.
Maybe, since a Swedish Pop group wanted to market internationally, ABBA chose English as a close-to-universal language, then wrote songs with a minimum amount of words.
oh john, why couldn't you resist getting on the shameless promo bandwagon for this film/group?? there is nothing redeeming about this music whatsoever. it could only be the desperation that is hollywood that would realize this mess as a worthwhile film.
white refined sugar, or high fructose corn syrup, the sound is annoying. i don't want to know this "in (my) bones", as your guest suggests.
Clearly the song "Waterloo" is about a girl who is about to surrender to a man's advances, which is why she is so happy. Odd junxtaposition with Napoleon. PS I HATE this group. My wife loves it.
it's also understood that it's a secret boomer plot to infect broadway, film, and today's youth with homogenized versions of their misspent youth. to wit: g-rated re-treads of john waters films, your later guest dan zanes, etc. curiously, this generation also wants to sell them more violent versions of speed racer, spider man and other superheros, so let's just call it opportunism.
Is it the Kitsch factor?
Strange, I have NEVER had any problem resisting Abba... and I was around when their hits were new. I somehow fail to connect with the mystique of simplistic rhythms and repititive, meaningless lyrics.
lance--love the term "junxtaposition". did you just coin that?
in other words, it's the form, not the content, john??
The only way I can stand to listen to ABBA songs is by listening to Wing's (a New Zealander, ethnic Chinese chanteuse) CD "Dancing Queen"
think I'll check out another NPR station for an hour or two...
I grew up listening to Abba. I have been playing the guitar since I was 6 years old, Im 37 now. what amazes me about abba is their harmony usage, their melody ( not simplistic at all as one of your callers made), their chord usage, and so on are I think amazing!
I should have been clearer. Wing's reedy, off-key poorly pronounced English is the only appropriate treatment for ABBA's garbage.
YES - PLEASE!!! WHY AM I HEARING YOU, OF AL PEOPLE, WASTING THE PUBLIC AIRWAVES WITH ABBA?
A PHENOMENON? THE MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGH OF THE PRE-FRONTAL LOBOTOMY WAS, FOR DECADES, A PHENOMENON. ABBA HAS THE SAME EFFECT, WITHOUT THE SURGERY.
HAVE YOU HAD ONE RECENTLY? THAT WOULD EXPLAIN A LOT!!!
YOU COULD BE ENDANGERING THE STATION'S FUTURE CONTRIBUTIONS WITH THIS SCHEISS.
Why haven't you mentioned supergroup Boney M? Their music is just as enduring as ABBA's. Why can't their be a "Daddy Cool" musical on Broadway?
Yes, NPR should really be above this dreck. Disgraceful. I'm canceling my membership today.
are these sound clips even real abba recordings? they sound like what i assume are the broadway versions? nowhere near the originals.
Are these the post-modern FOLK SONGS?
Will we see composers in the coming decades integrating this karaoke fodder into art music?
I don't think you need catchy repetitive lyrics to make a song stick. Take Herb Alpert's "Spanish Flea" or "Whipped Cream", I can't get them out of my head!
It seems like there's often a backlash among intellectuals about liking songs that are simple, layered and melodic simply because they make us happy. It's as if for a song to be worth merit, it needs to be complex, heavy and a major exercise for the brain. It's OK to dig and, to quote Sly Stone, "Sing a Simple Song."
Peace
or captain and tenille's "love will keep us together"? catchy! inspires far less desire to commit suicide.
No one has yet mentioned that ABBA was composed of two couples. I think that had an appeal to many listeners. It gave their love songs a certain validity.
In response to another's comment, those certainly were ABBA covers for the most part, thought the station did play actual ABBA songs at least twice.
Stick around for Dan Zanes. He was absolutely brilliant when writing and performing songs with The Del Fuegos, and he's worth a listen.
clarence, i agree with you, and count many simple pop songs among my favorites. but abba's been force-fed to us myriad ways since they debuted on AM radio. quite honestly, it's an honor they hardly deserve over the likes of countless other groups.
All of you ABBA haters must not like pop. Its OK to not like pop and its OK to like it. Its also OK to like both non-pop and pop music. Pop haters should allow for others to like pop and also to appreciate a good pop song. You don't have to like it but you should be able to realize that there is such a thing as a good pop song. Love them or hate them ABBA was good pop. Thats why its still around.
Don't judge Pop against whatever low-fi indie stuff you dig. Judge Abba against their peers. They were miles ahead of the competition. History will be very kind to Abba and will remember them long after the Magnetic Fields.....
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