The other week I espied a book in The Works which originally came out in the early 2000s to capitalise on Mamma Mia-propelled ABBAmania, which rears its head every eight years or so. The quartet disbanded in 1982, but a combination of tribute band Bjorn Again and a covers EP by Erasure pushed them back into prominence in the early 1990s, around the time that ABBA Gold hit shelves. More ABBA Gold followed in 1993, with assorted tracks that weren’t golden enough for the original compilation, which has just spent its THOUSANDTH (1000th) week in the UK Album Top 100, thanks in recent years to huge streaming numbers.
A decade later, the jukebox musical landed in London with its Greek-set tale of one girl with three possible fathers. It pre-dated We Will Rock You, Our House, Rock of Ages, Viva Forever and Never Forget, which respectively put Queen, Madness, hair metal, Spice Girls and Take That music on stage.
For those who had somehow never been to see the show, Mamma Mia was turned into a movie which Mark Kermode loved despite calling ‘terrible…It’s strangely wonderful. I was skipping down the street!’ He doesn’t love the band ‘in a post-modern ironic way…I thought they were the greatest band’ and was a fan as a child in North London in the mid-1970s.
Mark delivered his review in 2008 with a wide grin, quoting all the ABBA songs as part of his plot description: ‘Her mother doesn’t know which particular man after midnight gave her a child so she decides to take a chance on three!!!’
It is impossible not to enjoy Mamma Mia, provided you leave your brain at the door. My partner Vanessa saw the movie, is off to see the musical and I bet I’ll end up buying tickets for the Hologram show in East London in 2022, Thursday to Monday with matinee performances on Saturday and Sunday. Accompanied by a ten-piece band, ABBA have been rendered into computerised versions of their former selves – Elton John, take note! – and will perform many of the hits on ABBA Gold and More ABBA Gold.
That show might feature some of their new album Voyage. The two pre-released tracks Don’t Shut Me Down and I Still Have Faith In You entered the UK charts at 9 and 14 respectively and filled the top two slots in the Swedish charts. A few weeks later Elton John had a UK number one and two songs used Whitney Houston’s song How Will I Know to create new dancefloor tunes. Is this where popular music is now, maximising catalogue tracks and heritage brands?
This new music from ABBA, their first in four decades, finds them more popular than ever following the two ABBA films and an immersive experience in Greenwich called The Party. As diners eat their four-course meal at the Nikos Taverna, they watch the plot advance and hear the songs from the show. Tickets cost between £110 and £250 depending on where the table is and if you fancy a meet-and-greet with the cast.
But what about the other songs? Will they throw bones to their hardcore fans who swear by iffy album tracks? What if there was a compilation of lesser-heralded ABBA tracks, called ABBA Silver, which fans of Dancing Queen and Thank You for the Music would lap up and immerse themselves in?
I present, therefore, to complement the new ABBA album Voyage, my third compilation of ABBA tracks. Grab your platform shoes and sparkly dresses and press play. You can hear ABBA Silver by following the link to the Spotify playlist:
Tiger: ABBA opened their 1977 tour, which promoted Arrival (Dancing Queen, Fernando, Knowing Me Knowing You, Money Money Money) with a fluffy glam-rock stomper with plenty of menace and a big finish.
That’s Me: This disco groove followed Tiger, allowing the two female voices to wrap around one another while maracas flutter behind them and a superb hook inseminates its way into the listener’s brain.
Hey Hey Helen: Meanwhile, this mound of chunky but melodic glam rock is how they opened their 1975 tour, before Mamma Mia became their first UK number one. At the time, they were still best known for their Eurovision success; indeed, Ring Ring and I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do (which both featured on More ABBA Gold) scraped into the UK Top 40.
Hasta Manana: You’d’ve thought Europeans would have loved the folky Spanish feel to this song, but the song’s big success came in the Antipodes. It’s no wonder Muriel’s Wedding was such a smash hit down there, because ABBA targeted Australia and New Zealand with this song from the album Waterloo that didn’t get its own moment in the sun anywhere else in the world.
Bang-A-Boomerang: A fluffy bit of fun which proves that the guys could write a nonsense chorus that made you feel better. Indeed, the opening verse mentions ‘making somebody happy’, ‘every little touch’ which means so much and ‘sweet, sweet kisses so tender’. In the second verse, there’s the truism that ‘every feeling you’re showing is a boomerang you’re throwing’. No wonder they targeted Australia, the land of the boomerang.
I’ve Been Waiting For You: This emotional showstopper, an A-side in Australia and the B-side to So Long elsewhere, featured in the second Mamma Mia film. It’s a ballad which is essentially the love of an expectant mother transferred to melody, with a great second verse about the newborn being ‘prepared to greet me’. ‘You thrill me, you delight me’ captures the feeling of cradling someone within you and the future happiness the baby will bring.
My Love My Life: Like Slade or Madness or The Spice Girls, ABBA were not an album band, despite selling squillions of albums. You can tell this because the sequencing is atrocious. Dancing Queen, one of the greatest pieces of popular music in the history of recorded sound, is followed by this song on Arrival, which also appeared near the end of the sequel to Mamma Mia. The tender line ‘with all my heart God bless you’ is nakedly emotional and it’s the closest thing the guys wrote to a lullaby.
Elaine: The staccato delivery of lyrics about tying hands and feet match the shouts of ‘Elaine!’ which come with exclamation marks. There’s a lovely instrumental section in the middle of this song, which is from the Super Trouper era (The Winner Takes It All, Our Last Summer, Lay All Your Love On Me).
People Need Love: Their debut single, which stalled at 17 on the Swedish chart, appeared on Ring Ring, their debut album. It’s got a singalong la-la section, a bouncy piano line and a Eurovision key change (up a tone from B to C-sharp). It’s folk music with a universal theme.
Why Did It Have To Be Me?: As sung in the most memorable (non-Cher) setpiece in the second Mamma Mia movie, this stomper from Arrival is good fun, with a shuffling beat, a key change and morsels of saxophone which karaoke singers should make their own. This song is Islands In The Stream with a bit more ennui, or Summer Nights without the coldness, and deserves reappraisal.
As Good As New: Chintzy, sparkly, full of hooks and a chorus in two keys (E and F!). Kicking off the Voulez-Vous album, the lyric rhymes intention/dimension as Agnetha delights in love being rebooted.
If It Wasn’t For The Nights: From the second side of Voulez-Vous, Benny’s piano kicks off a fine arrangement which is grounded by a disco beat and a call-and-response chorus. Bang for your buck, too, as it exceeds five minutes in length.
Intermezzo No 1: Benny’s instrumental might well have been a chance for a costume change for the ladies in their 1975 tour. In sonata form – theme, variation, recap – the piece is both underappreciated and a signpost to the musical scores he and Bjorn would work on later in their career.
Slipping Through My Fingers: When I went to see the musical Mamma Mia, this was the only number I didn’t know from ABBA Gold or More ABBA Gold, which explains its presence here. From swansong album The Visitors, this ballad shows the tenderness of the duo’s writing. There’s ‘guilt’ in the second verse and laments for the end of ‘wonderful adventures’, while the final note lingers on the word ‘smile’. You’d never guess that the two marriages have fallen apart; in fact, Agnetha and Bjorn divorced in 1980 while Anni-Frid and Benny did so a year later.
Dance While The Music Still Goes On: So why not ‘give me one more dance…This is no time for crying’, ask the boys in a lyric set to the sort of chords that most tracks from the early seventies are set to. There is a double key change.
Suzy Hang Around: A song of childhood innocence (or is it cruelty) sung by Benny, whose voice has that Elton John circa 1973 timbre, in which he scolds Suzy for not having friends of her own. It’s teenpop that could have come out of the Brill Building in the late 1950s, and closed the Waterloo album in a melancholy manner.
RocknRoll Band: Bjorn’s turn now to sing a dance number full of the chugging guitars played by the band mentioned in the title. It’s the familiar type of song when the guy approaches a glum girl and invites her to ‘have fun’. It’s sweet.
Watch Out: Part of the 1975 tour setlist, there’s more crowd-pleasing guitars and a rock’n’roll drumbeat underscoring lyrics about eyes flashing and taming a ‘wild thing’, with sweet la-las backing Bjorn’s main vocal. Rainfall ends the song.
Happy New Year: This was missing from More ABBA Gold, which did include I Do I Do…, The Day Before You Came, So Long and Honey Honey, as well as Eurovision entry Ring Ring. A party has ended and ‘the dreams we had before are all dead, nothing more’. As 1979 ticked into 1980, universal brotherhood was on the band’s mind: ‘a world where every neighbour is a friend’ is sung in the chorus, but Agnetha is ‘lost and feeling blue’. Like Robyn’s Dancing on My Own, this is a ‘sad banger’ and would enhance the Hologram show.
Don’t Shut Me Down: That show might well feature Hologram Agnetha shimmying to the new tune from Voyage. She has been ‘reloaded…a dream within a dream that’s been decoded’ and ‘fired up’, which contemporary production updates the disco stomp from 40 years ago. The song ends with a line about how Agnetha has ‘learned to cope, and love and hope is why I am here now’. Love and hope, strewn across ABBA’s catalogue, has made their melodies a lot of money, which will continue to pour in thanks to the tour.
Voyage is released on November 5, with the Hologram Tour receiving its world premiere in Stratford, East London on May 27 2022. Tickets are at abbavoyage.com.