![]() With both divorces in the books and their sales slipping, “Under Attack” is a chilly synth-pop hallucination about getting chased down the street by a phantom lover, with that evil vocoder hook.Ī proto-industrial synth/guitar blast with the headbanger chorus chant: “It’s gotta be rock & roll! To fill the hole in your soul!” Could it be possible the young Trent Reznor was taking notes? (It’s damn near unthinkable he wasn’t.) A deep cut from their 1977 art-rock album, hilariously titled The Album, “Hole in Your Soul” grinds like a pretty hate machine.ĪBBA’s ouevre is full of alienation (“Sitting in a Palmtree”), misery (“Tropical Loveland”), and morbid dread about the extinction of the entire human race (“Happy New Year”). They recorded it for their swam song The Singles: The First Ten Years, though they already knew there wouldn’t be a second 10 years. “Under Attack” is their last stand, the farewell single released at the end of 1982, just as the group was falling to pieces and the music was getting decidedly creepy. It’s the first - and last - time Agnetha got a songwriting credit on an ABBA track, and she sings “Disillusion” like she already sees the bad times coming.Įnter the Eighties. Who else would put a song called “Disillusion” on their first album? The world should have known from the start how dark ABBA could get. Mid-life angst behind a gleaming mask: that’s the whole ABBA story right there. But the moment she hits the stage, she swallows all her pain and fakes it for the fans, because that’s what stars do. Both couples got divorced and poured their hearts out into melodic tearjerkers like “Super Trouper,” the ballad of a diva on the road who suffers through her lonely life (“All I do is eat and sleep and sing/Wishing every show was the last show”). Björn and Benny wrote the hits Anni-Frid and Agnetha did most of the singing. The night is young and the music’s high.ījörn was the one with the bangs. The hits and the flops, the deep cuts and the fan faves, the sublime and the ridiculous. So let’s break it down with a salute to the Nordic gods: ABBA’s 25 best songs, ranked. They just announced they’re reuniting and releasing their first new album in 40 years, something ABBA freaks thought would never happen. But their hits are just the beginning - their albums are full of buried treasures. Under the glitzy surface, these Björn-to-be-wild Swedes were full of angst and despair. Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad were like a Scandinavian model of Fleetwood Mac, two married couples in white pantsuits and platform boots who racked up hit after hit about breaking up and falling apart. The Swedish pop savants ruled 1970s radio, invaders coming from the land of the ice and snow to become the top-selling act of their time. The blockbuster Mamma Mia 2: Here We Go Again brought the spectacle of Cher belting “Fernando.” That probably sent you back to the original Mamma Mia- yes, even the scene where Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan duet on “SOS.” Yet that somehow that just leaves you hungry for more. It’s official: this is the summer of ABBA. ![]()
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