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The Rockologist

The Rockologist
Dwayne Jenkings  |  by blogcritics.org. All rights reserved. 1.03 | 3:44

Being the textbook sort of musical snob I like to think of myself as, I have a hard time admitting to some of the more decidedly "un-hip" sides of my music palette. At least in public anyway.
Some would call my continuing fondness for overblown, pretentious seventies progressive rock bands like Yes, Marillion, and Peter Gabriel era Genesis a flaw in my taste for example.

Hell, for that matter they would probably nail me for the fact that in this past year alone I've written about a disproportionate number of seventies classic rock bands period.
And what about that Springsteen guy, some may find themselves asking. You know, the guy whose continuing "relevance" was a subject of some debate recently right here at Blogcritics Magazine?

After all, isn't Springsteen mdash; the guy whose songs champion the values of the working class mdash; a bloated millionaire liberal himself?
Well, why some might find themselves a little ashamed to admit to enjoying artists such as these, I myself choose to wave that fact as a flag of some honor. But for me, there is no guiltier pleasure in all of music than that of the perfectly constructed three minute or so pop song.

I here and now confess that I am an absolute sucker for this type of sugary sweet ear candy.
You know the sort of songs I'm talking about. Many of them by one hit wonders such as The Raspberries ("Go All The Way"), and The Outsiders ("Time Won't Let Me") on the rock side, or a guy like Lou Christie ("Lightnin' Strikes," "Rhapsody On The Rain") on the more pop sounding side.

Okay, so Lou Christie had more than one hit (actually so did the Raspberries).
Anyway, for me these sort of perfect little pop tunes can represent every bit the sort of audio bliss that something as meticulously constructed and put to tape as say, Born To Run or Pet Sounds does. And over the past thirty years or so, nobody but nobody has made a greater string of these largely unheralded little pop masterpieces than Abba.

That's right, I said .
So for this edition of The Rockologist, I am going to remove that particular hat, and replace it with that of the Popologist. Let's talk about Abba for a few minutes shall we?


First of all, what a lot of people don't realize about Abba is that they have more than a few fans amongst the more "respectable" members of the rock community. I remember meeting Nick Lowe for example backstage in the seventies at a concert, where I noticed he was wearing an Abba button. Lowe at the time was one of the most sought after producers in music, in addition to crafting his own little pop gems such as those found on his album Pure Pop For Now People.

So when I remarked about his Abba button, Lowe gushed about how he was then producing an album for Elvis Costello and that the sound he was looking for would be to make an "Elvis Costello Abba album." That album tuned out to be Costello's brilliant third album, the pop masterpiece Armed Forces.
What Abba did so flawlessly for most of the seventies was crank out hit after hit after hit in the form of these beautifully crafted great pop singles.

Many of them you know of course mdash; there's "Dancing Queen," "Take A Chance On Me," "Mamma Mia" and all the rest. A lot of these great songs owe more than a little to Phil Spector, such as "SOS" with it's swirling production resembling nothing so much as it's own "wall of sound."
Other songs you may not know as well, as not at all of them were near the big hits in America that they were in Europe.

Take "Honey, Honey" for example. Notice how, in the video for the song, Agnetha and Annifrid (or "Frida" as those of us who love her know her), sing the lyrics in such an innocent sort of way, even as they coyly sway their hips in what is damn near a "come hither" sort of suggestion.
The song itself cleverly disguises itself as a sweet sort of little "I love you," while still managing to mask it's more erotic intent.

On the one hand there's a line like "I'm gonna stick to you boy, you'll never get rid of me," while on the other there's "Honey to say the least, you're a doggone beast." So you tell me what they are really singing about here.
Simply put, Abba's best songs were about sex.

But they were so cleverly packaged as sweet, innocent little pop songs mdash; with Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha, and Frida themselves the very embodiment of such wholesome innocence mdash; that the majority of the world never got it, even as they gobbled up this ear candy to the tune of something like a billion records sold. Again, take another song like "Knowing Me Knowing You." Now you tell me what this song is really about.


Well okay. Maybe "Knowing Me Knowing You" isn't about sex. But have you ever heard a song about breaking up sung in such an erotic way?

The way Agnetha sings the backup vocal as a breathy sort of whisper makes you want to skip past the breakup altogether and get straight to the make-up part.
If it sounds like I'm fixating on the sexuality of Abba's two female singers here, I actually have a confession to make. In my twenties, and supposedly all grown up and past such things, I actually had something of a teenybopper's crush on Frida.

You think I'm kidding? Try this on for size.
When Abba finally toured America in what I want to say was about 1979, I scored third row tickets and took the girl I was seeing at the time to the show.

Well, when Frida would make her way over to our side of the stage, she kept making eye contact with me. This actually caused me to squirm in a way not at all unlike that of a teenage girl at a Clay Aiken (or back then, Shaun Cassidy) concert. As I went on and on about how "Frida was looking at me," my date's anger rose just as steadily.

I never saw her again after that night.
So these days Abba finally appear to be getting some respect. Touring Abba tribute bands like Bjorn Again do pretty big business on the concert curcuit, and the musical Mamma Mia, based on Abba's songs, has been a box office smash all over the world.


But more importantly, the bands songs and the way they were produced are also finally getting their rightful due. People finally seem to have come around to the fact that Bjorn and Benny share as much with people like Brian Wilson, John Phillips, and Phil Spector as they do with Barry Gibb and the other disco song-smiths they were lumped into a category with back in the seventies.
So go ahead and dust off that copy of Abba Gold you've been keeping in the closet and give it a spin.

Go ahead and admit it. You love it.

flickr.com/77/166455807_3737e93c12_t.jpg align=left hspace=2 vspace=2> You'll find music journalist and freelance raconteur Glen Boyd sharing his Thoughtmares about everything from music to politics to professional wrestling at his blog In his alter-ego as "Disco Glen," Mr.

Boyd is also the undisputed king of the dancefloor.

Keep reading for information and comments on this article, and add some feedback of your own!
.

...

but I love Ace of Base's version of Cruel Summer. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

Its okay Vern.

ABBA still loves you.
You'll get no rock-snob disapproval from me, Glen. Dancing Queen is my top Guilty Pleasure ABBA song, and I swear, The Winner Takes It All still makes me cry.

As usual, Nick Lowe's taste was right on the money.
hey, if Marshal Crenshaw can cover "Knowing Me, Knowing You", then it's ok with me.
You make a strong case, but I still can't stomach ABBA.

However, I've got my own seventies skeletons in the closet. One of these days I'll sack up and take them out here. Please don't laugh too hard when I do.


I acan't wait to read that one Pico. Actually, I'm already laughing.
never been a big fan of abba.

but i must say that disco is the most unfairly maligned musical genre out there. so much creative stuff came out of it.
did you know that p.

i.l.'s "fodderstompf" was a huge gay anthem?

what the fuck? johnny rotten at the gay disco..

. lovely.
(and i know that abba only somewhat qualifies as disco.

.. they were much more pop than disco had any right to be.

..)

And Mark, you should know that your "Friday Morning Listen" on Journey is actually what inspired me to write this in a weird sort of way.

Journey and Abba are both the very definition of musical guilty pleasures...

know what I mean?
yea, the whole guilty pleasure thing. the weird thing about this is that i used to be much more adamant about what i "should" or "should not" listen to.

now i really don't care. i mean, if i like something, i just like it.
i don't have any Abba on cd but i bet i do on vinyl.

wouldn't mind hearing "Honey Honey" right about now. i seem to remember some 'heavy breathing' in that song.
ah Abba.

..so 70's.

..boots, lip gloss.

..
Hey, I too am an ABBA fan, and I do a progressive rock radio show.

These two things might strike most people as irreconcilable. Think again!
You can queue up the video for "Honey Honey" right here.

And yup, thats some very erotic sounding heavy breathing you remember. Frams, I agree totally that the line between prog and ABBA is a very thin one. Just listen to the ABBA song "Eagle" -- I can almost hear the way that somebody like Jon Anderson would cover that one in my head.


Thanx all for the comments.
I must admit to owning one of those greatest hits LPs, and I don't feel terribly guilty about it. And since you mentioned Elvis Costello (via Nick Lowe) it must be noted that Costello himself is a big ABBA fan.


Thanx Gordon (or do you prefer I address you as "GL" these days?). And it doesn't surprise me at all to hear that Costello was/is a fan.

Armed Forces really did end up with that Abbaesque pop gloss that I think Lowe was going for when he produced it. Costello himself has a major pop pedigree that goes from McCartney to Burt Bacharach -- so it makes perfect sense. Thanx again for the comment.


I'm definitely an ABBA fan. I was still in diapers during the late 70s, but I became interested in them after watching Muriel's Wedding and Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Hehe, how interesting that both are Australian films.


I revel in the pop cheesiness of ABBA's music. I can't help it- they're so catchy, and fun to sing at karaoke!
Thanx Michael and Kanaoshi.

I don't know about the "chessy" tag -- to me they were just great pop songs. I guess they were a little squeaky clean, although again I direct your attention to the breathy whispers of "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and "Honey, Honey." Pure sex guys.

No way around it.
Thanx for the comments.
Why should Abba have to be a "guilty pleasure.

" Is it because they are associated with gayness? Their music is great and really stands the test of time.
Why should Abba have to be a "guilty pleasure.

" Is it because
they are associated with gayness?
Now where in the hell did that come from? Can somebody tell me please?


gayness? they were all straight, yeah? i think it's the level of cheese, the pure euro-pop and the 1970s that keeps them in the "guilty pleasure" zone.


disco as a whole was seen as rather gay, although the reality of the situation is that the stuff that was played at gay discos was far, far better than the stuff being played at straight discos.
Exactly Mark. Not much room for misinterpetation there in my view.

Particularly sung by a female within the context of a song whose other lyrics include "Im gonna stick to you, you'll never get rid of me."
Now I do know that Abba did have gay fans. What 70's disco fixture didn't?

And so what?
My article wasn't about that, and nothing I wrote suggests it. I suppose an interesting article about that subject could be written if someone wanted to persue it.


Perhaps the next assignment for comment #17?
No, I'm not saying you're article was suggesting homophobia..

.lol! But, lets face it, if you are a fan of a disco act, like Abba, Donna Summer, Madonna, Village People, etc.

...

., you are considered uncool. Therefore, it is a guilty pleasure.

And the reason disco acts are not respected has a lot to do with their association with the gay community. Yes, a whole article can be written on this, I suppose.
I didn't become an Abba fan until a couple years back.

When I played one of their cds, someone in the office asked, "are you gay?"
I know I'm going all over the place here, but Abba should NOT be considered a guilty pleasure. They should be considered a pleasure, period.

But I think you say "guilty pleasure" cause you know it's not "cool" to like them. That's ok, I do the same. But we should questions ourselves why.


"But, lets face it, if you are a fan of a disco act, like Abba, Donna Summer, Madonna, Village People, etc...

.., you are considered uncool.

"
actually, disco is getting reappraised quite a bit these days. the fact is that if you enjoy dance music, you're just listening to disco as it has become.
out of all the acts you mention, donna summer (or more to the point, georgio moroder,) is well respected these days for pretty much inventing the 12" single format, which created the potential for the elongated remix (although her use of it, at first, was to create 20-minute long songs), as well as the use of the sequencer and electronic (as in synths) instruments.


more and more obscure disco of the time, like arthur russell productions, early electro stuff, italo disco, etc, is being unearthed and recognized for the creative stuff that it is.
out of all the mainstream disco acts of the day, i'd say chic is the best, as they are up there with the who and the band for tightness and synergy.
even post-punk acts of the time started incorporating disco into their work.

see gang of four, new order and public image for some late-70's/early 80's disco-punk. even today, incredibly hip bands like liars, daft punk and the rapture have used disco as a rhythmic base.
shit, probably the most hipster-cred group in america right now is the dfa, and they are pretty much straight-up disco most of the time.


yes, zingzing. A lot of acts use disco. But I bet you if you mention the word "dico" to them, they'll cringe.

I think it is hypocritical. Disco lived on, it just changed it's form. I was at Disco Demolition Night in Chicago and have very vivid, strong memories of that.

I was a little kid at the time and was scared to death. But even I kept asking my dad, for weeks after, why people hate "disco" so much and why would they get so angry over it. He said, nicely, that it was a way to protest homosexuals.

I still believe him.
"But I bet you if you mention the word "dico" to them, they'll cringe."
i'll assume you meant "disco," (even if it makes your sentence much more funny,) but i'll have to disagree.

lcd soundsystem, who is pretty much the dfa by another name, has a song called "disco infiltrator" and it's pretty obvious from the sound (and interviews) of the disco-inspired punk stuff (new and old) that they had a genuine love of the stuff and were/are not afraid to share it.
of course there are people that will always connect disco, and hating disco, to homosexuality..

. of course, those same people were probably dancing with roller skates on in 1977..

. but those aren't the people one should listen to in order to decide what is "cool" or "uncool" (not that anyone need listen to anyone else on that front).
in england, disco never took the wholesale punishment that disco took in late-70s america.

but even in america, disco was back by 1981, just under another name. and chicago was (with nyc) the center of that comeback.
Glen wrote: "Now I do know that Abba did have gay fans.

What 70's disco fixture didn't? And so what?"
Having said that, I must say the ABBA girls - Anni-Frid and Agnetha?

- DID provide some *cough* fertile ground for this young teenage imagination in the Australia of the early '70s, when they became the most popular pop band since the Beatleas for a short time.
The hot pants and figure-hugging outfits, along with the leather bodysuits worn by Emma Peel of the British TV series The Avengers, gave me an instant appreciation for older women.
Or possibly ALL women.


that's interesting, i don't really recall all that much anti-gay sentiment. heck, even a group like the Village People were mere cartoons, where people just disliked the music as being weak (catchy obviosly, but week).
i do remember that disco demolition stunt.

..and at the time, as much as i didn't care for disco, thought it was kinda stupid.


I meant disco (not dico)..lol.

Typing on my new sony micro pc thumb pad can make you form words you never meant to.
I was only 8 at the time of Disco Demolition. But I do remember signs up around that period that said "Disco sucks," and "Fags Like Disco.

" I was young, but do remember the negative gay-disco association. It happened more in 78-79. I do remember doing "the hustle" was cool to everyone, even str8 people.


but I think the Hustle came out in either 76 or 77...

.
disco anecdote alert! i've written before about how i was a sort of closet disco fan.

..actually disliked most of it with a few exceptions: "Knock On Wood", "Bad Girls", "Love To Love You Baby".


so usually we had rock bands playing at dances, but every so often they'd have a dj...

and me and the boys just hated it when the disco tunes came out. so all of us would yell "FUCK OFF!" over the top of the "Freak Out"'s on that Chic record.

(right, only a 16 yr old can think that that's being clever).
the irony of course is that i love that song now. that funk guitar riff is, as mr.

bueller would say, so choice.
I've had several musical secret lives, starting with loving The Beatles (Pop), The Rolling Stones (Rock) and Tamla Motown/Stax (Soul) all at once. This in a time when those three underground tribes (Pop fans, Rockers and Mods) were all literally fighting each other over dress codes and social or cultural values.


Subsequently, whilst almost always being part of an alternative or underground scene, I've always loved out and out pop too. I actually can't understand how people who only like one genre of music like, say, rock fans, don't get terminally bored.
I'll bite.

Well done, funny article...

like the Frida bit at the end especially. And I would be the last to call your interest in Marillion a "flaw."
Thanks for all the great replies and comments.

I was actually in the middle of typing out one of my typically long-winded replies to this late last night when my computer more or less died on me. Not sure what the problem is, but it was pretty scary.
This means I could be offline for a few days depending on the results of a diagnostic I plan on getting later tonite.


Typing from work right now which means I have to be somewhat brief, but again I've really enjoyed the responses (even yours Daryl D --- LOL).
Hope to be back among the living in a day or so..

.

  • On by Cory Cooper: "bloated Lounge Lizard Elvis from twenty years later" What a wrong and uneducated comment this is..

    .

  • On by JC Mosquito: Thanx - that's kinda interesting..

    . something for me to think about. Now if I just had Clark Kent's .

    ..

  • On by zingzing: she's certainly no alvin, chris.

    although i must say alvin couldn't do what she does either. as fo..

    .

  • On by Lindsey: just lookin through here and there are some really good songs here. Some of my favourites are: Skin.

    ..

    Read more on by blogcritics.org. All rights reserved.
    Keywords: Guilty Pleasure, Village People, Disco Demolition, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Phil Spector, Armed Forces, Honey Honey, Lou Christie, Dancing Queen
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