A special show on television captures the ABBA story and why they remain an all-time favourite.
People forget that the lyrics are sad — they take it as positive and happy,” ABBA group member Björn Ulvaeus has said of the band’s popularity on a show you are about to view on March 22, on Discovery Travel&Living. It’s a popularity that in the 70s and 80s reached near-hysteria and continues to keep fans on their toes.
How did a European band, all the way from Sweden, beat their counterparts to rise to fame as one of the most loved musicians of all times, across the globe? Was it their simple lyrics and upbeat acoustics, or the attractive girl members of the band that boosted their pop star image? Or was it the complete package they created — of talent and eye candy that had thousands roaring at concerts? It’s this fascinating story of the band that has been captured in this one hour special television programme titled ABBA: The Mamma Mia! Story.
A record 370 million albums sold and counting, ABBA never officially broke up as a band, but their music was reinterpreted several times, in various languages, and continues to be performed in the form of theatre musicals and films, most recently a star-studded extravaganza Mamma Mia! starring Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan. The young and old have swung to their tunes — from Broadway shows to bands such as ABBA Teens or A*Teens and Westlife riding high on ABBA covers such as ‘I Have a Dream’ and ‘Mamma Mia’ and several of their other hit numbers.
Snippets of videos in this show have ABBA members Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid Lyngstad going full-throttle on stage, in their trademark style. Their old videos are interspersed with interviews with band members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus who share memories on how they have kept the magic of their music alive post 1981 (after the members unofficially went their separate ways) through musicals they have given shape. Streep, Brosnan and Colin Firth (who also starred in the film Mamma Mia!) speak on the joy and fears of singing ABBA’s evergreen numbers, and on their interaction with the band members.
Thirty years later, while Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus continue to work together in various projects taking ABBA’s music to different platforms, little is said about the girl members of the band. The ambiguity surrounding the failed marriages of the two couples which is said to have eventually led to the gradual disintegration of the group continues to lend a cloud of mystery around the quartet, but is anyone complaining? We’re merely content to hear those happy tunes, again, and again, and again.
