Last year ABBA surprised their fans by doing the unimaginable: making their first music together in thirty years. Not that cashing in on a legacy is outlandish in the pop industry, but most members seemed to want to distance themselves from memories of "Waterloo" and "Dancing Queen". After having some success with more conceptual musical theater type pieces, chief songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeous regarded ABBA's pop glory as silly. Agnetha Fältskog seemed content to lead a civilian life outside the spotlight. There were also the members' broken marriages and the general lack of respect they'd always received from the snobby rock press that might make a reunion less than harmonious.
ABBA should have been the squarest thing in the seventies pop universe: four toothpaste ads from Sweden singing gleamingly cheerful or earnestly distraught songs tailored for the top ten. Yet even the coolest of the cool wouldn't deny the quality of Benny Anderson and Björn Ulvaeus's songs and production or the flawless and emotive harmonies of Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. Elvis and the Attractions couldn't stop listening to them on the tour bus and consciously paid tribute to their style on songs such as "Oliver's Army". Pete Townshend praised their songcraft. A decade later, Nirvana not only made ABBA their own tour bus soundtrack, but also actually took an ABBA cover band on tour with them. Starstruck fandom or smirking irony? It was the nineties, so who could tell the difference?
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