Abba’s biographer Jan Gradvall met and interviewed Abba many times and builds a fresh picture of their internal chemistry in his new book Melancholy Undercover. Highlights of this illuminating pod include …

… how Sweden rejected their early hits for not being sufficiently “socialist”.

…. the discomfiting early life of Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

… what Max Martin and Denniz Pop thought made Abba’s music so durable.

… Strindberg, Bergman, the climate, the eight months of darkness and the role of melancholia in Swedish pop culture.

… the influence of the Human League on their later catalogue.

… why manager Stig Anderson “became a burden”.

… “Norway has Grieg, Finland has Sibelius, Sweden has Benny …”

… the first band to write about divorce.

… the Abba song with 57 chords and the only two samples Abba ever approved.

… Elvis Costello, Joe Strummer and Ian Dury backstage at a 1979 London show.

… when Sid Vicious ran into Abba at an airport on the Pistols’ 1977 Swedish tour.

… the role of the Lionesses football team, Kurt Cobain, Erasure, U2, Madonna and the Sydney gay community in the Abba revival.

… why the Abbatars are better than Abba.

… the myth of Agnetha as “the Greta Garbo of Pop”.

… and why The Day Before You Came is more than the Abba swansong.

Order Melancholy Undercover here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-ABBA-Melancholy-Undercover/dp/0571390986

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AVE #482: Der autoritäre Charakter