For all the hordes of TTFers who having been frantically searching for the story of the Swedish pop music industry of the 70s, look no further! The book
Bright Lights Dark Shadows by Carl Palm, covers it all!
In short, the Swedish pop music industry back then WAS Abba, the most popular music group in the world in the 70s, eclipsing even the Beach Boys and The Beatles. They earned so much money that they were an industry unto themselves, second only to the Volvo car company.
The thing that the Americans never "got" was that Abba never was based in rock and roll, and that's why America (whose doctrine was that to be any good, it had to be rock and roll) was the ONLY country in the world that didn't understand and appreciate them for their music.
Some other things they didn't get: Abba wrote their music in terms of the recording studio and not the stage. The recording studio, with its mixers and sound engineers were additional musical instruments for them. The relied on overdubbing and special effects. Another thing: they weren't particularly interested in how the public would be satisfied with their music. THEY were their own judges, and nothing left the studio until THEY were satisfied with what they'd done, and the public go hang. Of course what they did, the public lapped up virtually every single time — with the exception of the thickheaded Americans, who were into rock and roll and nothing else.
The music has its roots in SWEDEN, folks! Those who don't understand this miss
everything. Their musical bases were Swedish folk music,
schlagermusik (European pop music, sort of "Lawrence Welk-ish"), classical music, jazz, the Beach Boys (for the harmonies), the Phil Specter "wall of sound" concept, and at the end, some of disco. America just never understood this, or that fabulous pop music could actually have a basis in other than rock and roll.
Abba was just the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the iceberg was Polar Music, run by Stig Anderson, who put the group together, and who — starting with their winning the international
Eurovision Song Contest — was absolutely determined to take Swedish pop music into the international market.
The biographies of Anderson, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Anderson, Agnetha Fältskog and Ani-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad are some of the most fascinating characters ever to figure in the annals of popular music, and their biographies range from the hilarious to the deeply human to the downright harrowing. And all this without drugs!
The book is perfectly titled, for indeed: behind the bright lights of their sparkling public personas lay the dark shadows of their private lives. I recommend the book highly: Click
here
Barley