It was criticised as commercial, cloying and exploitative.Ĭarl Magnus Palm, the author of “The Real Story of ABBA: Bright Lights, Dark Shadows”, says that the group itself was nonplussed about such critiques: political messages “were a waste of a good tune”. Punk and rock challenged the status quo and espoused rebellion their pop music was concerned mostly with love and heartbreak. When they rose to fame as a group in the early 1970s, in the shadow of the protests of 1968, left-wing commentators and musicians in Sweden took them to task for their apolitical lyrics and cheerful tunes. In pursuit of unforgettable melodies, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad laboured over their songs in the studio, but those songs were never designed to do anything other than get the listener’s toe tapping. Over the decades this has been described as both the band’s biggest weakness and its greatest strength. The same is true for listening to ABBA’s music, which, while often dealing with sad subjects, has a euphoric, transporting quality to it.

The films challenge the mind only to the point of wondering what tune the actors might launch into next. It is pure feel-good entertainment, as soothing as a Swedish massage. For two hours the viewer gets to trade in their own dreary life for melodrama, Hollywood celebrities and ABBA songs. Harry’s getaway is analogous to the experience of watching the “Mamma Mia!” films, the second of which was released last week.

The escapist youtube