Because absolutely no one the editorial staff demanded it — John C. Hughes and the world’s foremost Belinda Carlisle impersonator, a.k.a. his buddy Matty (or “Bearlinda,” if you prefer), return to knock back some booze and review some ABBA songs, homo style (is there really any other way?). Along the way, they end up talking about their teachers’ “golden globes,” Curt Smith’s dumb life choices and if “That’s Me” is disco or bluegrass. Enjoy, and as always, MP3s of the songs are below so you can follow along at home.

ABBA – “When I Kissed The Teacher” (download)

ABBA – “Hey, Hey Helen” (download)

ABBA – “That’s Me” (download)

ABBA – “You Owe Me One” (download)

ABBA – “Under Attack” (download)

Yeah, I know we’ve done ABBA once already this year, but in celebration of “Mamma Mia” stinking up theater screens nationwide, I figure we should probably take a look at one of the earliest glimmers that ABBA were more than just your standard bubblegum pop group.

While early singles “Waterloo” and “Honey, Honey” were decidedly lightweight, the Swedish foursome showed a more mature side with “Mamma Mia’s” b-side,  “Hey Hey Helen” (download), a track taken from their second, eponymously titled album.  A guitar-driven glam track from when the group was experimenting with glitter rock (see “Ring, Ring”), “Helen” took an adult look at divorce and single motherhood in a time when the divorce rate was up and the traditional family unit was taking a beating.  At first, the lyrics seem a bit judgmental, until you get to that last bit in the chorus where the girls assure the newly single mother that she can, in fact, make it alone:

So at last you’re free
It’s the way you wanted it to be
And the price you paid
To become a woman of today
Is it worth the pain to see the children cry
Does it hurt when they ask for Daddy

Hey hey Helen
Now you live on your own
Hey hey Helen
Can you make it alone
(Yes you can)

I’m surprised that considering the theme of the song, it wasn’t used in the “Mamma Mia” musical or movie.  Perhaps it wasn’t considered a popular enough tune to make the cut, even though the group mimed it for quite a few TV appearances at the time.  Here’s the quartet lipsynching the song on “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert” in 1975: (more…)

The double A-side single had a nice little streak in the late ’70s; Queen alone had two. But one of my favorites didn’t chart nearly as high, and one of its sides became far more well-known than the other.

ABBA never replicated their Beatlemania-level European pop success in America, but the quartet scored a big hit now and then, and 1979 was no exception, when “Does Your Mother Know,” the lead single from Voulez-Vous, became a Top 40 hit. When it came time for the follow-up, “Angeleyes” (download) was paired with the album’s title track as a double A-side single, with the former being the focus. Funny thing happened, though, as radio programmers and dance clubs focused instead on “Voulez-Vous,” which fit into the disco scene quite nicely. “Voulez-Vous” eventually made the track list for the zillion-selling ABBA Gold, even though it charted at a paltry #80 in America.

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Even since Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus first realized that they had a knack for writing songs together, it’s been an accepted fact that there’s something in the water of Sweden which gifts the residents of this kingdom with the abilities to write inconceivably catchy pop hooks. I mean, I’m not saying anyone’s actually done any sort of chemical analysis – or, at least, I haven’t, anyway – but given the sheer hummability of the average Swedish composition, it seems like as good an explanation as any. As late as the mid-1990s, however, my knowledge of Swedish pop was limited to two groups – ABBA and Roxette – and neither were exactly the height of cool – but, then, neither was I, which is why I had ABBA’s Gold and Roxette’s greatest hits, Don’t Bore Us, Get To The Chorus! (Even if you don’t like Roxette, I think you have to admit that that’s a really awesome title.)

It was right around this time that a man named Bruce Brodeen entered my life. (more…)