ABBA has been nominated for the Hall of Fame. They have been eligible since 1999 and should be inducted. Inductees will be announced in January, and the induction will take place in New York on March 15. A group or artist is eligible for the Hall 25 years after their first hit. ABBA hit with Waterloo in 1974. I posted about ABBA on the web:
If ABBA is "high camp," I am sure it is something they never intended. I have listened to and watched enough ABBA interviews to know that they wrote the songs and did what was in them to do at that time (1972-1982). Benny & Bjorn would compose in their summer house on an island in the Swedish Archipelago in the Baltic Sea. They sat for hours, days and weeks with piano and guitar. They had a Swedish-English dictionary. Melodies came first with a kind of pigeon English. Finished lyrics came last. They showed the songs to Agnetha and Frida, then headed for the studio. In the beginning, manager Stig Anderson thought Benny & Bjorn would be the stars and that that girls would sing backup. That changed in 1972 with "People Need Love." Benny & Bjorn would never be The Beatles whom they so admired. They needed a different approach. The girls coming to the front fit neatly with the 70s as the "women's decade." Americans were weary of the Vietnam/Watergate mentality, and Sweden was ready to rock. As for ABBA's costumes, it was fashion. Elton John, Slade and KISS came from the same era. By the way, KISS and Donna Summer are nominated for the Hall of Fame in 2010. They should go in with ABBA.
Rumor had it that the ABBA revival of the 90s began in the gay clubs of Europe. Maybe. Maybe not. My ABBA revival began when I found out about the ABBF fan club in Roosendaal, Holland. I could not stomach Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince so in the late 80s, I threw myself headlong into ABBA. I built up a huge ABBA collection and corresponded with people from all over the world about this group. I spent 6 weeks in Stockholm in 1994. I did not meet the 4 but spent time with Gorel Hanser who has more or less become ABBA's manager since Stig passed away.
