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No ABBA Concert Reunion … Ever


misty mountain

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''I remember Robert Plant saying Led Zeppelin were a cover band now because they cover all their own stuff.

"I think that hit the nail on the head."

It makes a great sound bite but what does it actually mean?

Follow it to it's natural conclusion and any artist doing any song that isn't from their most recent album becomes a covers band. Does anyone really reguard The Stones, U2 or R.E.M. as a covers band just because they sing songs they wrote 20+ years ago?

With regatd to ABBA never reforming - lets not forget that they were 2 married couples at one time and I wouldn't want to go on tour with my exwife so why should they? When you add in the gazillion quid they made and continue to make, there's little motivation for a tour - I'd still never say never though.

Who'd have thought 12 months ago that we'd have The O2 now?

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''I remember Robert Plant saying Led Zeppelin were a cover band now because they cover all their own stuff.

"I think that hit the nail on the head."

It makes a great sound bite but what does it actually mean?

Follow it to it's natural conclusion and any artist doing any song that isn't from their most recent album becomes a covers band. Does anyone really reguard The Stones, U2 or R.E.M. as a covers band just because they sing songs they wrote 20+ years ago?

With regatd to ABBA never reforming - lets not forget that they were 2 married couples at one time and I wouldn't want to go on tour with my exwife so why should they? When you add in the gazillion quid they made and continue to make, there's little motivation for a tour - I'd still never say never though.

Who'd have thought 12 months ago that we'd have The O2 now?

Did you ever see the article about Robert and the boys from abba going to strip clubs (at the time led zeppelin where using abba's recording studio)Robert really put the abba boys in the spotlight .Of course Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus denied it .(plantie tarnished there squeaky clean image.) It was hilarious . :D

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Abba were a polished pop band with well produced songs.

They hardly shaped modern music or influenced as many musicians as Led Zeppelin did.

Having said that I like most of their stuff and it is always good to play at parties.

Girls love doing that Waterloo thing, you know what I mean? :)

They were very big in Oz, The ABBA Movie was shot here.

Coincidently, In Through The Out Door (the last "real" studio album) was recorded at the very same Polar Studios in Stockholm Sweden as Abba used to record.

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Coincidently, In Through The Out Door (the last "real" studio album) was recorded at the very same Polar Studios in Stockholm Sweden as Abba used to record.

That ABBA built and owned ;)

JPJ got his Yamaha GX-1 keyboard, that features prominently at Knebworth, after seeing Benny Andersson's... ;)

Led Zep influenced bands within its genre, you can see it in 80's hair metal, however there are a lot of top bands today who got their influences from the New Wave of the late 70's, who were anti-Led Zep.

I think to write ABBA off as merely a polished pop band is a tad misconstrued. I know it is still fashionable to hate ABBA, especially from the snob-rock side of music, but I think an awful lot of people refuse to recognise their influence.

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I think to write ABBA off as merely a polished pop band is a tad misconstrued. I know it is still fashionable to hate ABBA, especially from the snob-rock side of music, but I think an awful lot of people refuse to recognise their influence.

They've influenced a ton of artists for sure, but they're the kind of artists that I hate as well! :D

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I always considered my liking ABBA as sort of my 'dirty little secret'. I can understand why folks don't like them, and I agree that disliking and/or dismissing them is a popular thing to do these days.

I won't shed a tear at the notion that they'll never reform, but I do enjoy occasionally listening to the best-of type cd of theirs that I still have. (I've got an album of theirs packed away in a box somewhere... along with my other vinyl).

The other soundbyte type quote sums it up well... "We will never appear on stage again," says Ulvaeus. "There is simply no motivation to re-group. Money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were". If that's how they feel, then they certainly shouldn't re-form.

I think I've heard the Plant quote before but I've forgotten the context within which it was said... whether it's a bit tongue-in-cheek or serious, etc. I think I understand why the ABBA guy used it though to illustrate his point.

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I loved them when I was 12 -13 years old, they were very popular in our country. And Benny Anderson was the reason I started to learn piano in the age of 13.

And I started to learn English, because I wanted understand the lyrics :)

Later I started to learn acoustic guitar because of Beatles.

I saw the Abba movie three times! It was a great event back then, our cinema was sold out! :)

And today I seriously think over that I will buy maybe an acoustic guitar again and start to play again because of Pagey :wub:

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I really don't think it is fashionable to dislike ABBA - especially within the music business - I think that snobbishness began to disappear YEARS ago and was totally stubbed out when U2 covered "Dancing Queen". I think they are hugely respected now and have been for years.

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I really don't think it is fashionable to dislike ABBA - especially within the music business - I think that snobbishness began to disappear YEARS ago and was totally stubbed out when U2 covered "Dancing Queen". I think they are hugely respected now and have been for years.

That's good to hear. I wasn't thinking specifically of the music industry. People in my neck of the woods don't seem to care for them much but this area isn't exactly known for setting trends. (Some folks around here still have mullet hairstyles... not exactly cutting edge). :lol:

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I really don't think it is fashionable to dislike ABBA - especially within the music business

Well definately not in the music business, you're absolutely right, as the ABBA song catalogue is the second most valuable behind The Beatles.

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Oh that explains it!

Now I know why ITTOD is crap.

B)

Maybe if Robert had teamed up(collaborated) with one of the ABBA girls then (way back then)this scene with Alison would be a none event.ITTOD was more john paul jones musical baby. :D

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Abba were great. I'd much rather listen to Abba than some Zep wannabes from the 1970s or 1980s.

If you get the chance, check out the tribute band Bjorn Again. I've seen them 3 times and they are the best tribute band around.

I also wonder if Agnetha Fältskog's hatred of touring and being away from the kids finally reached a climax after talking to Plant after Karac died when Plant was on tour?????

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If you get the chance, check out the tribute band Bjorn Again. I've seen them 3 times and they are the best tribute band around.

They're from Australia you know ;)

Actually Andrew Loog Oldham and Tony Calder wrote a great book about ABBA, it's very funny. In one part of the book they compare ABBA to Led Zeppelin:

"Look at musical history, at the supposedly serious, meaningful, cred pioneering musical statements emerging in the wake of Sgt Pepper while Swedish music still had an inferiority complex. Led Zeppelin. Okay, Led Zeppelin -did- pioneer heavy metal and move rock music to a new plane...But come on, how many of those hairy monsters playing air guitar to Led Zeppelin III still rush home from their jobs in computer programming to whack it on the turntable? What warm feelings are inspired by Robert's shrieking vocals and Jimmy's scorching axework? How many requests do all these wretched radio stations get for the greatest hits of Led Zeppelin?

The answer to all the questions is sod all, right? Led Zeppelin are totally unlistenable to now. They always were but they were deemed cool and they were deemed important and they sold huge amounts of records and gave impetus to a whole new musical form called Heavy Metal - a legacy for which alone they deserve instant exile to Van Dieman's Land. Yet critics nodded sagely and students based whole lifestyles on the vision and philosophy of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd while Sweet and Mud and Slade were silly bubblegum groups strictly for kids and who made records you'd forgotten before the last note. Which would -you- rather listen to now? Who's records do -you- still remember all the words to?

And Led Zeppelin were the best, most important, and the most innovative of the so-called serious groups emerging at the turn of the 70's. It was they who changed pop language. Groups suddenly became bands. LPs became albums. Pop became rock. Piano became keyboards. Singles became crap. In fact, singles didn't exist if you were a Led Zeppelin fan. The bullshit factor was enormous in the early 70's.

But if Led Zeppelin were the biggest and greates of the breed, The Beatles their chosen idiom, what about the rest? Yes? ELP? Wishbone Ash? Barclay James Harvest? Cream? Gentle Giant? Supertramp? Colosseum? Tangerine Dream? Van Der Graaf Generator???!!

Spare us! Give us Smokie, Alvin Stardust and Norman Greenbaum any day! You'd need to be brain dead to want to listen to Van Der Graaf Generator in the 90's. You had to be brain dead to listen to them in the 70's and most people were, that was part of the problem. Loon pants?? They laugh themselves stupid at some of the costumes ABBA paraded in, but how could you ever take anyone seriously who wore -Loon Pants- and played tracks that lasted 14 minutes? There's a school of thought that anyone caught entering a record shop attempting to buy a Van Der Graaf Generator album should undergo instant euthanasia and, let's be fair, it's kinder that way...

And while we're on the subject, what about Quintessence? A society that elevates Quintessence to even marginal stardom is unquestionably terminally sick...It was all George Harrison's fault of course. All that skiving off to India having tea and yoga with the Maharishi and then including the truly abominable 'Within You Without You' on Sgt Pepper...How on earth did someone so domineeringly pragmatic as Paul McCartney allow him to get away with it??....

And they accused ABBA of nonsense!

After all that garbage, by God we -needed- Paper Lace and Garry Glitter. Maybe we didn't need the Bay City Rollers, but you can't have it all ways...

Others were smarter. Bolan, Bowie, Elton John...they skilfully managed to disguise their own simple, bubblegum pop in an ingenious shroud of mystique and inventiveness. All image and no trousers, they eluded dread Zep-inspired scorn with extraordinary sleight of hand and breathtaking guile..."

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