Why ABBA's Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame Honor Should Bring a One-Time Reunion

Your music-loving author has always assimilated every genre of music, whether by deliberate choice, through the earworm effect on a nearby radio or in the mall or restaurant background. ABBA's earworm-fortified music used to be strictly in the background for me as a young boy of the 70's and 80's, if maybe an occasional head-on exposure to their music when they appeared on an afternoon or evening TV talk show or seeing "ABBA: The Movie" listed on the local movie theater marquee for over a year. It doesn't surprise me then when most people from my generation clandestinely say that ABBA's music was part of a vast soundtrack to their childhood.

When you have that in your background, you know it's going to come back and either haunt you or delight you later in life.

Well, after ABBA's popularity lull in the 80's and 90's and after I grew up, those familiar sounds of songs "Mamma Mia", "Waterloo", "The Name of the Game", "Hole in Your Soul", "Tiger", "Fernando", etc. (and ubiquitously ubiquitous "Dancing Queen") all coalesced into a default desire to hear them again. Arguably, it wasn't necessarily the result of the musical "Mamma Mia" that helped that along. Yet we've all experienced hearing a song again after a long period of time and having an experience of the earworm repeat bringing near insanity.

For some old songs, that type of feeling is only fleeting.

Most would agree with me that ABBA's music brings a similar feeling you get listening to a Mozart symphony again after a long time: Pouring and drinking a glass of slightly aged but still fresh-tasting champagne.

All of that above explanation might seem daunting coming from a straight as Zeno's arrow male, and especially when alluding to ABBA's recent induction into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. Because ABBA somehow became equated with the gay community at some point after the group broke up in the early 80's, it's taken this long just for heterosexuals of both genders to admit to liking ABBA's music. And because I know for a fact that ABBA's appeal covers all sexual preference bases, there isn't any reason why there shouldn't be an argument of logic as to why they shouldn't have been inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame as some attested.

The same logic extends to the news after the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame induction that ABBA may finally decide to reunite after all; maybe, probably, not really, yes, no and likely. When reports came that ¼ of ABBA, Benny Andersson, thought an in-studio pay-per-view reunion special would be more than workable, the visions of an unprecedented band reunion on an epic scale finally seemed within reach.

Apparently 2/4 of ABBA, Björn Ulvaeus, has already agreed to it. The only questions are the beautiful ¾ of ABBA, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, plus the equally beautiful 4/4 of ABBA, Agnetha Fältskog, and whether they can still sing with the same glistening and ethereal timbres they used to have.

That change of mind must have been triggered from the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame induction that immediately brought both celebration and instigating protest from some of Rock's most ardent followers. Not that it brought people with too much time on their hands to the NYC ceremony to protest in the aisles. Nevertheless, it seemed that ABBA painted itself as strictly a pop band all those years ago. Songs with catchy hooks and a feel-good sensibility were seemingly forever categorized away from the rock bins by forces unnamed.

But let's stop right there when we think all of ABBA songs made you feel good. If you follow their career trajectory, certainly the first few years of their hit list consist of songs worthy of being designated strictly feel-good pop. Once the marriages within ABBA started to unravel in the late 1970's, many know that their songs started becoming darker and waxed cynic about husband and wife unions and relationships in general.

Putting that with the reality of pop and rock utilizing the same three chords, the idea of putting ABBA into the same ranks of darker and pure rock bands isn't all that far away. Besides, many of those famous and early pop confections Andersson/Ulvaeus wrote had rock bass line licks that rock guitarists finally scoped out and now play to death. The same thing happened to the songs of The Carpenters after rock purists later realized the edgier layers to the complex arrangements behind the easier listening.

So if ABBA finally managed to get most rock purists on board to admit coolness and relevancy, how does it affect the magnitude of a potential one-off reunion as a TV pay-per-view event?

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Even though we're living in a time when a band reunion might not equate as an epic event, an ABBA reunion broadcast on TV worldwide via pay-per-view would easily be the story of the year. That's only barring terrorism, war with Iran, growing Tea Party protests in D.C. or other usual topical suspects. It's also a fair and square way for fans to see the band one more time in a live setting without catering to the elite willing to pay steep ticket prices and crowd into one giant arena.

And because it would be pay-per-view, those who truly want to see the band reunite can pay the one-time fee to see it without worrying about corporate whores waving another billion-dollar price tag in front of ABBA's Swedish noses. The most uncomfortable feeling in the world (and likely for the band itself) would be to have the reunion so overrun with corporate greed that ABBA just goes through the motions--only to end up with the emptiness of seeing them listed on the Forbes list a year later.

Yes, I'm alluding here to this being one of those communion TV events I've written about before and bringing more viewing audiences together than usual in a cable era. An ABBA reunion quite simply brings a certain period of appealing time in the 70's and slides it across the decades to the more morose second decade of the 21^st century. Of course, when I wrote about band reunions before (see Resources) and the potential of one with ABBA, I couldn't help bring up involuntary memory as the only way to recapture what people actually remember.

That's also the reported fear of ABBA and why they've refused a reunion for a long time. Everybody interested in seeing a pay-per-view reunion has to remember that over 25 years have passed since they all last sang together. Reportedly, Lyngstad and Fältskog still sing, though we're reminded that the female voice deepens as it reaches a certain age. Hearing all those ABBA hits sung a few keys down has to be taken as reality along with a possible lack of youthful energy, even in a studio setting.

Or, perhaps all of ABBA realizes that doing a reunion is more of a catharsis and a chance to use involuntary memory themselves. If they tap into how they looked and felt in their heyday, it'll project directly to all the multi millions around the world tuning in to this potential reunion concert.

Then everybody who listened to ABBA's songs (either as a knowing adult or, as with me, unknowingly in the periphery during childhood), can thank them again for the music.

Resources:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/885995/no_abba_reunion_the_history_psychology.html?cat=33

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/341072/abba_enjoy_the_pleasure_with_none_of.html?cat=33&com=3

http://www.abbasite.com/