To be serious (for a moment...). This time about "comebacks". Peter has mentioned John Fogerty as an example of a successfull comeback, and it seems to me that's a very good example of what a comeback is about. Look, the guy remained silent for 11 years, and i've often wondered what a hero of my crazy teenage dreams (one of, actually... yes it's true) was doing. I wasn't even sure he was still alive. I really loved "Eye of zombie" and tried to imagine what'd be next. And when i finally got hold of a copy of "Blue moon", it seemed like a miracle. But miracle it wasn't. At the first listen i actually did like it but anyway there was a feeling something was missing. I mean he always was a kind of a "neurastenic type" hero. The one who's always suffering. Now he's more like brother Tom. I like Tom, he's a kind of guy who seems to go without a trace but when the guy goes, it feels like something is missing. No kind of a genius songwriter or singer, some lack of persona, but there's something very warm about his songs. Now John is kinda similar. Similar mellow voice, similar lack of any kind of anger, everything's fine, etc. But while for Tom it was a way of living, it was natural, it doesn't really work with his younger brother. "Premonition" was sort of better, he somehow managed to sing "I put a spell on you" even better than he did it almost 30 years ago! But there's a strange feel of pity about all these "oldies acts". You see, faces alter, voices alter... even songwriting abilities kind of alter. I mean, John himself likes to say his songs are as good as they were before... and i object. They are kind of nice but there's little life to them. And after all, where's he now?.. A coupla years after his "comeback", he was backing Tina Turner. His official website hasn't been updated since 2000 or so. Somewhere in 1998, he promised there'd be a constant flow of records. And nothing ever since - or am i missing something?
Comebacks are good for some people. Actually, many people would be happy to see the heroes of their youth back on the stage. That's just that it doesn't work for me. I don't want to feel pity for anyone. I'm afraid i would have this kind of feeling. That's why i just wouldn't go.
$1,000,000,000 offered for world tour
I think when the majority of people go to see someone who was famous 20-30 years they ago don't expect or even want new stuff. Singers like the late Ricky Nelson even sang about it. Even The Everly Brothers who influenced countless people and are one of the all-time greats up there with Elvis and The Beatles couldn't make a proper comeback during the mid 80's. The insipid tune that McCartney wrote for them and was released as their first single didn't help either, neither did their insistence on using synthesizors (Don idea I would bet) and trying to have an updated sound.
People also don't realize the power of a band, John Fogerty was always better to me anyway with CCR, there is a certain tension, a yin-yang in a band that doesn't happen usually when a member of a great band goes solo. I thought Fogerty faired better than most though, he at least stayed true to himself and still rocked. He still seems to have an edge. When I saw Jerry Lee Lewis during the 80's he still had the edge too, he did almost all country tunes and didn't seem to care one whit about the audience, was true to himself, which is what Rick Nelson sang about. It seems to me the roots guys do the best... if they true to their roots, because it never gets stale and is not so identified with a certain time.
People like John Fogarty have nothing to prove anymore, he's a legend, I would go to see him just to hear all those great songs he wrote and played and feel happy even if he didn't play a single new song. And if you heard his new songs in that context they would be as good as his old ones because they are as good, there just hasn't been enough time to appreciate them compared to his old stuff.
People also don't realize the power of a band, John Fogerty was always better to me anyway with CCR, there is a certain tension, a yin-yang in a band that doesn't happen usually when a member of a great band goes solo. I thought Fogerty faired better than most though, he at least stayed true to himself and still rocked. He still seems to have an edge. When I saw Jerry Lee Lewis during the 80's he still had the edge too, he did almost all country tunes and didn't seem to care one whit about the audience, was true to himself, which is what Rick Nelson sang about. It seems to me the roots guys do the best... if they true to their roots, because it never gets stale and is not so identified with a certain time.
People like John Fogarty have nothing to prove anymore, he's a legend, I would go to see him just to hear all those great songs he wrote and played and feel happy even if he didn't play a single new song. And if you heard his new songs in that context they would be as good as his old ones because they are as good, there just hasn't been enough time to appreciate them compared to his old stuff.
Well, Agnetha did pretty well for herself after the ABBA breakup. Americans just don't know about it because the albums weren't always promoted here, nor were they always sung in English. I was at agnetha.net today and reading a bit about her. You can even learn how to correctly pronounce her name there. Say her name out loud then click on the link at the website to find out how it's really pronounced. I blew her first AND last name, although I came kinda close on her first name. Imagine admiring the group all those years and just today learning how to pronounce her name correctly. Sort of like calling John Lennon something like Joan Lemmon for 30 years. There's an interview article there where Agnetha said there were always a bunch of lies in the press about them. I suspect the $1,000,000,000 reunion story was something along the same vein. Agnetha said she is such a common looking Swedish woman that she goes out in public all the time without being recognized for who she really is. One of her solo post ABBA albums sold over 2 million copies, but mostly in Europe. A lot of Americans don't realize that her and Frida did a lot of pre and post ABBA music in languages other than English. Agnetha and her kids have done Swedish Christmas albums, kiddie albums, etc. The truth of the matter is that outside of her angelic voice, Agnetha is an ordinary Swedish mother that has no intention of ever being an ABBA type superstar again. She says she really enjoys being a little star and doing minor projects and sticking close to home with the kids. She hated touring in the ABBA days because they worked too hard and didn't get to have a relaxed life and see and do things when they were on tour. There is an article at agnetha.net of an interview with her and Astrid Lindgren (very famous Swedish author who wrote Pippi Longstocking). It's plain to see by how the interview went that Agnetha is no Madonna. Just the "girl with golden hair" that has a talent for singing.
Bob, Steve, it could be worse, you could have "King Kong Song" stuck in your head like I did today. I pulled out their Waterloo album and realized just how good it was for an early effort. You can't really compare them to the early Beatles. They had many more years of experience behind them when they formed ABBA, while the Beatles were a lot greener. Break out a copy of With The Beatles and compare it closely to Waterloo. The ABBA songs are much more polished and better recorded, as well they should be with all the advances in recording and the fact they hired very good backing musicians. Rutger Gunnarson always stands out for me. When ABBA made guest appearances on British TV shows, the regular studio musicians weren't good enough for Bjorn and Benny so they would bring several from Sweden with them for the show. Michael Tretow is correct, they were perfectionists and they gave pop music an artistic boost and taught a few other artists a few things. Agnetha said her favorite musical venue was building up Benny and Bjorn's compositions in the recording studio and it was where the most fun was at for her. It only sounds so simple and easy because they were so darned good at what they did. On a high end audio system, some of their songs I felt ambivalent toward originally are now revealed to be interesting works, especially the bass work of Rutger Gunnarson. My 70-80's cheapo Asian system just couldn't dig deep enough into the grooves and smeared all that fine detail that's buried in a lot of their songs. Get one of their late remastered recordings and head to the nearest high end audio salon. My local Vandersteen dealer uses their music for demos. Everybody knows their music, but a lot of people are surprised when they REALLY hear their music.
Benny and Bjorn wrote POP music, the type that was supposed to sound simple and quickly stick in your head and not let go even to the point of annoyance at times. The Beatles were often guilty of the same thing in their early days. Not everything was Eleanor Rigby serious back then. Didn't any of you guys ever get annoyed at an older sister that played those early Beatle singles until she literally wore them out?
Since Agnetha is personally more happy being a minor star than a major star, you could say that her post ABBA career has been an improvement for HER. BTW, Agnetha also plays piano and has done it in live ABBA concerts. Her career in kiddie albums and Swedish language music improved after the ABBA breakup.
Bob, Steve, it could be worse, you could have "King Kong Song" stuck in your head like I did today. I pulled out their Waterloo album and realized just how good it was for an early effort. You can't really compare them to the early Beatles. They had many more years of experience behind them when they formed ABBA, while the Beatles were a lot greener. Break out a copy of With The Beatles and compare it closely to Waterloo. The ABBA songs are much more polished and better recorded, as well they should be with all the advances in recording and the fact they hired very good backing musicians. Rutger Gunnarson always stands out for me. When ABBA made guest appearances on British TV shows, the regular studio musicians weren't good enough for Bjorn and Benny so they would bring several from Sweden with them for the show. Michael Tretow is correct, they were perfectionists and they gave pop music an artistic boost and taught a few other artists a few things. Agnetha said her favorite musical venue was building up Benny and Bjorn's compositions in the recording studio and it was where the most fun was at for her. It only sounds so simple and easy because they were so darned good at what they did. On a high end audio system, some of their songs I felt ambivalent toward originally are now revealed to be interesting works, especially the bass work of Rutger Gunnarson. My 70-80's cheapo Asian system just couldn't dig deep enough into the grooves and smeared all that fine detail that's buried in a lot of their songs. Get one of their late remastered recordings and head to the nearest high end audio salon. My local Vandersteen dealer uses their music for demos. Everybody knows their music, but a lot of people are surprised when they REALLY hear their music.
Benny and Bjorn wrote POP music, the type that was supposed to sound simple and quickly stick in your head and not let go even to the point of annoyance at times. The Beatles were often guilty of the same thing in their early days. Not everything was Eleanor Rigby serious back then. Didn't any of you guys ever get annoyed at an older sister that played those early Beatle singles until she literally wore them out?
Since Agnetha is personally more happy being a minor star than a major star, you could say that her post ABBA career has been an improvement for HER. BTW, Agnetha also plays piano and has done it in live ABBA concerts. Her career in kiddie albums and Swedish language music improved after the ABBA breakup.
P.S. Besides finally learning how to pronounce Agnetha's name correctly, I also enjoyed this little tidbit I dug up on her: during her first public appearance at the age of six, HER PANTS FELL DOWN while she was singing. During ALL her adult concerts, her pants and skirts managed to stay up, so I would definitely say that her later career had improved a bit.......for her.
Yeah, Bob, I know what you are thinking. You think if her pants fell down in those ABBA concerts it would have been an improvement in her later career (ca-rear?).
Yeah, Bob, I know what you are thinking. You think if her pants fell down in those ABBA concerts it would have been an improvement in her later career (ca-rear?).
P.P.S. Jeff, this should really be a separate topic: Who could front for ABBA on a reunion tour??? Actually, that's an easy one. U2 likes their music and had done some covers in a Swedish concert once, and they could infuse a lot of old ABBA songs with some Irish spunk. Consider these covers, with a U2 twist: Honey Bloody Honey, When I Pi$$ed The Teacher, The Second Before You Came, Head Over Heart, Lay All Your Love On Bono, Stupid Trooper, Bang-Gang-A-Boomerang (not sure of the word order on that one), Wake Up Dancing Queen, Angeldust Eyes, Take A Chance On Edge, Happy New Year Day, Knowing Me Knowing Me (sung by Bono), Firewaterloo, Voulez Moi (again sung by Bono).
Anybody else know of any that U2 might could cover in their own style?
Anybody else know of any that U2 might could cover in their own style?
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atomic_punk
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Bob, I REALLY don't want to come off as an ABBA apologist, but Phil does have a point.
From the Guinness Book of World Records:
"Since 1970 it is estimated that the most successful group in the world in terms of
record sales is the Swedish foursome
ABBA".
In the 1984 Edition ABBA were billed as the second largest selling recording act after the Beatles.
Estimated Sales in 2004
are over 300 Million and counting.
Even though the Beatles are MILES ahead in terms of musicianship and innovation (to me), ABBA did put up some pretty impressive numbers.
And, Phil likes 'em.
From the Guinness Book of World Records:
"Since 1970 it is estimated that the most successful group in the world in terms of
record sales is the Swedish foursome
ABBA".
In the 1984 Edition ABBA were billed as the second largest selling recording act after the Beatles.
Estimated Sales in 2004
are over 300 Million and counting.
Even though the Beatles are MILES ahead in terms of musicianship and innovation (to me), ABBA did put up some pretty impressive numbers.
And, Phil likes 'em.
"They make great f***'n basses". - Lemmy, NAMM 2009
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jwr2
-
atomic_punk
- Senior Member
- Posts: 5093
- Joined: Wed Sep 17, 2003 5:00 am
- Contact:
"Slipping Through My Fingers" and "Happy New Year" were hardly bubble gum pop music, and rarely got airplay in spite of being great songs. What is "musicianship"? As an out and out talented singer that could be hired to backup anybody on their album, either Agnetha or Frida would eclipse ANY of the Beatles members. Bob, go listen to "Yellow Submarine" and then tell me how that blows all the ABBA songs away as serious intellectual music. It's somewhat in the league of "King Kong Song", but ABBA managed it on their first US album release, not the seventh like the Beatles did. Also, I don't think a song (or Philco) has to be serious to be great. I have learned that down in Texas, ABBA songs were never played as often or in as much variety on the radio as they were in Minnesota. ABBA members were never stoners, and that probably hurt their psychedelic rock output bigtime. Remember, at one point, the Beatles were so high that you had to peel them off the ceiling with a rake. Also, like I said, if all you heard was Waterloo, Dancing Queen, SOS (A true gem in its utter simplicity while retaining musical depth. The opening piano notes remind me of Beethoven's 5th symphony for some reason.), Chiquitita, and Super Trooper, then you haven't heard anything but the tip of their iceberg career. Plus, Agnetha sold 2+ million copies of a non-English solo album in an area with a fraction of the population of the USA/Canada/UK/Australia/NZ where English language groups get most of their sales, BESIDES English language albums also selling in the area where she did. Indexed to population and speakers of the language, that's a lot of albums sold. PLUS......ABBA recorded in at least 5 languages that I know of. I think Sir Paul mumbled a few words of French on "Michelle". That's hardly in ABBA's language league. PLUS......the quality of their recordings blows away the Beatles, as it should. ABBA recorded on state-of-the-art studio gear with a recording engineer up to the task of utilizing the full capabilities it offered. That's why their albums are commonly seen in high end audio demonstration rooms. That's why Led Zeppelin chose to record in THEIR studio that ABBA owned outright, not the Beatles studio, if the Beatles ever owned one. Don't confuse musical style with absolute substance. I don't speak Swedish, so I can't comment on how their Swedish albums sound. BTW, how do the Beatles' Swedish, Spanish, German, and French language albums sound? I think Agnetha hits the high notes a bit better as well. She would make a good Valkyrie in a Wagnerian opera.
I own just about every original Beatles and ABBA album, and I play both collections a lot. Just because two groups are not the same doesn't automatically make one worse than the other.
Also, I have heard many times the entire Beatles output and the entire ABBA English language output. Can the rest of you guys say you have heard everything that ABBA did in English? I think Chris could say yes, because he said he likes them.
I admit that the Beatles busted down a few doors.....in a very big way. They blew away the notion that songwriting and performing were two separate career fields. They also borrowed from diverse musical genres to get their sound. They proved that pop artists didn't need to be shackled to a particular style (Sgt. Pepper album). Had the time periods of both bands been reversed, then ABBA could just as well have made that claim. I think that ABBA will be noted for creating the symphonic pop song. Many of their songs really are symphonic in nature, with lots of intricate detail that will reveal itself if you care to play it through a good system. Grado headphones are the cheapest way to get "high end" audio sound, and I wouldn't go below the $69 SR-60 model. I actually prefer them to a $200 pair of Grado SR-200 headphones I once owned, although the SR-200 phones were considered about the best rock headphones regardless of price.....the midbass punch was unbeatable. I think those who have quite a bit of classical music in their record collection will have more tendency to like ABBA. They sound like nobody else, and that's probably what allowed them to sell so many albums. When you sound like somebody else, you have to share record sales with them. Bjorn and Benny were perfectly capable of writing Beatlesque or other genres of music, but what would be the point if your aim was to sell mega doses of albums? ABBA's aim was to sell lots of recordings, which is probably why they are listed as pop artists.
I have learned that down in Texas, ABBA songs were never played as often or in as much variety on the radio as they were in Minnesota. ABBA members were never stoners, and that probably hurt their psychedelic rock output bigtime. Remember, at one point, the Beatles were so high that you had to peel them off the ceiling with a rake. Also, like I said, if all you heard was Waterloo, Dancing Queen, SOS (A true gem in its utter simplicity while retaining musical depth. The opening piano notes remind me of Beethoven's 5th symphony for some reason.), Chiquitita, and Super Trooper, then you haven't heard anything but the tip of their iceberg career. Plus, Agnetha sold 2+ million copies of a non-English solo album in an area with a fraction of the population of the USA/Canada/UK/Australia/NZ where English language groups get most of their sales, BESIDES English language albums also selling in the area where she did. Indexed to population and speakers of the language, that's a lot of albums sold. PLUS......ABBA recorded in at least 5 languages that I know of. I think Sir Paul mumbled a few words of French on "Michelle". That's hardly in ABBA's language league. PLUS......the quality of their recordings blows away the Beatles, as it should. ABBA recorded on state-of-the-art studio gear with a recording engineer up to the task of utilizing the full capabilities it offered. That's why their albums are commonly seen in high end audio demonstration rooms. That's why Led Zeppelin chose to record in THEIR studio that ABBA owned outright, not the Beatles studio, if the Beatles ever owned one. Don't confuse musical style with absolute substance. I don't speak Swedish, so I can't comment on how their Swedish albums sound. BTW, how do the Beatles' Swedish, Spanish, German, and French language albums sound? I think Agnetha hits the high notes a bit better as well. She would make a good Valkyrie in a Wagnerian opera. I own just about every original Beatles and ABBA album, and I play both collections a lot. Just because two groups are not the same doesn't automatically make one worse than the other.
Also, I have heard many times the entire Beatles output and the entire ABBA English language output. Can the rest of you guys say you have heard everything that ABBA did in English? I think Chris could say yes, because he said he likes them.
I admit that the Beatles busted down a few doors.....in a very big way. They blew away the notion that songwriting and performing were two separate career fields. They also borrowed from diverse musical genres to get their sound. They proved that pop artists didn't need to be shackled to a particular style (Sgt. Pepper album). Had the time periods of both bands been reversed, then ABBA could just as well have made that claim. I think that ABBA will be noted for creating the symphonic pop song. Many of their songs really are symphonic in nature, with lots of intricate detail that will reveal itself if you care to play it through a good system. Grado headphones are the cheapest way to get "high end" audio sound, and I wouldn't go below the $69 SR-60 model. I actually prefer them to a $200 pair of Grado SR-200 headphones I once owned, although the SR-200 phones were considered about the best rock headphones regardless of price.....the midbass punch was unbeatable. I think those who have quite a bit of classical music in their record collection will have more tendency to like ABBA. They sound like nobody else, and that's probably what allowed them to sell so many albums. When you sound like somebody else, you have to share record sales with them. Bjorn and Benny were perfectly capable of writing Beatlesque or other genres of music, but what would be the point if your aim was to sell mega doses of albums? ABBA's aim was to sell lots of recordings, which is probably why they are listed as pop artists.