After drafting yesterday’s post, I relaxed in from of the TV
and watched;
(A/V 3) Abba – Bang A
Boomerang (ABC 1)
This is an enjoyable and entertaining documentary that explained the ABBA phenomenon
purely from the Australian perspective.
It portrayed the crucial role that Australia had in re-starting their
career after failing to build on their Eurovision success with Waterloo and threatening to become another one
hit wonder. I missed approximately the
first 5 minutes or so and hope that some of my comments were not addressed in
the bit I missed.
Basically put, the ABC had started Countdown and needed
content to fit into the allotted hour so it was decided to air any film/video
clips that were available. Ian “Molly”
Meldrum, the show’s host received a reel of ABBA film clips from their record
company, showed I Do I Do I Do and it became a hit. He followed this up with the clip for Mama Mia
despite the fact the record company had no plans to ever release it as a single. As the documentary revealed, the demand from
the Australian public was so intense after a mere three plays on successive weeks,
the record company reluctantly backtracked. The rest, as they say was history.
In many ways this story was not without precedent whilst
also being prophetic. In the 1960s the
Australian TV audience fell in love with a dubbed black and white program from
Japan called The Samurai. Its success also came as a surprise to its creators
and star and spawned a massively successful Australian tour at the time and affectionate
documentary a few decades later. But
musically speaking, exactly the same
thing happened in the 1980s when MTV started in the United States. Faced with a shortage of home grown product, it
plugged the gap by showing clips from various sources and among the unlikely
success was a band from exotic Australia called Men At Work. (Who said there is no such thing as
karma?) Unfortunately these things were
not mentioned in the documentary.
But that’s a minor quibble.
The one thing I didn’t like about the documentary is how it didn’t portray
the extent of ABBA’s Australian dominance.
It referred to their number 1 hits, the early promo tour culminating
with the Channel 9 special with huge ratings which increased on its first
repeat, the concert tour and the dominance of Fernando. All are valid achievements and were duly
covered, even if the documentary failed to point out that the 9 special shown about
7 times in a 6 – 12 month period. But
what was glossed over, if mentioned at all, was the sheer dominance of the band
on the charts apart from the number 1s.
If my memory holds, I’m pretty sure that at the height of Abba mania,
all four of the band’s studio albums and The Best Of Abba compilation were in
the top 10 or 15 simultaneously. There were also occasions when they held at
least 3 tracks in the top 10.
I also seem to remember that ABBA’s popularity held for a
while after the number 1 reign of Fernando finally ended and didn’t just
suddenly plummet as was inferred. Once
again, if my memory holds, the chart action gradually dropped off for the
simple reason that by then there was no more old or new product to release and
the Australian market had to wait for any subsequent albums or singles as these
were released. The documentary though was spot on about how
hip it was to dislike ABBA for a time and the reasons for their re-emergence in
the nation’s psyche.
I and, it would appear, the rest of the country fell in love
with the band at the time and, like most of the males at the time too, fell in
love with Agneta. (Frida’s charms only
started to become apparent when she got rid of that hideous perm that graced
all of those early film clips.) More significantly,
one of the first albums I bought with my own money was the Arrival album or, as
it appears to have become universally known, “The One With The Band In The Helicopter”. It is the only vinyl album I’ve ever
purchased that is not stored at my house.
I hid it in the family collection and it still resides in the .youth
family home. It is also not listed in my
collection. Even though I appreciate the
genius behind a number of ABBA singles, I still can’t bring myself to admit
that I own their music. I haven’t even
used the justification that many now use, that of it being a “guilty pleasure”.
For me an album must fit
certain criteria to qualify as a “guilty pleasure”. It must be either an
artist or album that is generally considered to be unfashionable today or that
you would find impossible to justify to others familiar with your current
musical listening habits. More
importantly, it must be something you enjoy listening to today and for me that
translates to “must be on my iPod”.
Thus, today I decided to listen to some of my guilty
pleasures starting with my guiltiest pleasure;
(89) Extreme –
Pornograffiti
Extreme hit the big league for a while when two tracks off
this album, More Than Words and Hole Hearted, both acoustic ballads, became
monster hits. These two tracks, along
with a third number When I Kissed You, a 1940ish ballad, could not have been
more unrepresentative of the band’s calling card, a blend of hard rock, funk
and glam. Many of these tracks are quite impressive - apart from the, at times, embarrassing lyrical
content - including the title track, Get The Funk Out, When I’m President and
It’s A Monster, all of which display the guitar heroics of Nuno Bettencourt and
the over the top vocals of Gary Cherone.
It is an album almost without parallel
within my collection and it always gets a least one play a year, although I simply cannot tolerate More Than Words. What places this album above all of the other
guilty pleasures is that I even went to see the band in concert. If my memory holds that Melbourne show was the final date of the Pornograffiti world tour
and, as is often the case, the playing that night was extremely tight with a celebratory
air which only served to enhance my opinion of the album. It even convinced me that Hole Hearted is a great tune; if only the horns employed live were included on the recorded version!
(90) Yes – 90125
Generally speaking I do not like the bulk of this band’s
output although they have put out four great to classic albums. The Yes Album is undoubtedly their best and both
Fragile and Close To The Edge are pretty good too. But this album, recorded in the early 1980s
with Trevor Horn as producing is the one I play the most. And to think that I discovered this totally
by accident, being on a second hand C90 cassette tape I bought with the
intention of wiping the contents! This
album starts with what is arguably their best known single, Owner Of A Lonely
Heart. There is great guitar work throughout
courtesy of Steve Howe – City Of Love borders on heavy metal - and some
intricate tracks such as Changes and Cinema that utilise every trick in the Horn production
manual. And just to prove that home
taping is not killing music, a couple of years ago, I spent actual dollars in buying
the remastered and expanded version.
(91) Supertramp –
Even In The Quietest Moments
It’s been fashionable to dismiss Supertramp for a number of
years now, especially since the departure of Roger Hodgson. But this band was responsible for at least
two great albums in the 70’s including this one and Crime Of The Century. Even In The Quietest Moments is notable for
containing two of their best singles, Give A Little Bit and Lover Boy, but it is
the epic 11 minute closer, Fool’s Overture, a track which sounds like a homage
to Pink Floyd, that gets me every time. It
is also another album I accidently discovered on a second hand tape which I’ve since upgraded to
CD.
(92) 10CC – Deceptive Bends
This is possibly the best Paul McCartney album which the man
did not make. It starts off with two
radio hits, Good Morning Judge and The Things We Do For Love but don’t let the
latter put you off. It has a number of
quirky songs with an English sense of humour including the aforementioned Judge,
Marriage Bureau Rendezvous and You’ve Got A Cold. But once again, it is the 12 and a half
minute closer, Feel The Benefit, which is ultimately the reason to hear
this. It is a track in three parts stitched
together a la the McCartney suite at the end of Abbey Road but with a return to
the opening melody at the end.
(93) Gerry Rafferty –
City To City
This is an exceptional middle of the road album. It starts off with a terrific quartet of
songs; The Ark, an Irish sounding number
that appears to referring to global warning decades before the term was invented,
the towering Baker Street (with THAT sax solo, although personally I’ve always
preferred the guitar break near the end), the wonderful ballad Right Down The
Line and the title track, a train song.
The rest of the album is pretty consistent without reaching the very
high standard of the opening volley. Whatever’s Written In Your Heart, a tremendous piano based ballad with a hymn
like feel, is the pick of these.
