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Post by richard on Jun 8, 2024 18:14:43 GMT
A title for this thread with wide-ranging implications, so if this topic interests you, you can take it where you want!
Often, I think, a distinction can drawn between a song itself and the way that song is realised on a recorded track. However, I find that distinction harder to maintain when it comes to many an ABBA song/track; that the song is the track! Of course, I often feel much the same thing about many of my favourite songs from other artists, too, yet it strikes as applying particularly strongly to a lot of Benny and Bjorn's ABBA songs.
Also, unlike the Gibb brothers (Bee Gees), for example, or Lennon and McCartney (Beatles) a decade earlier, Benny and Bjorn, during their ABBA heyday of mid '70s to '81, didn't write big hits for other artists. But, no doubt, if they had wanted to, and if they had been more prolific, they could have, if you take the versatility of their ABBA songwriting years into account: Waterloo, Chiquitita, The Visitors...
Any thoughts on Benny and Björn's songwriting, whether it be pop or musical; the arrangements; the influences on them of other songwriters; the input of the musicians around them...? Whatever! And if you don't find comparisons odious, what's your opinion of Benny and Björn's songs compared with those of other successful songwriters, past and/or present?
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Post by lamont on Jun 9, 2024 8:19:47 GMT
Interesting topic, I’ll contribute more when I have more time, on taking kids to football and gymnastics duty this morning.
I always like how versatile Benny is, going from pop to classical to folk etc.
One thing off the cuff I noticed was how theatrical Gemini’s first album was, B&B seemed so engulfed in musical scores that it seeped into a pop album. I always wondered how ABBA would have fared if it was a follow up to The Visitors.
During the 80’s Benny drifted further and further away from pop that I didn’t think they would ever return (or able to) to pop songs.
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Post by HOMETIME on Jun 11, 2024 12:21:13 GMT
I think diversity is the keyword when it comes to their songwriting. The Visitors album alone has a huge range of styles and directions. And somehow it hangs together.
Now that Benny has taken the production reins completely, it makes me wonder how much of Bjorn's production contribution was responsible for their heyday poppiness. And did that also extend to vocal melodies/toplines? Did Benny exert more and more of his influence as the years passed and the melodies headed more often in classical and theatrical directions? If they were both jamming for new material in that island cottage, Bjorn must have had some melodic input. A hook here. A melodic passage there. A tune whose shape was dictated by the word sounds that emerged in jam sessions. Were some of the vocal melodies, in fact, Bjorn-written counter-melodies over the tune Benny was scoping out on piano or synth? If not, then why not wait for cassettes of Benny-written tunes and start the lyrical process then? The only reason I press this point is that the legend of ABBA seems to have evolved into a narrative that suggests Benny is/was the musical motor of the group, with the other three toeing the line afterwards. I'd love to know more about the nuts and bolts of their creative processes.
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Post by richard on Jun 12, 2024 16:29:25 GMT
Although I said in my OP that, for me, the song and its final recorded incarnation as an arranged track are often enmeshed to an almost unparalleled extent with ABBA, one only has to listen to a few well-played piano solo versions of Benny's superb melodies to realise that, nevertheless, they could have worked equally well (imo) in a variety of arrangements.
Even a song such as the lowly regarded Little Things is a case in point, where a different arrangement might have transformed the song favourably for many. But, admittedly, the lyrics of this song aren't much liked either!
And on the subject of words and music, wasn't the music invariably written first when it comes to ABBA songs? If so, skillful lyricist though he was later on, I've long felt that Björn wrote the 'wrong' words to Our Last Summer, for instance, because I don't find that the character of Benny's tune has that wistfulness that Björn's lyrics have. So, for me, a mismatch between words and music there. Dum Dum Diddle, too, is a glaring example for many of us. But this is vastly outweighed by such lyrics as for KMKY and LAAPTMR to take just two examples of my favourites. Wonderful, especially when one appreciates, again, that they weren't done in Björn's native language.
In general, I don't regard Benny and Björn's songs as better, somehow, than the work of other successful songwriters such as Bacharach and David, Goffin and King, Neil Sedaka, Lieber and Stoller, Lennon and McCartney, Brian Wilson, and lots of others. And, as I said, Benny and Björn weren't prolific songwriters compared with some; but they obviously had high standards, probably taking more time than many might to get the songs as they wanted them.
And of course they also had the unfair advantage of the vocals of Agnetha and Frida - but that's nother matter and another thread!
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Post by lamont on Jun 12, 2024 17:17:37 GMT
I did read an article that B&B didn’t really have same international success as other writers, only around 20 songs, and rode on ABBA’s coattails in a way. It’s an interesting aspect to think about.
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Post by gary on Jun 12, 2024 21:49:11 GMT
Benny or Bjorn said that while ABBA were active, they only wrote about a dozen songs a year. That’s not many. They never had a period where songs were flowing out of them, unlike the Gibb brothers, Lennon and McCartney, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, for example. I’d personally rate Benny and Bjorn among the top five songwriters or songwriting teams, but trying to be objective I don’t think that they rate as highly as that. They rarely feature in articles about the top songwriters. Rolling Stone, for example, rated them as number 100 in a list of the top 100 songwriters. www.rollingstone.com/interactive/lists-100-greatest-songwriters/#bj%C3%B6rn-ulvaeus-and-benny-andersson
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Post by baab on Jun 13, 2024 4:01:39 GMT
There is an interesting alternative Ranking Site which has ABBA with B&B as a team higher in the ranking: www.ranker.com/list/greatest-songwriters-of-all-time/music-loverOther sources are always much more US oriented, and if you take the US market as THE reference, B&B loose. I've said it before: Yes, the US market is the biggest record market but it is not the reference for the world music. And in many countries B&B are amongst the most successfull composers chartwise. That German Theaters will produce Chess and Kristina in the next few years, demonstrate that their music is relevant outside their home country still after 40 and 30 Years respectively which is a great achievement too. (At least Chess is also produced worldwide still). Not many "Pop" composers also write successfull music for the theatre and vice versa. I once read that one of the ABBA musicians reported that in the early and midd ABBA years, it was Benny who found the majorities of melodies, hook lines etc. but that Björn was the one who gave all this creativity a kind of frame or structure which led to the most poignant Pop songs. Later on while Chess still seems to be a team effort, Kristina is the first Project where Benny is the sole composer. They told this also in the TV Special and book about "Kristina": "Långt bott och längesen"
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Post by Alan on Jun 13, 2024 7:37:56 GMT
Benny or Bjorn said that while ABBA were active, they only wrote about a dozen songs a year. That’s not quite true though, is it? Sounds like their selective memory again (or, as usual, treating fans as though they think we’re stupid). They released a new album almost every year from 1973 to 1981 (apart from 1978) and, including b-sides and non-album singles, released roughly 12 tracks a year. But then there are the unreleased tracks that have been issued since 1993, and about nine tracks partially released in ABBA Undeleted. Do they count, say, Happy Hawaii and Why Did It Have To Be Me as one song or two? Or, for instance, Monsieur Monsieur and My Love My Life as the same song? They tried out a lot of tracks for Voulez-Vous that went unused, so I’d say there are more than an average of 12 a year. Not hundreds but certainly more than they’d have us believe. If they can say they’ve released every “snippet” ever recorded they can certainly fib about songs written!
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Post by gary on Jun 13, 2024 7:43:54 GMT
Good points, baab.
That ranker list is quite something. I’ve never seen a list that combines classical and modern composers before. George Harrison above Bach? 🙄 Nice to see B&B fairly high though.
Alan, yes, it must be more than 12 songs a year but still not exactly a torrent. And you’re right, B&B’s memories are not to be relied on.
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Post by richard on Jun 14, 2024 12:40:26 GMT
Thanks for posting those links Gary and baab. I think such lists are largely about the preferences and prejudices of the compilers, at least in terms of placements. And it seems to me that much of the accompanying text for this or that artist could just as well have been applied to someone placed higher or lower on the list. Is it about popularity or notions of quality or "I like them so they're in!"? The reasons seem to shift, ad-hoc, as far as I can tell. Regarding the Rolling Stone list: Stevie Nicks? Madonna? Christine McVie was a much better songwriter than either of them, yet is left out. And that's stating my preference and prejudice, of course. ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Yet this is the irritating nature of these lists! I'm sure Benny has a good appreciation of the great popular songwriters of the past (that is, those before he was born), as, indeed, Paul McCartney has. And I believe George Harrison loved the songs of Hoagy Carmichael. Perhaps listeners in general, as opposed to musicians, have a narrower perspective on popular music? Not all, obviously.
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