
Do you like ABBA?
There’s a reasonably good chance that your answer to that question is not actually an answer to that question.
You might instead be answering the question:
“Do you like the culture and aesthetics that surround the ABBA phenomenon?”
You’re probably not alone. When we think of ABBA we might think of Mamma Mia, or a dreadful cabaret performance we saw on holiday one time, or a drunken teenage vomiting incident soundtracked by ‘Dancing Queen’, or blue eyeshadow, or Eurovision, or ironic ‘revivals’ and accompanying backlashes, or any one of a multitude of kitsch characteristics that get in the way of goshdarn enjoying/not enjoying their musical output on its own merits.
I mean, think of the impact of Alan Partridge alone…
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