Anyone trying to pick a quarrel with Dave Grohl is doing themselves no favours. It’s difficult to deny that Grohl has one of the best reputations as the musician’s musician. He’s not afraid to discuss his favorite bands and raise awareness of some of the underappreciated heroes he grew up admiring. Even though he has made his fair share of enemies throughout his career. As frequently as Grohl extols the virtues of hardcore punk, he conceded that it is nearly hard to find fault with anything the band produced.
When your entire career has consisted of hard rock music, ABBA seems to be the complete opposite of everything you have ever heard. How in the world is the band that sang songs like “Dancing Queen” on Grohl’s radar? He was all about the loud guitars and making music that made people throw their fists in the air.
If you’ve lived through the last fifty years at all, you know that ABBA remains the undisputed pop royalty of Sweden. Every note sounds flawless when heard on the record. Even the incredibly tight vocal harmonies on a song like “Mamma Mia.” Some songs are a little too sweet for some people. They could put others into diabetic comas.
In addition, there’s a lot more going on underneath the songs for anyone who has ever claimed that the band lacked talent. Take a listen to a song like “SOS.” Although the song’s chorus is now a household name, the intro is more akin to progressive music, with a bar of waltz time inserted in between the standard 4/4 count.
Although the song has complexity, Grohl told Anderson Cooper, “How can you not love ABBA? The pop icons are geniuses for being able to make that kind of music palatable to so many people.” They outsold everyone else in record sales for a reason. Due to the fact that the songs are incredible. My kids love ABBA. My mom loves ABBA”.
To those of you who are still undecided, let me illustrate the situation for you. Consider listening to “Take a Chance on Me.” This song is too poppy for most rock listeners. But in terms of what it’s attempting to accomplish, not a note is out of place. Unless you’re devoid of all emotions, it’s difficult to stay indifferent when the rest of the band joins in after that acapella opening.
Even so, Dave Grohl has been able to take some cues from pop icons along the way. Argue all you want about how long Foo Fighters have been making straight-ahead rock & roll. But if ABBA hadn’t come first, Grohl never would have been motivated to work with Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men on the choir portion of “Concrete and Gold.”
It’s not like criticising ABBA gets people brownie points either. Even the biggest names in heavy music have given them credit. Lemmy called them one of his all-time favorite bands. Corey Taylor of Slipknot praised them, even though they might not be to everyone’s taste. ABBA’s music is as sugarcoated as pop music gets. If you can honestly say that you don’t like anything they’ve ever released, it may be time to find out whether you are still alive.
