Product Description

Eighteen years after they last performed together, ABBA remain one of the world's biggest selling groups with one of the strongest catalogues in the history of popular music. As a group ABBA were active between 1972 - 1982 and broke sales records during that period. This biography offers a thorough, warts-and-all account, covering all aspects of the ABBA members' lives and careers: the period before the group came together, the amazing success story fo the Seventies, their marriage and divorces, the ups and downs of their empire and their careers after the group. The bulk of the book focuses on the ABBA years, but as the story of the group and its members develop, the book takes a look at the group's musical development, offering a critique of the group's songs in terms of European tradition. Similarly the ABBA story can be related in the context of Swedish history and culture.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #373901 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 480 pages

Review
'Another fine addition to the canon of music biographies...Palm's biography is extremely thorough and dipped deeply in a pond of melancholy. A powerful, moving read.' THE TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2002

Sunday Times
Lucid and unpretentious, avoiding the hysteria and shoddiness that have brought the genre into disrepute.

Bernard Zuel, The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), September 5, 2001
The first authoritative biography of the biggest pop act of the '70s...

Customer Reviews

The standard by which all future ABBA books must be judged
BRIGHT LIGHTS DARK SHADOWS is absolutely compelling; although the chapters are largely self-contained, the hooks leading into the next chapter (and the opening paragraphs of each chapter) are irresistible. I often found myself beginning to read a new chapter when I swore I would stop at the end of the preceding one.

Part I is gripping from the start of Chapter 1. I was impressed for several reasons. First, the personal and industry backgrounds on the four members and Stig are usually glossed over in other books. Here, the sketchy details are fully filled in, and it's fascinating reading.

Second, Carl Magnus Palm puts everything in its cultural and historical context with information about the regions where each member grew up, the origin of the various Swedish charts etc. He expresses an authentic feel for the times and for his country and its people.

Third, the narrative flows beautifully. Although it's largely chronological, it feels fresh - the first four chapters don't just go through each member one by one, the book has been better planned. It seems perfectly natural that we don't arrive at the childhood of the youngest member, Agnetha, until we've learnt about Stig's background and followed the others into their teenage years.

There isn't as much public information available about each member's childhood, which must have made it difficult to piece a lot of these facts together. The book really begins to hit its stride with the early chapters of Part II. In Chapter 12, Palm begins to weave the various stories together. There's such a lot that isn't known about ABBA's formative years, there's a real joy of discovery in these chapters. Palm's tone is also more assured at this point - he slips in some reasoned criticism of each member's early recordings - and he injects some satirical, but affectionate, humour into the reportage. I loved the style on pages 177 and 178, for example, when Agnetha
recounts her "baking accidents" and the bemused tone when Frida decides to throw it all in and "become a clothes designer".

An impressive feature of the book is its succinctness. That may sound funny, since BRIGHT LIGHTS DARK SHADOWS is over 500 pages, but it's a fair assessment. The Habari Safari movie takes up about a page; the progg movement is concisely charted and explained in a few pages. He sums up the sound and limitations of Gemini in one pithy phrase - "studio product, shoulder-pad music sorely lacking in soul" - and is equally spot-on with Agnetha and Frida's 80s solo efforts. Although I didn't accept his criticism of Djupa Andetag, it is a rational critique, and I admittedly suffer the disadvantage of not being able to understand the album's lyrics in their natural language.

Part III - The Time is Right - covers Waterloo through to 1982. The material is generally more familiar here; for instance, I could usually be sure of what incidents would be included in each chapter (other fans, as opposed to the general public for whom this book is also written, may be as acquainted with this part of the ABBA story to feel the same).

Fortunately, although a large part of this slab of the book is taken up with recounting events, Palm is not writing a mere overview of the ABBA years. He's writing a biography, and the significance of events on ABBA as people is analysed; he keeps
sight of the biographer's purpose in representing the big picture. Occasionally, this is of necessity a little strained - the psychoanalysis of Frida (p. 508) didn't entirely convince me, for example.

After reading BRIGHT LIGHTS DARK SHADOWS, I've learnt as much as I think I'll ever know about the people that make up ABBA. Ultimately, it's eye-opening and - towards the end - dispiriting reading. But you get a real sense of the demands and pressures that they were going through - the chapter on 1978, supposedly a quiet year for ABBA, makes this plain. As the business side of Polar consumed Stig, and the marriages collapsed, I think it's clear that the ABBA "magic" was a relatively short-lived alchemy of personality, managerial drive, talent and determination in a specific historical and cultural setting. But it wasn't a fluke - it wouldn't have lasted as long,
over as many unambiguously great albums, if it was.

You'll understand a lot more about ABBA, and I think you may even better appreciate the music, after reading BRIGHT LIGHTS DARK SHADOWS. It's the first real biography of ABBA but, more than that, it's the definitive biography. And it's the standard against which all future attempts at retelling the ABBA story will be judged.

First book to place ABBA in their proper context
Nearly twenty years after ABBA at last we have the book we have been waiting for.
Carl Magnus Palm carefully traces the origins of each member of the group to show how they got where they did. The Swedish political music scene of the 1970's is fully explained and contrasted with Stig Anderson's commercial vision for his proteges.
The characters and events come alive and you get to understand each members strengths, weaknesses and motivations, (though just now and then the author assumes a little too much knowledge of personal thoughts). The reader is left marvelling that the group lasted as long as it did and in no doubt that a reunion is not possible.
There are moments of candid humour eg,Michael Tretow recalling the doctoring of the 'live' recordings and Frida's one time claim to be a socialist, (she misunderstood the term). But there are also moments of great sadness, particularly the account of Agnetha's relationship with an obsessed fan who eventually stalked her.

Overall it is a story of how four talented people came together to make music which is loved by many people to this day and shows no sign of fading.
It renders fan arguments about which member who contributed most obselete. The sum was greater than the parts and the ABBA members have largely failed to find pop success as solo artistes or producers. Only when they have branched to other musical forms have they found niches, and Agnetha may still be searching.
The Mamma Mia musical is a money spinner but gives a false impression of where they are today. Expect more traditional style music from Benny, and/or possibly a Swedish musical with Bjorn. Frida will only record as a hobby or for causes. Agnetha may only return if she decides that the attention she receives as a retired performer will be no different if she makes a comeback.

The essential and definitive book on ABBA
Carl Magnus Palm's latest work on ABBA eclipses everything that has been written about the Swedish music phenomenen to date.

His earlier work 'ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions' was painstakingly researched and the same treatment has now been applied with brilliant results to the entire ABBA story.

One of the key strengths of the book is that it is written from a Swedish perspective, which places the ABBA story in its correct context and sets the ups and downs of their career alongside contemporary Swedish economic and cultural history.

For the first time, the complex financial web that was Polar Music is uncovered, while the astonishing and irrepresible character of Stig Anderson is restored to his rightful place as the driving force behind ABBA's worldwide success.

The book does not avoid discussing the more personal issues that affected the four members of the group; the pressures of fame, the divorces, Stig Anderson's final years, Frida's turbulent early years and Agnetha's gradual withdrawal from public life are all discussed in an objective way that brings previously unexplored characters to life and leaves one to realise that they are humans with everyday problems to overcome.

Most impressive however is the detailed account of how ABBA gradually came together. Previous books on ABBA have tended to focus on the period of their worldwide fame, playing scant attention to the all-important early years. Hopefully, the formative ABBA years will now be seen as just as important and as interesting as the post-Eurovision period.

Carl Magnus Palm writes in a highly readable, informative tone that leaves the reader wanting to get to the next chapter. All serious ABBA fans, as well anyone who wishes to read the accurate and informative story of how four Scandinavian unknowns transformed into a global pop phenomenen should own this book.