Remembering the legendary ABBA melody during the social distancing season

I was no exception. To hear what new ABBA songs would sound like, after all these years.

In the social distancing space of Saigon these days, with the milestone of time, it seems to pull older listeners back to the rotation of cassette tapes of that time. And almost many people now still remember the image of the entire band printed on the cover, hidden behind the plastic layer of the tape and the 90-meter long tape reels, with the smooth flow of music contained "inside" the tape.

The voice of the legendary ABBA first resonated within me in 1986, when I was in my twenties, amidst the extreme hardships of the subsidy period.

…It was an early spring day, when I was doing a teaching internship at Dong Ha High School, now the provincial capital of Quang Tri Province. After school, a student invited me (at that time a trainee teacher) and a few friends to his house. The house was located on the front of Highway 9, the road leading up to Khe Sanh, Lao Bao to cross into Laos. The student gently placed the ABBA tape into an Akai speaker system placed in the corner of the house. Later, when I asked where the sound system came from, I was told in a whisper: “My father ordered it in Thailand. It was very difficult to get here.” It turned out that the student’s father was the leader of a convoy transporting goods in transit to Laos!

The sound was so vibrant, the voices were combined with the instruments through the hands and the talented musical sense of the artists, seemingly very spontaneous but professional and classy like Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngsta, made me ecstatic.

ABBA memorabilia is displayed in a museum in Stockholm, Sweden.

Photo: Gia An

ABBA's female lead, Agnetha Fältskog, is now 71 years old, but at that time she really "stirred up" the musical notes with Happy New Year, Dancing Queen, Voulez-Vous ... leaving an indelible mark. Throughout an afternoon like that, that sound spread over the hillside of a town still abandoned after the war, which had just entered its 11th year!

In the following days, before leaving the teacher training college to go to the highlands, I also listened to the famous band at that time many times through the "tuning system" of a math teacher colleague, who had a small house on the other side of Gia Hoi bridge ( Hue ). Mr. Duy Tuan, who taught math to students in the ancient capital, according to the way parents addressed him at that time, was probably a rare music lover.

To have a music system, Tuan took the trouble to find the most skilled craftsman in Hue, to "customize" a music system, which in my opinion was probably better than the "made in Thailand" system that his student had mentioned. In the 1980s, in a city or a town, there were a few people who were very good at picking up old equipment to assemble, creating such systems. Sometimes the speakers were in one place, the machine was in another, the amplifier was in another place, and they became a set of instruments that could miraculously convey the faraway music of bands, of which ABBA was a legend.

The albums that marked the success of the legendary band ABBA

Photo: Gia An

And to have his own albums, Tuan "hunted" for ABBA in the way that music lovers at that time often did. He went to Thin recording booth next to Dong Ba market to find ABBA's music. Gradually, over the years, Tuan's music collection amounted to hundreds of cassette tapes, all of which were selections. At that time, he told me: "No matter how much money I have, I only focus on hiring recordings of the songs I like." And he boasted that ABBA alone had dozens of records!

On the morning of August 27, when I read the news that ABBA had returned with 5 new songs after nearly 40 years of absence, I connected with Tuan on Zalo. He excitedly said he was very happy to hear this news, but also regretted that after moving house many times and suffering from floods several times, he did not know how many cassette tapes had been lost.

But Tuan's enthusiasm for music remains intact. He said: "The reason why many people liked ABBA's music at one time was because this group's music was very difficult to confuse. The melody framework of the songs all "used" piano, playing sublimely in a classy way. For example, with the song Happy New Year , over the decades, although a few groups later tried to play it, they could not surpass ABBA. That is just one of many examples to see their identity. It must also be said that ABBA's way of playing music, whether it was pop, pop rock or rock and roll, was still varied, not repetitive, and the nuances of each instrument in a sound system were very clear, not blurred: drums were drums, bass was bass, accordion was accordion... so listeners did not get bored or "tired" like when listening to many bands later on."

I understand, that is the band's unforgettable style positioning with the audience. So now, the news of ABBA gathering to return to the studio is still attractive. Although in their plan, this comeback was supposed to be in 2019 but due to the pandemic, it had to be postponed.

The guitar used for ABBA's song Waterloo in the 1974 Eurovision contest

Photo: Gia An

Now in 2021, when Saigon in particular and many places in the world in general are still struggling to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, this fall, perhaps the faces of the legendary band ABBA with their new songs are still eagerly awaited by many people.

Suddenly, I imagined that afternoon listening to ABBA music, on the winding road of Highway 9, when the barbed wire fences of the war in some places had not yet been rolled up. And I remembered clearly the days wandering in Hue, with a friend who had skipped breakfast, to record a few favorite songs...

The legendary Swedish band shared a social media post on August 26 announcing the ABBA Voyage event, inviting fans to join the group's promotional website on September 2. Members Agnetha Fältskog (71), Björn Ulvaeus (76), Benny Andersson (74) and Anni-Frid Lyngstad (75) shared a clip of the song You Owe Me One (released in 1982) on Instagram along with information about ABBA Voyage.

The ABBA Voyage concert will feature the legendary band members performing as holograms of themselves in their heyday. The show is set to take place at a 3,000-capacity venue in east London, which is due to open next spring. ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus also told The New York Times and The Times that ABBA have recorded five new songs for release this autumn.

The Swedish music group ABBA was world famous from the 1970s.

PHOTO: BILLBOARD

The ABBA band was formed in 1972 with four members: Agnetha Fältskog (born 1950), Björn Ulvaeus (born 1945), Benny Andersson (born 1946) and Anni-Frid Lyngstad (nicknamed Frida - born 1945). ABBA has sold nearly 400 million records worldwide, a record second only to the king of rock and roll Elvis Presley and The Beatles. However, since their disbandment (in 1982), the members of ABBA have never performed together in public. The most recent reunion was in May 2013, when the three members attended the inauguration of the ABBA museum in Stockholm (except Agnetha Fältskog, who was absent due to promoting her new album in the UK).

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/nho-giai-dieu-cua-huyen-thoai-abba-giua-mua-gian-cach-1851105555.htm