(NOTE: Music That Sucks is the correct opinion of the author. If you happen to disagree then you are gay.)
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the best music in the past 50 years or so has come out of two countries: U.S. and England. When going outside of the borders of these two countries it's pretty much a crap shoot, and 99% of the time you come up with snake eyes. This is one of those times.
Bjorn Ulvaeus was a folk singer/guitarist for the group Hootenanny Singers in early 1970's Sweden, while his good friend Benny Andersson played keyboard for a band called The Hep Cats. They both had side gigs as session musicians at Stockholm's Polar Studio; and would write songs with the studio's owner Stig Anderson, who would later manage their group. Ulvaeus was banging popular (in Sweden, as if that means anything) pop vocalist Agnetha Faltskog, and Andersson was deposting his semen into jazz vocalist Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad. The two couples decided to collaborate, and released a single called "People Need Love" under the clever name Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha and Frida. They were then invited to participate in the Swedish heat of the Eurovision Song Contest, for which they went with another single "Ring, Ring". It became popular in various nothing European countries, but did not win the contest.
Bjorn and Agnetha married each other shortly after the loss in the 1973 contest. They went back to the drawing board, and in 1974 as ABBA (first initial of each member) entered the contest again with the song "Waterloo", and ended up winning. I'd hate to see what the losers of the contest brought with them. "Waterloo" is a song that is repetitive to the point of nausea and devoid of any emotion (which is just as well seeing as though the ladies sing and the fellas play every song that way). The song became their first major hit, reaching #6 in the US and topping the UK charts.
The group would trudge on for the next couple of years, immersing themselves in the burgeoning Disco/club scene with such European hits as "S.O.S.", "Mamma Mia", and "Fernando". Thinking back on these songs it is incredibly difficult to tell them apart aside from the lyrics. Every s**tty ABBA song sounds alike. The worst however, was yet to come...
1976 saw the release of their biggest hit "Dancing Queen". This ditty, which has the same monotonic, no-emotion-needed, over-produced sound that their other songs have, reached #1 in 13 countries, including the U.S. To this day the song gets played ad-nauseam in just about every dance club you can think of. It is mainly due to this one song that ABBA has become a huge hit all over the world with gays. No wonder why, the Homofactor in the music of ABBA is through the roof, a straight guy can develop a hankering for penis if exposed to ABBA for a prolonged period of time.
In 1978 ABBA scored the #3 spot on the US charts with "Take A Chance On Me", all the while becoming more and more popular in Europe. Also that year "ABBA: The Movie" was released worldwide. Benny and Frida married around this time, while Bjorn and Agnetha seperated shortly thereafter. The group would chart one more time in the US with 1980's "The Winner Takes All", but aside from that they were finished in the States (thankfully). After a few more European hits the group mercifully disbanded in 1982.
Their legacy of s**tty robotic-like music, however, lives on. It lives on the hearts of drag queens all over and lonely men in Michigan. Nevermind Iraq, I say we should've gone to war with Sweden. After all, they had ABBA; and if they aren't a Weapon of Mass Destruction I don't know what is.
ABBA, music...that sucks!
