Back in my ABBA-mad fan days of the seventies, I used to think that Bjorn Ulvaeus was the luckest man in the world to be married to such a gorgeous girl as Agnetha. Bet I certainly wasn't the only one to think that too!
As a Swede, I'm a bit concerned about how Björn and Benny seem to be hellbent on selling out their own legacy. I mean, fine, the hologram tour could become a fun gimmick, and it's about to give us some new songs. But the 2 Mamma Mia films were horrendously bad and made ABBA into more of a joke and a hen night must (for when things get really embarrassing), than even Priscilla the Desert Queen and Muriel's Wedding managed to do. And Björn keeps going on all these stupid fucking TV shows where he's forced or expected to play along with the notion that ABBA is party music for drag queens. ABBA is NOT party music. You can dance to it, but this is sophisticated art we're talking about here. And the very idea that one has to dress up in stupid clothes and prance about while miming the words (or singing karaoke), is an INSULT to a band that's up there with The Beatles in terms of sheer quality of work. I've had enough of the band being treated as idiots. Even the Australians abandoned them after 1976, when their music became more introspective. And I KNOW that they don't view their own music as a joke. So it's painful to see them promoting it as if it was, just to make a quick buck in their later years. Fucking Greek ABBA-themed restaurants??? S.O.S. I'm going to vomit!!!!!!!!!!!
I kinda agree with you because I believe ABBA's legacy is an amazing piece of work. The band achieved a level of quality and creativity that almost anybody has reached. They are truly among the very best, and yet some people keep presenting them as Eurodisco bubblegum. But, to be fair, other legendary acts have also bastardized their legacy with certain initiatives. I am thinking of The Beatles, which have inspired from awful Beatles-themed films (like that one featuring Ed Sheeran) to Cirque du Soleil aberrations. I don't know. When you reach such a huge level of popularity, your legacy both becomes a piece of museum and a commodity that the everyday guy can use. The Gioconda is still a masterpiece even if you can find her face in towels, napkins and kitchen cloths. However, I still think the ABBA members have been clever enough to keep their legacy alive by making it "affordable" to the masses while, at the same time, have made a huge investment to satisfy their hardcore, "real" followers (I'm talking about the ABBA Voyage show, which I had the chance to see and I found absolutely spectacular and mindblowing).
