Guilty Pleasures

Sounds dirty doesn't it? Well, get your mind out of the gutter because that's not the kind of guilty pleasures I'm talking about. I'm referring to those guilty pleasures that you're afraid to admit to because they might sound cheesy or stupid. Those things that you hide even from your closest friends.

My guilty pleasure, which is actually shared by millions of people, is ABBA. Yes, I'm talking about the seventies, early eighties, Swedish pop quartet. I admit it, I adore the music of ABBA. I listen to my ABBA Gold CD religiously, paticularly when I'm writing at home. There's something about the bouncy melodies that get to me.

Really, how many of you, don't get a pang when you hear the opening notes of Dancing Queen? It just makes you want to grab that hairbrush, and croon in the mirror, "Friday night, and the lights are low." I know it does for me.

ABBA is infectious. You can't help but feel happy when you listen to their music. Just listen to Waterloo when you're depressed, and I defy anyone not to be in a better mood afterwards. I even love the old cheesy footage of them, the precursor to video. Just watching the two female singers Agnetha and Anni-Frid, who have no sense of rhythm whatsoever, cheers me up. Plus, the horrible seventies and early eighties fashions.

I'll even admit to seeing Mamma Mia, the ABBA musical in London two years ago. God, I loved that show. Even though the songs really didn't fit the story, who cares? Just remembering the dance number to Voulez-Vous, a song I wasn't familiar with me, makes me smile to think about it.

One of my favorite musicals is Chess, chiefly because the music is by the two BB's in ABBA, Benny and Bjorn, the two male ABBA members who played the instruments, and sang harmony along with their wives. I was sorry the musical didn't do better in New York, but let's face it, Chess isn't the most exciting topic for a musical, no matter how good the music is, and the music is really good. I'd love to see Tim Rice, and the two BB's work on something else.

So there you have it, my guilty pleasure of the day: the musical stylings of Swedish supergroup ABBA.