Bright Lights, Dark Shadows: The Real Story Of ABBA

Rating:
Summary: The best ABBA biography we'll ever get
Review: A comprehensive overview of the careers of all 5 of the main protagonists in the ABBA story. The author covers the pre and post ABBA phases thoroughly, as well as their time together as ABBA. For a fan such as I am, the stories were fascinating and this book will have a permanent place on my bookshelf. However, as another reviewer has stated, Palm has a tendency to be very dry and I'm not sure this book would appeal as much to someone looking for a good music biography as it will to an ABBA fan. The dryness is most apparent in Palm's discussion of ABBA's music. Damning with faint praise comes very strongly to mind, particularly in his discussion of Super Trouper. There didn't seem to me any sense that this was a fan of the music (which for all its faults you couldn't say about the 'Name of the Game' by Oldham et al.)

His post-ABBA opinions are even more downbeat, particularly in regard to Chess. He complains about the number of styles used - but anyone familiar with the way Lloyd-Webber and Rice worked would know that that was how they put musicals together, and that was the template that Benny and Bjorn worked from.
Nevertheless this is a superbly researched book which contains probably as much as anyone needs to know about ABBA's formative years

Rating:
Summary: authoritative bio
Review: An authoritive, thorough bio from ABBA guru , C.M.Palm.
Palm covers the entire careers of the four members of ABBA.
Palm discusses all the major issues of their careers, and sheds light on some unfamiliar territory such as story of Frida's father, and B&B's rift with Stig. Palm is a dry, but highly factual writer.

I did find myself disagreeing with some of Palm's assesments of ABBA music. Palm tends to give only fair to bad reviews of much of ABBA's group & solo work.

Rating:
Summary: The standard by which all future ABBA books must be judged
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: True Swedish Melancholy
Review: Carl Palm takes a subject some make take lightly, and reveals them as the complex creation that they are. Although the author has a high reguard for his subject, he is never fawning or heavy handed, which results in a very objective, yet personal text. Not only informative as a study of Abba itself, but as a study of the pop music business. Without ever exploiting their private lives, we are taken into the world of four unique creative individuals, their working habits, motivations, and songwriting genius. It is a pleasure to read a book that treats great pop music with the depth and understanding it deserves.

Rating:
Summary: Sure is thorough...
Review: Exhaustively researched, this weighty tome is for the certifiable ABBAmaniac only. Casual fans looking for a frothy snapshot of the sunny Swedes would be well-advised to keep looking. Ultimately, gloomier than a Jonkoping February.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best biographies published.
Review: I read many books, including many biographies. I am not an ABBA fan per se. However, this book, I DEVOURED. It was simply an outstanding read. For its length, I raced through it, eagerly yearning for the next page.

The writer's style reminds me of the best of Michener's writing, like Hawaii.

PS> I also highly recommend "The Day Paul Met John" or vice versa.

Rating:
Summary: Polar Music indeed!
Review: Someone said it's as difficult to write about music as it is to dance to architecture, and I guess Carl Magnus Palm faced a tougher task than most. As any "Behind The Music" aficianado knows, your typical pop group creates plenty of drama, even when their music isn't all that good. Abba is unique in that their story is devoid of drug arrests or lurid groupie tales. Divorces, yes, they had that going in spades, as the band mates were all husbands and wives who broke apart and eventually ended the band, but the partings as described by Palm seem almost antiseptic, even when Benny cheats on Frida with (gasp!) a journalist. The dissolutions feel more like a Bergman movie than "A Star Is Born," but that's not Palm's fault.

Palm does a fine job with the story at hand, telling it in a Joe Friday "just-the-facts" kind of way that commands respect and a healthy amount of interest. He takes care to give us a perspective of the band in its time and place, and notes how badly Abba's music was received in its own homeland because of its excessive commerciality. (People digging your sound meant something was wrong with you, comrade.) He analyzes key moments in the band's creative development with commendable detachment and fairness. It's nice to see he doesn't pile on the negativity over the 1979 album "Voulez-Vouz" or praise 1977's "The Album" as the band's finest hour as others do. He's an especially biting critic after the band breaks up, even ragging on "Chess," but he's careful to always give credit to Benny's tuneful genius, Bjorn's often-clever way with a lyric, and the way Frida and Agnetha's voices, when joined together, created a unique "third voice" which gave the band much of its urgency and power.

I wish he was more willing to take us inside the band by painting some individual scenes in greater detail, making us feel like actual witnesses rather than readers of a police report, even a very good one. Guess the Swedes don't practice New Journalism too much. I didn't get much of a feeling of who the Abba band members really were, except that beyond their era-defining brilliance they seem a bit cold and dull. The only vibrant character, manager Stig Anderson, blusters and rants on the sidelines much of the time as Palm focuses on the band.

But what's here is good enough. Its an absorbing, thorough, and sober-sided account of the life and death of one of pop's most successful and misunderstood bands. If you like Abba even a little bit, you will like this book.

Rating:
Summary: Polar Music indeed!
Review: Someone said it's as difficult to write about music as it is to dance to architecture, and I guess Carl Magnus Palm faced a tougher task than most. As any "Behind The Music" aficianado knows, your typical pop group creates plenty of drama, even when their music isn't all that good. Abba is unique in that their story is devoid of drug arrests or lurid groupie tales. Divorces, yes, they had that going in spades, as the band mates were all husbands and wives who broke apart and eventually ended the band, but the partings as described by Palm seem almost antiseptic, even when Benny cheats on Frida with (gasp!) a journalist. The dissolutions feel more like a Bergman movie than "A Star Is Born," but that's not Palm's fault.

Palm does a fine job with the story at hand, telling it in a Joe Friday "just-the-facts" kind of way that commands respect and a healthy amount of interest. He takes care to give us a perspective of the band in its time and place, and notes how badly Abba's music was received in its own homeland because of its excessive commerciality. (People digging your sound meant something was wrong with you, comrade.) He analyzes key moments in the band's creative development with commendable detachment and fairness. It's nice to see he doesn't pile on the negativity over the 1979 album "Voulez-Vouz" or praise 1977's "The Album" as the band's finest hour as others do. He's an especially biting critic after the band breaks up, even ragging on "Chess," but he's careful to always give credit to Benny's tuneful genius, Bjorn's often-clever way with a lyric, and the way Frida and Agnetha's voices, when joined together, created a unique "third voice" which gave the band much of its urgency and power.

I wish he was more willing to take us inside the band by painting some individual scenes in greater detail, making us feel like actual witnesses rather than readers of a police report, even a very good one. Guess the Swedes don't practice New Journalism too much. I didn't get much of a feeling of who the Abba band members really were, except that beyond their era-defining brilliance they seem a bit cold and dull. The only vibrant character, manager Stig Anderson, blusters and rants on the sidelines much of the time as Palm focuses on the band.

But what's here is good enough. Its an absorbing, thorough, and sober-sided account of the life and death of one of pop's most successful and misunderstood bands. If you like Abba even a little bit, you will like this book.

Rating:
Summary: An indepth look at the rise of ABBA
Review: This is perhaps the first book to ever go into the depths of the Story of ABBA. Whereas in the past there have been many books and recently only rather vague overviews of ABBA's highly successful career, but very few books have examined ABBA in such depth.

The author manages to go to the very root of their formation, their success and their eventual demise as a collective group. The author's insight into their formative years, the people that worked with and alongside them, as well as the impact of the Swedish cultural climate of the time give a valuable perspective that effectively gives an understanding of the way they worked and they way they approached their career and lives as ABBA.

It's also interesting to note how the international press has long regarded ABBA as rather distant media-shy figures, which was not the case. It's surprising to read how frank they have been with the press over the years. There are many revealing and personal quotes from Agnetha, Frida and Benny and Bjorn regarding their personalities, their conflicts and the marital strain of their work. Looking back on the book one will find it quite amazing to look back on their accomplishments and how far they had come in the 10 years that they worked together.

Overall a very worthwhile and provocative read. This book may not be recommended for casual ABBA fans, who may find all the intricate references to Sweden and Swedish culture as well as the many surrounding details just a little dry and confusing. Although it's definitely essential for fans who have background on the ABBA story and who wish to gain further insight on the people; their lives and sacrifices, and the wonderful music which built the success of ABBA.

Rating:
Summary: Everything you wanted to know...but did not know who to ask!
Review: This is the most complete work on the Swedish super group yet. This book is for the true ABBA fanatic. It gives great insight into the early history of the group members and their everyday struggles in trying to balance fame, fortune and a personal life. Sure it may not always paint a rosey picture of their lives, but guess what? They were just artists facing everyday troubles with personal relationships like the rest of us. The book illustrates the difficulty in getting a group from a small country launched into the international music arena. The work well describes the plan of the group and Stig Andersson, their manager, to achieve success in a industry dominated by the English and American groups of the period. This book is far more complete than Carl Magnus Palm's other book on the group. I believe it takes a resident of Sweden to describe the events and the issues of the music scene in Sweden at the time, and in this respect his book is a real good piece of work.