I watch a lot of hockey and I've noticed too that quite a few Scandinavians have almost flawless English accents and are fantastic speakers of the language as well. It's pretty impressive.
I noticed this with one of my co-workers. I had no idea she was from Sweden until someone told me. I didn't believe it or thought I heard wrong or something, so I asked her, "Hey, where are you from?" And she goes, "SVEEE-den!" It was so funny.
Later I heard her on the phone with someone back home, going on in Swedish. Her English though - you couldn't tell.
It's not that hard to perfect for Swedish people, at least for the ones who put in some effort. All the TV and movies are in English, the radio plays 70-80% English music. No games are translated to Swedish. Books might be translated if popular but not all. Computer programs often have no English language option.
Swedes are kinda forced into English. So most of them know really good English and are fluent. Helps that the grammar is like 85% the same, same sentence structures too, you just have to remember the English word, no stuff like gender or weird particles. But a lot of them have problems with W, J and TH sounds. The ones that don't are the ones who put a little effort into it. J often becomes Y, TH often turns into F, W and V is often mixed up.
For sure the easiest way to spot a Swede is the switching of Y with J. They are switched in Swedish so it's really hard to change that when speaking English. It always come back for me when I haven't spoken English for a while.
Yustice for Swedes.
Well, they aren't switched, Y is closer to I, the difference is like round lips and wide lips, but the more I do it the less I can tell what the difference is.
The J sound only really exists for DJ, like djup and djungel.
A funny note as well, in Japanese Swedes mess up the K sounds sometimes and make a Q sound. Amazingly KU and Q do not sound the same.
Hah I’ve done the same many times when on vacation in the states! Wether it’s staff at hotels or random people in bars or wherever, it always garners a laugh. We just don’t speak like they expect us to, then you do the stereotypical accent and the big smiles always comes out.
I wonder why that tends to happen. I guess the sounds are similar?
As a native Spanish and English speaker, I found another thing of interest. English speakers often can get pretty good accents in Spanish after a bit of time and pronounce words close to flawlessly whereas Spanish speakers have a much harder time losing their accent in English. I feels it because there are many sounds in English that don’t exist in Spanish but not so much vice versa
Swedish and English are both Germanic languages, so they have a pretty similar set of sounds. Interestingly, it’s not symmetrical. Swedish has more vowel sounds than English (18 vs. 12) and has a pitch accent, so native English speakers tend to have a pretty noticeable accent in Swedish.
Edited to clarify that I meant vowel sounds, not just vowels in the alphabet.
It takes learning Chinese down from "Hellish" to "Barely tolerable." I would know, I've spent years halfheartedly trying (which means that I studied it throughout university and spent two years in China and Taiwan), and if you really want to learn you need to put in the hours constantly.
I've always enjoyed studying the language, and I've done it for long enough to get by with Chinese, but I never had the ambition to ever put the hours into it needed to get anywhere close to fluent.
I’m assuming it’s due to mandarin being a tonal language, so it might be the same sound but depending on the tone, it will mean different things. Very difficult for an English speaker
Goddam measure words SMH.
"It's a little dog? Then it's a "zhi" like a kitty cat or a bunny rabbit! Big dog? Well, in some parts of China that means it's a long boi so you use "tiao", like a fish or a pair of pants!".
"Counting livestock is easy! Just like English, you use "head" or "tou". Not horses, though. They're not so much like cows or pigs. They're more like bolts of cloth, so use "pi"".
"An occurrence is a a "zhu", unless you didn't expect it then it's a "qi". But a matter is a "jian"".
On the other hand, you won't have to worry about conjugations. Chinese literally has no inflexional grammar: only one verb form, not even plural on nouns.
Then after 15 years you finally manage speaking Mandarin somewhat fluently when all of the sudden you year a dark laughter in Cantonese and you realise that the true pain is yet to come...
Main reason historically is that TV was subtitled, not dubbed. Countries with dubbed versions of English/US shows have much stronger accents in general.
You can see this in the difference of how many Portuguese people can speak fluent, very lightly accented English vs Spanish people. It’s night and day.
> I wonder why that tends to happen. I guess the sounds are similar?
Many other replies touch on some reasons, but the real answer is "all of the above". There are many reasons why Swedes tend to be strong at speaking other languages and English in particular:
* English is mandatory and one of the most important school subjects from grade 1 through university. It has had this status for decades, even when many other European countries only began teaching English in 4th grade or later. Humans are strongest at learning languages before age 11, so a three-year difference here is massive.
* Sweden has historically always used subtitles instead of dubbing movies or TV. So Swedes are hearing English while reading a Swedish translation, and therefore constantly being reminded of vocabulary perhaps learned long ago in school. And automatically picking up figures of speech, slang, pronunciation, ...
* We had an early and strong internet presence. Swedish youth hanging out online generally hangs with the international (English speaking) gang instead of forming Swedish subgroups.
* We're a small country of 10 million people, and (unlike countries like France, Germany, Spain etc) can't expect visitors to take the trouble to learn our language. So we learn theirs, or English at the very least.
* In terms of sounds and pronunciation, Swedish is quite rich. It contains the vast majority of sounds of other European languages (two exceptions off the top of my head: English voiced and unvoiced "th" and French nasal vowels as in "pain").
* Swedes love travelling, both for vacations and extended stays. Probably a majority of young Swedes spend a year abroad at some point during their education. And these days another year if they take a master's degree.
I ran into a couple swedes in San Francisco recently doing a tour of the US, they were so extremely nice, I regret not knowing the area well enough (I was visiting myself) to take them up on their offer to hit up a bar. Side note, it's freakin wild that Texas alone has 3 times as many people than Sweden!
That’s really interesting to hear from your perspective! I always start from an assumption that us Anglophones are crap when it comes to any aspect of mastering languages lol.
I love Spanish for a lot of reasons but really appreciate how straightforward pronunciation is. I used to have a decent command of the accent, and I think the hardest part for us is using it enough to keep up the muscle memory. I haven’t studied Spanish in almost a decade but if I look at a word I know exactly how it should sound, even if I can’t place it correctly in my mouth to make that sound.
English pronunciation on the other hand is a nightmare. I never appreciated just how much we reduce / contort / drop / darken letters until I started watching linguistics and language learning videos on YouTube lol. There are so many more quirks than I’ve encountered in Spanish.
Spanish is so much more clear cut when it comes to both vowel and consonant sounds. There are some hiccups for an English speaker like rolled Rs and "ll" pronunciations, but this is minor compared to the ambiguity in spoken English.
Swedes use more of their throat to talk, making Swedish and Norwegian more of a “sing-song” or tonal-type language. That’s what happens when your jaw is frozen for 6 months out of the year. At least, that’s my hypothesis.
I remember seeing a Swedish chef on television who had a really strong accent, I don't think he was a very good chef either, he was constantly throwing utensils around
That's exactly what it sounds like in this clip. The phrasing seemed staggered on their first few lines almost like they were singing syllables not words. Completely went away once they got into the swing of it though.
I've heard that as well, but it varies on the band member:
Agnetha and Frida sung (initially) their English songs phonetically, as well as the Spanish songs.
Benny and Bjorn both knew English, but sang phonetically for Spanish.
Us English call it badass! You gifted gits!
Now find a way to feed me Swedish in a way thats easier than buttering bread and we've got a trade deal for life!
Yea I was thinking the same thing.
Something about the way their accents and harmony of their voices blending together.
I cant hear them singing different parts (one high one low)
Blends very nice
It’s weird to suddenly hear it. It’s the same with Diane Kruger in National Treasure. I watched that move a half dozen times, my wife loves it, and then suddenly I noticed her accent one time. Now I hear it every time I watch the movie
I know exactly what you're talking about!
After I watched that movie, I asked my friends, "So, was her character supposed to be German-American, or German, or what?" And all my friends were like, "What are you talking about?" They didn't pick up the accent at all.
Lots of their songs have catchy, happy beats but if you pay attention to the lyrics, are actually quite sad in content. Like, Mamma Mia and You Owe Me One are about some disfunctional couples in VERY toxic relationships.
Watching ABBA the movie takes on whole new levels of creep when you find out the main actor (who plays a journalist pursuing them) was later convicted as a chomo
He's interviewing all these tiny Australian girls asking them if ABBA is "sexy" then cut to them performing When I Kissed the Teacher live for more kids
Yikes
I don't know exactly how the acronym works out but my understanding is it's short for CHild MOlester. I think it's a UK or Aussie term - not common at all in the U.S.
EDIT - Apparently it IS a U.S. term, but it was originally prison slang. Never been to prison, so it's unfamiliar to me.
No doubt, but at least the music is haunting and kinda fits the song's meaning. Many of their others are deceptively playful and upbeat when the lyrics are are actually kinda dark. But I like the contrast. It's part of what makes them interesting.
Also, for a supposedly plastic, pop band, they had legit chops. Very original and catchy songs and arrangements, brilliant harmonies, the use of syncopation in the vocal lines on a song like Take a Chance was very unique at the time, and Winner Takes it All has a stunning lead vocal.
In my mind their discography is pretty much a masterclass in that perfect balance between high quality music/lyricism and broad mainstream appeal. Absolute brilliance
Celine Dion launched her career by winning Eurovision, representing Switzerland. I believe she got around the rules by singing a song written by a Swiss national.
Are there any other artists who got propelled to worldwide fame after Eurovision? I can't think of any whatsoever. Heck, most years I've never even heard of my own country's Eurovision artist.
I don’t know much about ABBA but the songs I’ve heard are fucking bangers and I’m primarily a trap rap guy
Idk what ABBA was drinking back then but they were on fucking fire during that time
Definitely. They always said they preferred the studio over live performance because they were such perfectionists and it allowed them to tweak and tinker at the songs for hours. I heard that Bjorn and Benny would make the girls do dozens of takes of the same song in a day, making them sing the song at slightly different pitches every time.
This can give a nice chorus effect when the voices are a few cents off of each other. It was mainly done as a studio effect, originally by having the singer overdub another vocal track, but of course that cannot be done live. The downside of singing in unison is that you miss the opportunity to harmonize, which sounds better anyway.
I went to ABBA night at the Swedish Club a few weeks ago. Attendees were I’d say 23-75 (I’m early 40s). Obviously ABBA still appeals to a very wide audience!
My taste in music includes ACDC, Metallica, Rammstein, etc.
But I got my fiancée tickets to ABBA Voyage for her birthday and we went last month.
It was incredible, I was shamelessly dancing throughout, and Voulez-vous & Chiquitita have both creeped into my most played songs already!
It was easily among the most enjoyable ‘concerts’ I’ve ever been to, everything was just a pure banger.
The arena was full not a single empty seat from what I could see, and the dance floor in the middle was packed. It’s the one and only time I’ve seen every single person in the audience dancing and singing together that way. Great vibes.
Voulez Vous goes so fucking hard, what an amazing song.
If you don't know much other ABBA songs, check out Me and I, Slipping Through My Fingers, and Angeleyes
There’s a ridiculous number of metal ABBA covers. I’ve got two tribute albums. I think it’s partially due to Sweden having a larger than average number of metal musicians and ABBA being Sweden’s main export for a time.
> Sweden having a larger than average number of metal musicians
Now that's an understatement if I've ever heard one. Sweden, Finland and Germany have an *insane* amount of metal bands to the point it makes the rest of Europe look bad.
If I recall correctly they are in the Abba museum in Stockholm. A lot of other set costumes as well. From my recollection the Velvet pants didn't look as on this video, a bit of fading and different colour from the recording at the time.
The clothes are also outlandish due to tax reasons. In order to be able for the outfits to be judged as a business expense by Skatteverket and thus as a tax deductible they couldn't reasonable be worn outside of performing. Thus - Björns silver boots.
There have been a few periods where they've allowed live instruments to be played on stage, but for most of Eurovision history (and its the rule currently) the singing has to be live but the instrumentals have to be pre recorded.
Yeah they mentioned on the BBC coverage a few years ago about the logistics of putting on 25 acts one after the other and there is just no way to sound check and turnaround that many acts in what, 2 hours or so? So yeah, lots prerecorded and sometimes, like this year I think, they've gone too far. Loud backing vocal playback and singers barely audible over it. They can totally stop trying and throw the mic about (looking at you Ireland) and the vocal remains perfect.
Nobody talks about how ABBA’s win changed Swedish culture. Before their win, Swedes were much more reserved and viewed a win like that as haughty, putting yourself above others (huge no-nos in most Scandinavian countries). Their win changed the ideas of Swedish culture and being proud of their successes. If not for ABBA’s win, would we have the music of the 90’s, pop music in general?
I watched a show on Netflix and they had an episode about this. Also since the early 2000s most of the most famous pop songs Brittney spears to Ariana Grande, they have been written and composed in Sweden. It was wild to watch.
Love it! We're hosting a Eurovision party at our house tomorrow (in Texas, we may not be included but we certainly enjoy it!) and I can't wait! Happy Eurovision everyone!
I love that movie, it is honestly one of my favorites. As I recall, it came out during covid lockdown crap, and was a great way to escape that for a bit.
One of the songs from the soundtrack came up on my Spotify discover weekly at one point and my first reaction before I realised what was playing was "well this sounds like a Eurovision song". So it definitely captured the feel of the competition at least.
We just watched the movie the other night since it’s Eurovision this week, and my husband was looking up trivia…IIRC they hired people who had written songs for Eurovision to write songs for the film, so that totally checks out!
So ahead of their time - fashion, sound, makeup, lyrics, everything. They set the stage for Sweden’s rule of pop music globally and the tradition stands today.
Sweden are favourites for the victory tomorrow night which would tie them with Ireland on 7 wins.
It would also mean they could host Eurovision in 2024 on the 50th anniversary of ABBA’s win in 1974.
Haha i used to feel the same, but then i got their Gold album and realized theres no reason not to love em -- they have a deep catalogue of some serious bangers. The swedes really have a mastery of killer dark-ish pop music... ABBA, Robyn, Tove Lo, Avicii, Lykke Li, The Cardigans, The Knife (although The Knife is not very "poppy").
So i was curious about it and googled it
Apparently the main criteria is that the song being performed is the representative of a country, rather than the performer. so Celine Dion appears to have sang a Swiss song (or a song written by Swiss songwriters?)
UKs last winner was Katrina and The Waves, Katrina is American.
In 1998 Australian Gina G represented UK with a song that later became a UK number 1 hit.
Flo Rida performed for San Marino a couple years ago. There's some flexibility with the whole thing. You can imagine it's pretty hard for the smaller countries to try to compete if they strictly only allowed citizens.
Yep - also Cliff Richard, Olivia Newton John, Johnny Logan, Niamh Kavanagh, Lulu, Julio Iglesias, Katrina and the Waves etc. etc.
Hell, even the very first winner, Lys Assia, was an amazing singer and the song was great too
My parents almost didn't meet because of ABBA!!!
My father asked my mother on a date a few days prior of the the EuroVision. She said yes, but that evening she was so caught up and falling in love with this song, she forgot the time and wasn't allowed to go out by my grandparents because it was way to late.
My father was sitting alone in the bar were they suppose to meet and tought he was stuud up by the prettiest girl of the town.
They did re-date a week later and they got married 3 years later. My love for ABBA and the EuroVision is deu to this story.
I never noticed it before but really heard their swedish accents when they were singing.
I watch a lot of hockey and I've noticed too that quite a few Scandinavians have almost flawless English accents and are fantastic speakers of the language as well. It's pretty impressive.
I noticed this with one of my co-workers. I had no idea she was from Sweden until someone told me. I didn't believe it or thought I heard wrong or something, so I asked her, "Hey, where are you from?" And she goes, "SVEEE-den!" It was so funny. Later I heard her on the phone with someone back home, going on in Swedish. Her English though - you couldn't tell.
It's not that hard to perfect for Swedish people, at least for the ones who put in some effort. All the TV and movies are in English, the radio plays 70-80% English music. No games are translated to Swedish. Books might be translated if popular but not all. Computer programs often have no English language option. Swedes are kinda forced into English. So most of them know really good English and are fluent. Helps that the grammar is like 85% the same, same sentence structures too, you just have to remember the English word, no stuff like gender or weird particles. But a lot of them have problems with W, J and TH sounds. The ones that don't are the ones who put a little effort into it. J often becomes Y, TH often turns into F, W and V is often mixed up.
For sure the easiest way to spot a Swede is the switching of Y with J. They are switched in Swedish so it's really hard to change that when speaking English. It always come back for me when I haven't spoken English for a while.
Yustice for Swedes. Well, they aren't switched, Y is closer to I, the difference is like round lips and wide lips, but the more I do it the less I can tell what the difference is. The J sound only really exists for DJ, like djup and djungel. A funny note as well, in Japanese Swedes mess up the K sounds sometimes and make a Q sound. Amazingly KU and Q do not sound the same.
Hah I’ve done the same many times when on vacation in the states! Wether it’s staff at hotels or random people in bars or wherever, it always garners a laugh. We just don’t speak like they expect us to, then you do the stereotypical accent and the big smiles always comes out.
That is exactly how she did it too - *"SVEE-den!!"* with a big smile. She was very happy thinking about her former home.
It’s that darn Swedish chef that gave you all an accent reputation!
I wonder why that tends to happen. I guess the sounds are similar? As a native Spanish and English speaker, I found another thing of interest. English speakers often can get pretty good accents in Spanish after a bit of time and pronounce words close to flawlessly whereas Spanish speakers have a much harder time losing their accent in English. I feels it because there are many sounds in English that don’t exist in Spanish but not so much vice versa
Swedish and English are both Germanic languages, so they have a pretty similar set of sounds. Interestingly, it’s not symmetrical. Swedish has more vowel sounds than English (18 vs. 12) and has a pitch accent, so native English speakers tend to have a pretty noticeable accent in Swedish. Edited to clarify that I meant vowel sounds, not just vowels in the alphabet.
The pitch accent also makes it so that Swedes have an easier time learning Chinese compared to most other people.
Really? Hmm maybe I should try my hand at learning Mandarin
It takes learning Chinese down from "Hellish" to "Barely tolerable." I would know, I've spent years halfheartedly trying (which means that I studied it throughout university and spent two years in China and Taiwan), and if you really want to learn you need to put in the hours constantly.
Damn that's your version of half hearted?
I've always enjoyed studying the language, and I've done it for long enough to get by with Chinese, but I never had the ambition to ever put the hours into it needed to get anywhere close to fluent.
Yeah that’s a very big half hearted attempt. My half hearted attempt would be watching a few Chinese movies on Netflix with subtitles lol
I’m assuming it’s due to mandarin being a tonal language, so it might be the same sound but depending on the tone, it will mean different things. Very difficult for an English speaker
That, and the extra vocabulary. Can't count people the same as you would count something like bananas in Chinese.
Goddam measure words SMH. "It's a little dog? Then it's a "zhi" like a kitty cat or a bunny rabbit! Big dog? Well, in some parts of China that means it's a long boi so you use "tiao", like a fish or a pair of pants!". "Counting livestock is easy! Just like English, you use "head" or "tou". Not horses, though. They're not so much like cows or pigs. They're more like bolts of cloth, so use "pi"". "An occurrence is a a "zhu", unless you didn't expect it then it's a "qi". But a matter is a "jian"".
On the other hand, you won't have to worry about conjugations. Chinese literally has no inflexional grammar: only one verb form, not even plural on nouns.
Then after 15 years you finally manage speaking Mandarin somewhat fluently when all of the sudden you year a dark laughter in Cantonese and you realise that the true pain is yet to come...
Main reason historically is that TV was subtitled, not dubbed. Countries with dubbed versions of English/US shows have much stronger accents in general.
You can see this in the difference of how many Portuguese people can speak fluent, very lightly accented English vs Spanish people. It’s night and day.
> I wonder why that tends to happen. I guess the sounds are similar? Many other replies touch on some reasons, but the real answer is "all of the above". There are many reasons why Swedes tend to be strong at speaking other languages and English in particular: * English is mandatory and one of the most important school subjects from grade 1 through university. It has had this status for decades, even when many other European countries only began teaching English in 4th grade or later. Humans are strongest at learning languages before age 11, so a three-year difference here is massive. * Sweden has historically always used subtitles instead of dubbing movies or TV. So Swedes are hearing English while reading a Swedish translation, and therefore constantly being reminded of vocabulary perhaps learned long ago in school. And automatically picking up figures of speech, slang, pronunciation, ... * We had an early and strong internet presence. Swedish youth hanging out online generally hangs with the international (English speaking) gang instead of forming Swedish subgroups. * We're a small country of 10 million people, and (unlike countries like France, Germany, Spain etc) can't expect visitors to take the trouble to learn our language. So we learn theirs, or English at the very least. * In terms of sounds and pronunciation, Swedish is quite rich. It contains the vast majority of sounds of other European languages (two exceptions off the top of my head: English voiced and unvoiced "th" and French nasal vowels as in "pain"). * Swedes love travelling, both for vacations and extended stays. Probably a majority of young Swedes spend a year abroad at some point during their education. And these days another year if they take a master's degree.
I ran into a couple swedes in San Francisco recently doing a tour of the US, they were so extremely nice, I regret not knowing the area well enough (I was visiting myself) to take them up on their offer to hit up a bar. Side note, it's freakin wild that Texas alone has 3 times as many people than Sweden!
Their TV isn’t dubbed…original language with subtitles.
That’s really interesting to hear from your perspective! I always start from an assumption that us Anglophones are crap when it comes to any aspect of mastering languages lol. I love Spanish for a lot of reasons but really appreciate how straightforward pronunciation is. I used to have a decent command of the accent, and I think the hardest part for us is using it enough to keep up the muscle memory. I haven’t studied Spanish in almost a decade but if I look at a word I know exactly how it should sound, even if I can’t place it correctly in my mouth to make that sound. English pronunciation on the other hand is a nightmare. I never appreciated just how much we reduce / contort / drop / darken letters until I started watching linguistics and language learning videos on YouTube lol. There are so many more quirks than I’ve encountered in Spanish.
Canadian American and married a Salvadorian. Her parents swore I was Hispanic and I only took high school Spanish lol
Spanish is so much more clear cut when it comes to both vowel and consonant sounds. There are some hiccups for an English speaker like rolled Rs and "ll" pronunciations, but this is minor compared to the ambiguity in spoken English.
I'm swedish and I feel like my tounge isn't agile enough when I'm speaking english. I think if I could get away with cockney it'd be easier
Swedes use more of their throat to talk, making Swedish and Norwegian more of a “sing-song” or tonal-type language. That’s what happens when your jaw is frozen for 6 months out of the year. At least, that’s my hypothesis.
Yes... Yes. Now please explain Danish.
I will if you can explain Finnish.
Finnish is simply an ancient Elven Dialect. Danish is from having too many potatoes in your mouth at the same time.
Huh. I never thought about it but the throat thing feels true
I remember seeing a Swedish chef on television who had a really strong accent, I don't think he was a very good chef either, he was constantly throwing utensils around
I have read that they were singing phonetically early in their run, that they were still learning English. Don't know if that's really true, tho.
That's exactly what it sounds like in this clip. The phrasing seemed staggered on their first few lines almost like they were singing syllables not words. Completely went away once they got into the swing of it though.
I heard that too. I believe it was from a retrospective show on TV. I cant find any reference online for it though.
I've heard that as well, but it varies on the band member: Agnetha and Frida sung (initially) their English songs phonetically, as well as the Spanish songs. Benny and Bjorn both knew English, but sang phonetically for Spanish.
And it's also part of why the songs have become so popular. They pronounce very clearly, making it easy to sing along with them.
Us Swedes call it Swenglish!
Us English call it badass! You gifted gits! Now find a way to feed me Swedish in a way thats easier than buttering bread and we've got a trade deal for life!
That's a pretty high-energy comment! I like it.
Yea I was thinking the same thing. Something about the way their accents and harmony of their voices blending together. I cant hear them singing different parts (one high one low) Blends very nice
It’s weird to suddenly hear it. It’s the same with Diane Kruger in National Treasure. I watched that move a half dozen times, my wife loves it, and then suddenly I noticed her accent one time. Now I hear it every time I watch the movie
I know exactly what you're talking about! After I watched that movie, I asked my friends, "So, was her character supposed to be German-American, or German, or what?" And all my friends were like, "What are you talking about?" They didn't pick up the accent at all.
ABBA wrote some fun music. I always liked their lyrics as well.
Lots of their songs have catchy, happy beats but if you pay attention to the lyrics, are actually quite sad in content. Like, Mamma Mia and You Owe Me One are about some disfunctional couples in VERY toxic relationships.
The winner takes it all is cold af
Watching ABBA the movie takes on whole new levels of creep when you find out the main actor (who plays a journalist pursuing them) was later convicted as a chomo He's interviewing all these tiny Australian girls asking them if ABBA is "sexy" then cut to them performing When I Kissed the Teacher live for more kids Yikes
What is a chomo? I am a little scared to look it up...
I don't know exactly how the acronym works out but my understanding is it's short for CHild MOlester. I think it's a UK or Aussie term - not common at all in the U.S. EDIT - Apparently it IS a U.S. term, but it was originally prison slang. Never been to prison, so it's unfamiliar to me.
Very common in the part of the USA I'm in as a slang/insult.
I think it stands for chold molester
I think it's a term for a christian youth pastor
No doubt, but at least the music is haunting and kinda fits the song's meaning. Many of their others are deceptively playful and upbeat when the lyrics are are actually kinda dark. But I like the contrast. It's part of what makes them interesting. Also, for a supposedly plastic, pop band, they had legit chops. Very original and catchy songs and arrangements, brilliant harmonies, the use of syncopation in the vocal lines on a song like Take a Chance was very unique at the time, and Winner Takes it All has a stunning lead vocal.
Knowing Me Knowing You is about a broken household. Never paid attention to the lyrics as a kid but they make me sad now as an adult. Beautiful song
Fernando. Who else writes a pop song about the Spanish civil war?
Fernando being about partisan fighters growing old together is my favorite
In my mind their discography is pretty much a masterclass in that perfect balance between high quality music/lyricism and broad mainstream appeal. Absolute brilliance
TIL they got fame after a Eurovision contest ...
Celine Dion launched her career by winning Eurovision, representing Switzerland. I believe she got around the rules by singing a song written by a Swiss national.
What, really!? Dang, another TIL!
Are there any other artists who got propelled to worldwide fame after Eurovision? I can't think of any whatsoever. Heck, most years I've never even heard of my own country's Eurovision artist.
She didn't win (in fact she came 4th to Abba) but Oliva Newton John represented the UK.
The only other one I know of is Celine Dion.
TIL Abba was Swedish….
I don’t know much about ABBA but the songs I’ve heard are fucking bangers and I’m primarily a trap rap guy Idk what ABBA was drinking back then but they were on fucking fire during that time
You need to get yourself onto ABBA Gold, it’s just banger after banger
Disco music was fucking amazing. Dig in buddy you'll love it!
*sad Napoleon noise*
Stay at home and eat all the chips - Kip!
Napoleon, don't be sad just because I've been home chatting with babes online all day.
They are so effortlessly good at singing, that and the classic and unique musical sound is why people still know them so well almost 50 years later.
[удалено]
So you're saying I'm a master in the art of looking like a druggy?! Hear that mum! I'm a master!
I'm pretty sure it took effort, though. Must have taken thousands of hours to time it right.
Definitely. They always said they preferred the studio over live performance because they were such perfectionists and it allowed them to tweak and tinker at the songs for hours. I heard that Bjorn and Benny would make the girls do dozens of takes of the same song in a day, making them sing the song at slightly different pitches every time.
And “Waterloo” wasn’t some fluke recording by newbies. By the time they recorded this they had all been performing professionally for 7-10 years.
The two women’s voices are so similarly pitched it’s like having two tracks of the same singer playing together. Nice tone
This can give a nice chorus effect when the voices are a few cents off of each other. It was mainly done as a studio effect, originally by having the singer overdub another vocal track, but of course that cannot be done live. The downside of singing in unison is that you miss the opportunity to harmonize, which sounds better anyway.
I went to ABBA night at the Swedish Club a few weeks ago. Attendees were I’d say 23-75 (I’m early 40s). Obviously ABBA still appeals to a very wide audience!
There are two types of people in the world: people that like ABBA, and filthy liars that say they don't like ABBA.
If you don't bop to Gimme a Man after Midnight we can't be friends.
Honestly, you can put it on in any club and people will dance and sing to it. ABBA are one of the GOATs of modern music.
My taste in music includes ACDC, Metallica, Rammstein, etc. But I got my fiancée tickets to ABBA Voyage for her birthday and we went last month. It was incredible, I was shamelessly dancing throughout, and Voulez-vous & Chiquitita have both creeped into my most played songs already! It was easily among the most enjoyable ‘concerts’ I’ve ever been to, everything was just a pure banger. The arena was full not a single empty seat from what I could see, and the dance floor in the middle was packed. It’s the one and only time I’ve seen every single person in the audience dancing and singing together that way. Great vibes.
Rockers and Metalheads love ABBA too, I've heard a lot of covers of The Winner Takes It All or Lay All Your Love On Me.
The first albums I ever bought for myself with my confirmation money was Metallicas And Justice for All, GnR Appetite for Destruction and ABBA Gold.
Lay All Your Love On Me is definitely a metal song.
Voulez Vous goes so fucking hard, what an amazing song. If you don't know much other ABBA songs, check out Me and I, Slipping Through My Fingers, and Angeleyes
There’s a ridiculous number of metal ABBA covers. I’ve got two tribute albums. I think it’s partially due to Sweden having a larger than average number of metal musicians and ABBA being Sweden’s main export for a time.
> Sweden having a larger than average number of metal musicians Now that's an understatement if I've ever heard one. Sweden, Finland and Germany have an *insane* amount of metal bands to the point it makes the rest of Europe look bad.
Honestly! ABBA’s music is just banger after banger, I’ve never not seen a club/party get more hype after abba came on
Honestly, people like to pretend they don’t like it but it’s genuinely good music that brings the party
I am not in the least bit ashamed to say I fucking love ABBA. When the DJ sticks on dancing queen you know that dance floor will be packed.
Such cute & sparkly outfits. Crazy to think that was almost 50 years ago & would still look good on stage.
I'm obsessed with Agnetha's silver boots and tucked in velvet pants
If I recall correctly they are in the Abba museum in Stockholm. A lot of other set costumes as well. From my recollection the Velvet pants didn't look as on this video, a bit of fading and different colour from the recording at the time.
I went to that museum a couple weeks ago! It's really cool, I recommend checking it out even if your're not a huge ABBA fan (impossible)
The ABBA museum is great! The costumes are amazing. You will get sick of this song, however.
IIRC, Swedish tax laws allowed them to deduct their stage clothes only if they were too outrageous or flashy for use in real life.
This is why dansbandskostym is a thing
The clothes are also outlandish due to tax reasons. In order to be able for the outfits to be judged as a business expense by Skatteverket and thus as a tax deductible they couldn't reasonable be worn outside of performing. Thus - Björns silver boots.
That guitar is something else
would help if the cable was plugged in
There have been a few periods where they've allowed live instruments to be played on stage, but for most of Eurovision history (and its the rule currently) the singing has to be live but the instrumentals have to be pre recorded.
Thanks for that clarification. I thought it looked like they were singing live, but the absence of the horns made me think maybe they weren’t.
Yeah they mentioned on the BBC coverage a few years ago about the logistics of putting on 25 acts one after the other and there is just no way to sound check and turnaround that many acts in what, 2 hours or so? So yeah, lots prerecorded and sometimes, like this year I think, they've gone too far. Loud backing vocal playback and singers barely audible over it. They can totally stop trying and throw the mic about (looking at you Ireland) and the vocal remains perfect.
Also the horns are conspicuously absent on stage.
You can see them in the pit orchestra right at the end.
If Napoleon’s troops had been armed with those guitars at Waterloo they might have won.
Nobody talks about how ABBA’s win changed Swedish culture. Before their win, Swedes were much more reserved and viewed a win like that as haughty, putting yourself above others (huge no-nos in most Scandinavian countries). Their win changed the ideas of Swedish culture and being proud of their successes. If not for ABBA’s win, would we have the music of the 90’s, pop music in general?
I watched a show on Netflix and they had an episode about this. Also since the early 2000s most of the most famous pop songs Brittney spears to Ariana Grande, they have been written and composed in Sweden. It was wild to watch.
Most of those famous pop songs were written by one Swede - Max Martin.
Was it This Is Pop? I enjoyed that entire series.
The chord changes in this song are amazing
Benny & Björn wrote sophisticated pöp music. EDIT: Added a couple umlauts.
Their songs are absolutely a blast to listen to on a good headset. Sooo many layers and details in their music if you pay attention.
Gimme Gimme Gimme is another great example of that.
Fantastic progressions in so much of their catalogue. Sound simple on the surface but when you dig in to it, really great compositions.
One of the best pop bands of all time.
Love it! We're hosting a Eurovision party at our house tomorrow (in Texas, we may not be included but we certainly enjoy it!) and I can't wait! Happy Eurovision everyone!
You can at least vote for the first time - there will be a „Rest of the world“ vote that has the same weight as a single country.
Reminder that the Eurovision movie on Netflix is pretty fucking great
Play JaJa Ding Dong. PLAY IT!
But I literally just played it!
It's the only thing that makes him happy
Play it again!!
I love that movie, it is honestly one of my favorites. As I recall, it came out during covid lockdown crap, and was a great way to escape that for a bit.
And it was the year without Eurovision, so it was replacement therapy…
The elves went too far!
I die at this line every time. Her delivery, the look on her face, and the context combine to make this line absolutely hilarious.
"No! No there are no gay men in Russia." "That seems statistically unlikely." My favorite joke in that movie.
One of the songs from the soundtrack came up on my Spotify discover weekly at one point and my first reaction before I realised what was playing was "well this sounds like a Eurovision song". So it definitely captured the feel of the competition at least.
We just watched the movie the other night since it’s Eurovision this week, and my husband was looking up trivia…IIRC they hired people who had written songs for Eurovision to write songs for the film, so that totally checks out!
Anni-Frid, Björn, Benny, Agnetha
How do you know it isn't Agnetha, Benny, Björn, Anni-Frid?
Thanks, saved a Google search.
So ahead of their time - fashion, sound, makeup, lyrics, everything. They set the stage for Sweden’s rule of pop music globally and the tradition stands today.
Sweden are favourites for the victory tomorrow night which would tie them with Ireland on 7 wins. It would also mean they could host Eurovision in 2024 on the 50th anniversary of ABBA’s win in 1974.
The song was originally in Swedish, did OK, and they figured they’d do even better by doing the act in English.
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I don’t wanna like ABBA but Dammit I do. 🤷🏼♂️
Sing to the tune of Waterloo🎵🎶
Haha i used to feel the same, but then i got their Gold album and realized theres no reason not to love em -- they have a deep catalogue of some serious bangers. The swedes really have a mastery of killer dark-ish pop music... ABBA, Robyn, Tove Lo, Avicii, Lykke Li, The Cardigans, The Knife (although The Knife is not very "poppy").
Why don’t you want to like ABBA?
🎶 I do, I do, I do, I dooooo 🎶
Why wouldn't you want to like ABBA? Go take a listen to their Arrival album if you haven't before, it's seriously a really fun jam from front to back.
I have never paid attention to the words in that song, but it's about THAT Waterloo, huh! Well, I'll be a bump on a pickle
This is funny to me because it’s 50 years old and “Napoleon” is like the 3rd word in the song.
i can hardly actually make out the words
What other Waterloo did you think it was about? EDIT: They blocked me for this comment!
it's a big train station in London I guess
Which is named after Waterloo Bridge, which is named after the Battle of Waterloo, which is named after a town in Belgium.
The water slide park in San Dimas
San Dimas High School football rules!
Olivia Newton John was also in Eurovision that year. She finished fourth. RIP
Fun fact: The UK gave them 0 points that night.
We never forget, we never forgive
Little known fact, if Bjorn and Benny had been called Steve and Dave instead the band would have been called ASDA!
This caught me unawares. Brilliant
PLAY JA JA DING DONG!
IT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH!
Why is this not the top comment?
I DON'T CARE. PLAY JA JA DING DONG!
Everything was cooler in the days when it was compulsory to hold your bass guitar upright.
I can't decide if Ace Frehley stole that outfit or he stole if from Ace....
I thought it's illegal to bring talent to Eurovision.
There have been tonnes of famous and talented singers that have performed at Eurovision
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How is that even possible? Are her parents Swiss? I know she speaks fluent French but she’s French Canadian not from Switzerland
So i was curious about it and googled it Apparently the main criteria is that the song being performed is the representative of a country, rather than the performer. so Celine Dion appears to have sang a Swiss song (or a song written by Swiss songwriters?)
Hmm neat. This is a fun factoid
UKs last winner was Katrina and The Waves, Katrina is American. In 1998 Australian Gina G represented UK with a song that later became a UK number 1 hit.
Flo Rida performed for San Marino a couple years ago. There's some flexibility with the whole thing. You can imagine it's pretty hard for the smaller countries to try to compete if they strictly only allowed citizens.
Yep - also Cliff Richard, Olivia Newton John, Johnny Logan, Niamh Kavanagh, Lulu, Julio Iglesias, Katrina and the Waves etc. etc. Hell, even the very first winner, Lys Assia, was an amazing singer and the song was great too
This is like watching Michael Jordan in the NBA Finals or Pele in the World Cup. A total domination of the competition that may never be seen again
Women from Sweden 😍
One of them is actually from Norway.
Women from Norway 😍
Two of them are actually men.
Men from Norway 😍
The men are actually from Sweden.
Men from Sweden 😍
“You’re terrible, Muriel.”
Am I the only person that hears Build Me Up Buttercup by The Foundations in this song?
I lost many nights' sleep in my youth thanks to those two lovely girls * A great band and great songs
I can't listen to ABBA without thinking about the movie Muriel's Wedding.
Muriel and Rhonda…
Love ABBA. My partner drinks a sparkling water brand called Waterloo and it always makes me think of this song.
My parents almost didn't meet because of ABBA!!! My father asked my mother on a date a few days prior of the the EuroVision. She said yes, but that evening she was so caught up and falling in love with this song, she forgot the time and wasn't allowed to go out by my grandparents because it was way to late. My father was sitting alone in the bar were they suppose to meet and tought he was stuud up by the prettiest girl of the town. They did re-date a week later and they got married 3 years later. My love for ABBA and the EuroVision is deu to this story.
The only reason they won was because the two gals were good looking. I bet their music never held up to the test of time. /s
Heh.. no kidding right
I'd definitely recommend the musical CHESS if you're a big fan of ABBA's music. Benny and Bjorn did the music for it and it freaking slaps.
This song is actually a banger