Music Video of the Day: Does Your Mother Know by ABBA (1979, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on April 25, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Björn on lead vocals? Amazing! What’s next, I’m gonna find an 80’s ABBA-like band named after a drink? That would only happen in the land of make believe.

Anyways, it’s about time Björn got a chance to sing a song. I love Frida and Agnetha, but we know Björn can sing. Yes yes yes, I know, sex sells. Yes, I have brought up that Agnetha’s butt was such a selling point for ABBA: The Movie (1977) that it was shown three times in the trailer. I will also get to how Frida and director Stuart Orme cleverly recreated the famous shot of Agnetha’s backside in the music video for I Know There’s Something Going On to announce to fans that she was coming out of the Agnetha’s shadow.

The video is very simple. Even Dancing Queen, which also took place in a club, had more going on. Still, it’s refreshing to see Björn, Frida, and Agnetha combine their vocal talents to make this song possible. While there isn’t much going on, it gets you in the mood of the song. For this, I don’t think I could ask for more.

There’s one last thing I think is worth mentioning. There’s an interesting submission about the title on Songfacts:

“Does your mother know you’re out?” or “Does your mother know that you’re out?” as in the song, is an expression sometimes used by a worldly wise older man to ward off the advances of Jailbait.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Chiquitia by ABBA (1979, dir. ???)

Posted on April 23, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

It’s ABBA performing on a mountain in front of a giant snowman.

According to Wikipedia, this was filmed by the BBC for a show called ABBA in Switzerland.

Watching this video, I can’t help but wonder what was going through Benny’s head.

Why are we performing in front of a giant snowman? I really want to break down and laugh. However, Agnetha and Björn are keeping a straight face.

Frida only looks mildly bothered by the fan that keeps blowing her hair in her face.

Never mind that visible crew member in the background.

I can hold it together.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Estoy Soñando by ABBA (1979, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 31, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

At first, I honestly thought this was another version of Fernando. It’s actually the Spanish version of I Have A Dream. I can find music videos for Connie Talbot’s cover version and Westlife’s cover version, but not ABBA’s English version. There is a listing for it. I just can’t track it down right now. The best I can find is a live version. Maybe that’s why this is up on ABBA’s official VEVO channel. It’s better than not having any version available.

I thought this was a Spanish version of Fernando because the video is basically the same. You have the group sitting around in an intimate setting singing a low-key song. How I mistook the song itself, I have no idea. Since I can’t find an English version, I have no basis for comparison between the two videos. Still, I think this is exactly how I would want that version to look as well. The song lends itself well to something that is stripped down and involves nothing fancy.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Summer Night City by ABBA (1978, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 29, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

This song was written by Benny and Björn as a tribute to their hometown of Stockholm. The video feels like a combination of elements from Tiger and Dancing Queen. By that, I mean the dancing parts combined with location shooting. We also get the usual singing head-shots, and the synchronized walking and posing, but it’s Tiger and Dancing Queen that immediately came to mind when I watched this video.

There are two things in this music video that look familiar to me.

Rapture by Blondie

Also, it would appear that Hallström wanted to stick a little reference to an early Agnetha and Björn music video.

Titta in i men lilla kajuta by Björn

That second one was from 1969, which would make it about 10 years between the two. That music video is from the TV Special where they first met. It may seem like a bit of stretch, but there is this that says otherwise:

California Here I Come by ABBA (1970)

ABBA: The Movie (1977)

During ABBA: The Movie (1977), Hallström dreamt he was on the set of a 1970 TV Special where ABBA once performed. With that in mind, I’d bet he did mean to reference that music video.

The only other thing that I think is of note is the ending. I’m not sure why there are 16 seconds of silence as the camera pans around to the car. Maybe it’s to contrast with the opening shot of traffic at night. That’s my best guess.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Eagle by ABBA (1978, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 27, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

The 1980s are coming for ABBA. You can tell because Frida is beginning to transform into her Pat Benatar look.

At the same time, this video is ahead of the 1980s. It’s playing with the kind of effects I wouldn’t expect to see in music videos till the late-80s with Kevin Kerslake directed music videos, such as the one for Shadow Of A Doubt by Sonic Youth.

According to Wikipedia, the version above is the official music video for the song. However, assuming it is still up, there is another music video for the song that is within ABBA: The Movie (1977), which I have included below.

I prefer the one done for the single because it is more primitive.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Take A Chance On Me by ABBA (1978, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 25, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

When I started out doing this retrospective, I wanted to get at least as far as this music video. Unfortunately, after 37 ABBA, and ABBA related music videos, I don’t have anything grand to say about it. Still, I can talk about some of the interesting aspects of it.

When you start it up, you are immediately greeted with The Brady Bunch split screen.

Note the crazy eyes on Frida. She does this several times during the video. Why? I don’t know. Why does she jump around at one point?

Maybe that’s jumping for joy.

Take another look at the screenshot of the beginning of the video. Do you see how Agnetha and Frida aren’t doing the same thing? It’s a small detail, but an apt way to describe this music video is that it is all about details. You’ll notice that throughout the video, they are usually doing their own thing instead of carefully moving into certain positions. You still get some of that with shots like this one below.

But you get a lot of shots like this one below where they are doing different things.

While I’m bringing that up, take a look at this shot.

The mark to tell Agnetha and Frida where to stop is visible at Agnetha’s foot. Mistake? Maybe it is since you can also see that the far left has visible black area where the backdrop didn’t reach. You don’t see the mark again in the video. I like to think of it as something left in intentionally by Hallström.

The video is made up of a lot of elements from previous music videos, but there are little changes. The jump cuts are the most obvious. In general, the editing in this video is much more like what you would expect from music videos that would arrive with the birth of MTV.

Another interesting one is changing up the singing head-shot of Agnetha. We get the standard one early on that we are familiar with from videos like SOS. Then it is followed with one where we get Agnetha sweeping upwards from the lower right-hand corner of the screen to do her bit before swinging her head backwards to reveal that spotlight we saw in Money, Money, Money.

One of my favorite things is when Benny springs up from his seat to chase after Frida.

Another thing about the video is that we get a little cutaway to a part where Frida is listening to music while Benny reads a magazine.

Its inclusion ties together a lot of the elements the audience would be familiar with from other ABBA music videos.

Something that isn’t familiar are the the camera movements. You can see the camera move in quickly to follow Frida to Benny sitting on a chair.

You also get shots where the camera moves upwards, and visa versa. It’s interesting how it will come down to, and move towards either Agnetha or Frida. This also happens the other way around as it returns to a shot of both of them.

The last thing I want to bring up is that you’ll notice that there are numerous times Agnetha turns around, or comes close to doing so. The video ends with the back of her head. I love it.

I think that’s it. Enjoy this landmark music video!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: One Man, One Woman by ABBA (1978, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I think Hallström might be Swedish. It’s so hard to tell with this music video.

This one looks like they combined a little footage from a TV performance with shots of their faces. They either fade from one to another or pull a Persona (1966) by dividing the face into two halves made up of two members of the group. It’s a nice and simple video. You’d really have to try hard to convince me that Hallström didn’t have Bergman’s film in mind when he made this video.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Thank You For The Music/Gracias Por La Música by ABBA (1977/1978, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 13, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

There’s no way I can exclude this song from a retrospective of ABBA music videos. Sadly, it’s not because one really exists. It’s just that not spotlighting this would be like excluding Waterloo even though that’s what won them Eurovision, and kicked off their career.

The video above is what is on ABBAs official YouTube channel. The video below is an excerpt from ABBA: The Movie (1977).

I might as well throw them all together here. Here is the Spanish version called Gracias Por La Música. I have no idea when or where it was recorded. It is on ABBAs official channel.

I hope you understand me cheating here. I will also have to fudge Spanish versions of their other songs since some of them include videos like this, others include totally different videos like the one for Fernando, and then there’s Happy New Year and Felicidad that are proper videos, but have minor differences–those videos get a little weird. You’re also going to get a third version of Knowing Me, Knowing You since I have found a Spanish version available through ABBA’s official channel. However, that one doesn’t seem to have been released till 1979. Gracias Por La Música has a copyright date of 2012, but there’s no way the video above was done in 2012. I have nowhere else to stick it, so it goes here.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: The Name Of The Game by ABBA (1977, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 11, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

The first question I had was probably the first one that came to your mind. The answer is that the game they are playing is called “Fia-spel”. It’s a Scandinavian version of the German board game “Mensch ärgere dich nicht”, which is a variation of Parcheesi/Ludo.

The thing that always fascinates me with music videos is how they choose to use lip-syncing. This time around the song is entirely Frida and Agnetha singing, but they also have Benny and Björn lip-sync some of the lines, so it appears that Frida and Agnetha’s voices are coming out of them.

You’ll notice that at times the lyrics become things they are saying to each other over a game of Fia-spel rather than coming across as being sung. They also do it in such a way that to the viewer it’s as if the person who lip-syncs lyrics is being given an answer in normal speech. It also dips in and out of those parts.

There seems to be two levels to this game between the members of ABBA. The first is just playing the game. The other is the higher level that intersects the first level at certain parts where lip-syncing happens. I’m sure there’s a connection to the game itself. However, I have never played any of the board games mentioned at the beginning of this post.

I’m not really sure what the purpose of the silent film look and obstructions in front of the camera are in the video. The silent film thing doesn’t even bookend the video. The obstructions add some style that doesn’t really work for me. I do like the spinning part. It fits with where the song is at that point. I think the rare cutaways to the guitar and piano are nice too. I can’t put it into words, but I think it was the right call to not show who’s playing. In any other ABBA music video, you’d see Benny and Björn during those parts.

Finally, the little pig-nose thing Agnetha does is nice. It’s moments like that which make me wonder how much of the music videos Hallström did with ABBA were scripted, and how much were improvised. I can’t imagine Hallström telling Agnetha to do that.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Knowing Me, Knowing You by ABBA (1977, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 10, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

It took 33 music videos, but I think I’ve reached what is my current favorite ABBA music video. This is the Snow Version of Knowing Me, Knowing You. We already did the Sailboat Version.

If there’s one thing that should be clear by now about ABBA music videos, it’s the importance of blocking in them. I think this video is one of the finest examples of that. I love the parts of the video where the person singing switches, but the camera doesn’t cut as you would normally expect it to. Instead, it either moves on its own to another member of the group, or follows one of them into another position onscreen.

The other reason I particularly like this music video is because it features more of Benny and Björn. It feels like a full group song and video rather than Agnetha and Frida with those two guys in the background of some shots. This allows them to do interesting things by having four people to work with in a greater capacity than previous videos.

My favorite example of this is when it starts with Agnetha and Frida walking…

past Benny and Björn…

where the camera stops for a bit to let them get out their backing vocals.

Then it quickly goes over to Agnetha and Frida who are in their typical headshot and profile-shot blocking.

They finish their part, and Agnetha walks over to stand between Benny and Björn.

The camera moves in to crop out Björn.

Finally, Angetha walks back over to Frida to be in the same headshot and profile-shot thing, but with her on the opposite side of Frida.

It also leads them symbolically out of the relationship of the song that ends with hugs, freeze-frames as they look back, and them walking off into the distance.

One last thing to take note of is that the video appears to begin with Agnetha and Frida having already left, as evidenced by their footprints in the snow–footprints we see them make at the end of the video.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective: