Part One: Frida knows that there’s something going on.
Swedish auto exports might have been booming in the 1980’s, but the second biggest export industry, ABBA, was in a state of flux. The polyester divorce between those that crafted (Benny + Bjōrn) versus those who sang (the Agnetha and Anni Frid bookends) meant that a lot of things were done or not done to apply a more modern coat of paint on the public personae of these free agent honeys.
By 1983, the Iron Curtain’s totalitarian surveillance of the phone lines of the petit bourgeois seemed like it was subsiding – Perestroika was in springtime fashion, and all that the KGB gleaned from all that listening in was that everyone was just tired of waiting so long for a 3 speed automatic Lada that was lovingly derived from a 1971 Fiat Unisesquecenta. No amount of gulag labor would match the faultless finesse of Italian hatchback engineering.
So the paranoia of ABBA’s final album, the Visitors, seemed ill placed by the time it was released. Under Attack? By High prices! One of Us? Gets to Buy Bananas This Week. When All Is Said And Done, the Yankees are going to win this long war of Seven Continent Stud. I fold, said Gorbachev, without even looking at the hand he was dealt.
With the ladies of ABBA, there was also an ideological split between the two females:
Frida from ABBA was the Rhoda to the Agnetha that was the Mary. She always had to try harder – and while she probably got laid more, she had more to prove. Agnetha could just put on a fuzzy oversized sweater ftom the Misses section at Åhléns Department Store, look cross-eyed at the camera in a glassy, aquavit-haze, and dutifully lay down some uninspiring tracks, dialing it in with her bland interpretation of a session writer’s version of a credit by exam, and call it a day. She had the aspirations of someone who had it all handed to her, the flycka with the golden hair. Ask any brown eyed morena in a Latin family and she will have lots to say about her fairer sister who will not so much as lift a finger.
But not Frida. She was actually the result of a eugenics exercise, her dad having donated her to the Quisling Baby Machine that was ready to repopulate Fennoscandia with white beauties that physically resembled the Nordic ideal. When World War II ended, so did the experiment, and Frida would therefore have to outdo her peers.
A conversation between Frida and her daddy:
“Frida, I know it’s time to try new things, but what’s up with the accusations? Why are you calling me long distance at 4am Stockholm standard time?”
“Blah blah blah”
“Who gave you those pep pills? Oh, they are not your usual lady diet aids? They are what? SPEED? Some man named Phil Collins gave them to you?”Amphetamines are practically part of the standard issue these days?”
“But I like him, daddy! He gets this look in his eyes wherever there is a chance to put spare, brassy drum beats in the middle of awkward silence! Don’t make me choose. I never have had to choose, unless you are referring to my hair style, in which case… I’m going with the Ziggy Stardust wet look, Phil says it’s sexier to look like a cranky divorcée.”
“Veruca, whatever you want sweetie.”
Frida was at least willing to let others experiment on her. The result was an apex of paranoia for her solo debut. “I know there’s something going on” could have been a Genesis top 40 track, with drums that make In The Air Tonight feel like “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport” There are lots of very percussive moments in this song, it is more Collins than Collins himself.
Oh wait! Phil Collins also chose the same suspicious partner subject matter for HIS debut? You don’t say! So you can wipe off that grin, we know where he’s been. I guess he still had not gotten his point across to his ex, and much like a psycho ex who gets a Google Voice number to have the last word after you blocked their main number, Phil Collins decided to have the last word by using his rebound girlfriend, i.e. Frida, to convey the message. Even the album cover is a wimmins lib alternative to the way too zoomed in, severed head look of all of Phil’s early albums, a design aesthetic that could only have been dreamed up by a narcissist that’s also astigmatic. A lacking depth perception also implies a lack of ego.
Thematically, bitter ex lovers and their divorce paranoia would make a lot of sense for the mid 1980’s, as the divorce rates would skyrocket in the Thatcher-Reagan era.
But sadly, Frida and her first attempt to go it alone (with a little help from the guy she’s shacking up with) would not skyrocket in the charts. Her song peaked at a modest #13 in America.
But at least she tried. You likely don’t know what Agnetha’s contemporaneous music sounded like. Let me just yet you, it was BAD. More cliche and saxophone action than you can imagine on a single square inch of music.
Part II: the girl with the golden hair who just did not care (coming soon)
