The video to “Sledgehammer” reads like Teletubbies on angel dust, or a kindergarten K hole. But the lyrics of the song are inspiring and a call to arms for someone who’s down on their luck.
Backlashes work in all directions, at least they went every which way in the Winter of Discontent in the late 1970’s in the UK.
I live for surprises. I am the only white boy I know that has multiple Yarbrough and Peoples singles, can sing all the traditional Spanish folk songs thanks to Joan Baez, and who listens to ABBA in its original native Klingon.
The adjacent suburbs of New York City, that’s where the Roches came from. Not a household name by any measure, but nevertheless an interesting group of Irish American singing sisters who typify the results of the 1970’s music scene.
I can still remember the first time I heard “Take A Chance On Me” by ABBA – it was so different, so interesting and unlike anything I had heard before, that I almost erupted in a cheerful enthusiasm that is the closest to a Pentecostal moment I’ve ever had before.
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.