I once saw Grace Slick point out where LEO was hiding so people could throw stuff at them
OK man, just put me out of my misery. Who are or were LEO ?
Abba is STILL a phenomenon here. It's kind of compulsory to say you don't know any but be able to sing along with them all.
I remember my first exposure to them ~ I was 11 and it was the 1974 Eurovision song contest which they won with "Waterloo." It was a great song, so exciting, melodically magnificent and I loved it. In those days my sisters and I were very competitive when it came to the ESC. We were always manic for the UK to win and up until 1976 always had what felt like worthy songs in the contest {my faves being in '72 and '73}. I think "Long live love" by Olivia Newton~John was the entry that year. I thought it could win. We always used to laugh at Norway getting 0 points each year and we'd think, "why do they even bother ?" and I could never work out why Israel were in it. But the winning songs weren't usually much cop. I always thought the UK entries were better ~ but not in '74. ABBA were different class.
But not at the time. We were such bad losers ! I thought "who are these Swedes ?" I did appreciate Sweden later that year in the world cup but I pretended to hate ABBA for many years while secretly liking their songs. I was a bit miffed that they knocked "Bohemian Rhapsody" from no.1 in the charts in early '76 but not too miffed because I had a complete recording of the song from the radio without the DJ yakking over it.
Now, I don't care. Some of the greatest slices of pop came from ABBA. I have a 550 page biography of them that's been on my bookshelf since about 2001 or 2002. I keep telling myself I must get down to reading it !
SLADE. They never made it in the US. Holder and Lea wrote albums worth of magnificent songs
Didn't they just ! Slade to me are just one of those great bands that loads of people have either missed out on or never taken seriously. I can understand the latter ~ in England they were huge in the early 70s and because they racked up 6 consecutive no.1s, had loads of hits, did "Merry Christmas, everybody" and played with a smile and wore daft glam clothes, they were not perceived as a band that did albums and that had a serious and deep side to them which is a shame because they were such a heavy rocking and versatile band. They got that wonderful balance between heavy rock and pop sensibility that the Sweet always strove for and rarely achieved {although they also were a great and underrated band}.
Slade's melodic gift could be breathtaking, I think of a song like "Take me bak ome" which has a riff to kill for, a melody to die for and a bass part to come back from the dead for ! But they were versatile enough to come up with imaginative pieces like "The shape of things to come," "In for a penny," "How does it feel ?" and "Everyday." They were part of the air I breathed as a child but their music has aged so well the older I've got.