ABBA-THE OFFICIAL PHOTO BOOK

Third ImageFrom Hardie Grant, the Abba-dabba-do official photo book, ABBA.
This chronological photo album is a coffee table tribute to the band that created adolescent boy and girl crushes through a series of wholesomely sexy video clips shot by Lasse Hallstrom.

It was the photogenics as much as the catchy tunes that catapulted this quartet into the cult of frock teasers and crowd-pleasers they became, and so it is more than apt that this book chronicles a colossal career in pictures- private, public, posed and candid.

Indeed, in the forward by the fabulous four, they state that in the dream decade that they were ABBA, there were two types of studios in their lives: the photo studio and the recording studio. “Don’t ask which we enjoyed most!”

The volume bookends the ABBA decade with pre and post phenomenon photos,– of the first bands, the Hep Stars and the Hootenanny Singers, record covers, publicity shots, and concert stuff – and the time after ABBA, giving us an update on these enduring performers, of where they are and what they’re doing.

An accompanying text illuminates the history of this band that created global hysteria, particularly in Australia. The phenomenal frenzy could have started earlier if they had not been relegated to third place in the Eurovision Song Contest the year before their conquest of the contest. Ring, Ring didn’t resonate with the judges who were to meet their Waterloo the following year.

Ring, Ring became a recording sensation in Sweden and the success convinced the loosely linked quartet to make their partnership permanent.

The rest is hysteria.

In 1975 they sent four promotional films to TV channels in countries ABBA would not have time to tour.

Playful and unpretentious and sexy, Mama Mia topped the Australian charts for ten weeks. They crossed over the mainstream and the gay culture, and inspired and contributed to two iconic Australian films, Muriel’s Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Even their self titled movie was shot predominantly in Australia with a distinctly Australian scenario.

A big, colourful doorstop of a book, ABBA: the official photo book contains over 600 classic, rare and unseen pictures which serves as a unique pictorial pastiche of one of pop’s enduring performance groups.

Mama Mia – thanks for the memories. Gimmee, Gimme, Gimmee!