Skip to main content

The 100 greatest UK No 1s: No 9, Abba – Dancing Queen

This glittering pop track, laced with nostalgia, yearning harmonies and a glorious piano line, has inspired many imitators – and some covers during lockdown

It takes 18 seconds for Dancing Queen to drop into one of the greatest moments in pop. It speaks volumes that the 18 seconds preceding it are pretty wonderful too: that song bursting into life on that impossibly joyous piano glissando, before eight bars of sparkling, effortless mid-tempo pop.

Then Agnetha Fältskog and Frida Lyngstad start to sing, effectively bringing us into the middle of a chorus. Their lyrics should scan as simple, bouncy instructions (“You can dance / You can jive / Having the time of your life”) but the women’s longing harmonies transform them. Stretched over two yearning notes, the word “you” is delivered to the listener as if Agnetha and Frida are trying desperately to fill them with confidence. As they sing “having the time of your life”, the melody takes a downward, melancholic turn, and the bassline follows. A moment of enjoyment turns into something sadder, more reflective, perhaps one of nostalgia.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2XyFIBH
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Knives Out review – Daniel Craig goes Columbo in Cluedo whodunnit

Craig grills an all-star lineup of suspects when a wealthy novelist is found dead in Rian Johnson’s sharp, country-house murder mystery R ian Johnson unsheathes an entertainingly nasty, if insubstantial detective mystery with his new film, Knives Out. Back in 2005, his debut movie Brick (a high-school thriller) paid tribute to the hardboiled noir genre. Now he does the same thing for cosy crime, although there is nothing that cosy about it. Knives Out has a country house full of frowning suspects, deadpan servants and smirking ne’er-do-wells and an amusing performance from Daniel Craig as Benoît Blanc, the brilliant amateur sleuth from Louisiana who annoys the hell out of one and all by smiling enigmatically, occasionally plinking a jarring high note on the piano during the drawing-room interrogation and pronouncing in his southern burr: “Ah suh-spect far-wuhl play!” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2L0NKO4
Post a Comment
Read more

Thirty Years of Adonis film review: sexually explicit gay drama mixes porn and pomposity

1/5 stars The line between soft-core porn and pompous art-house cinema grows ever finer in the seventh feature by writer, director and producer Danny Cheng Wan-cheung, also known as Scud. Intended as a philosophical statement about the meaninglessness of life, Thirty Years of Adonis instead comes across as a badly misjudged piece of sensationalist filmmaking. God’s Own Country review: gay love story set in the Yorkshire countryside The film revolves around aspiring gay actor Adonis Yang... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2qgQkop
Post a Comment
Read more

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV
Post a Comment
Read more