Sunday Music – Move On

Posted on Sun 11/15/2015 by TonyfromOz

Today’s music video is Move On and the song is performed here by the Swedish Supergroup ABBA.

This video was posted to You Tube by Kanaal van dholm13

I have often mentioned here in my Sunday Music Posts that each new generation thinks that it was theirs who actually ‘invented’ new music, that all the music which came before their own brand of music was not really all that good, and they even grumble as new music comes along, saying that it is not as good as the music there was when they first came to their own appreciation of music.

That may even have been the case for me as well, I suppose, as I came to appreciate music during the early and mid 1960’s when all that wonderful music started coming out of the UK. I grumbled as Punk Music arrived. I cringed when Disco started to take over. I hated Rap music. I had those bands and artists I liked and I concentrated on the new music that they came out with, and there was just so much of it to keep liking.

In the early and mid 1970’s, a new band called ABBA came along. The music was heavily ‘Pop’ oriented, and I suppose because of that, I was supposed to not really like them. However, what I did find was that as each new song from ABBA came along, I found I didn’t really mind their songs. You couldn’t miss them, because so many of them became Number One Hits, and in fact, Monster hits at that.

This actually caused me to think about new music as it came around, more than I had ever done before. Gradually, I came to appreciate more music than I thought I liked, well, was supposed to like anyway.

ABBA were around for quite a long time, and not just with the odd hit here and there but absolute Monster smash hits time and again. This band was the World’s biggest band for a number of years. They produced hit after hit after hit. Some diehard old school thinkers still grumbled that it was just too much Formula Pop Music, but hey, when you find something people actually like, then you keep doing what it is that the people will keep liking. I liked the songs I did hear on the radio, and how could you miss them, as there were just so many of them, but as much as I liked them, it was not enough to make me shell out my own cash to buy their albums.

Sometime in the late 1980’s I actually did buy some of their music, and it was a Four CD Boxed Set of all their hits, a four CD set no less. Some bands were hard pressed to bring out one album of their greatest hits and here was ABBA with a four CD set of them, with 80 songs on it, and I knew every one of them.

Again, what this then did was to make me think even more about their music, and what I found was some of the other music on their later albums especially was really good, more than just ‘formula pop music’.

I heard this one song I have featured today only once before and I really liked it, but, again, it was soon forgotten, until I heard it again the other day played on the radio. My wife heard the introduction on the radio, and as it started, she commented that this was not ABBA. I hadn’t heard the intro, but I then did listen, and it sounded familiar, even if that first stanza is just the spoken word. The second verse was more recognisable, that unmistakable voice of Agnetha Fältskog, the blonde usually known as Anna.

I immediately recognised the song as the one I had first heard so many years back, and when the song finished, I chased it up, found it, and made the decision to feature it for today’s music video clip.

This song was never released as a Single, and was on their huge album, titled as just The Album, their fifth studio album, released in late 1977. Three Singles were lifted from this album, and as I have found with nearly every album I own, there is usually one song on the album I like better than any of the songs released as Singles, even if those Singles are smash hits.

This song was written by Benny and Björn, who wrote nearly every one of the ABBA songs, usually with the assistance of a third writer, Stig Anderson, the manager of this famous band. The first stanza of this song is spoken word and is done here by Björn. With the start of the second stanza, his wife at the time, Agnetha comes in with her beautiful voice.

The song is not really formula pop music per se, and is somewhat of a departure from the brand of music that was made so famous by this band.

There are no live clips of the band performing the song, so this video clip for today is the album version of the song with images of the band through their years together.

It’s hard to believe that this band is second only to The Beatles in the number of records sold across the years. that figure of records sold ranges from 300Million up to possibly 500 Million.

While some people say that ABBA was just another Pop music band, they were much more than that. Their music endures even now, while some bands are long forgotten, as big as they were in their day.