Steven Hale
1 min readJan 15, 2022

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I'm hesitant to say that I've never gotten into a particular band because their music is uninteresting or monolithic, but I don't know any of these bands well enough to defend their honor. And it's unlikely I'll spend my sunset years trying to discover them.

I have heard lots of ABBA songs, but so has every boomer my age--I've also heard lots of Captain and Tenille. I like ABBA for two reasons: the song Fernando and the fact that they laid the groundwork for the current generation of Swedish musicians. Here's an example of a modern song that doesn't hide its debt to ABBA (though the lyrics are far more oblique than ABBA's). Infectious as all get out

Song: https://youtu.be/GeGgmMChUok

Lyrics translated: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/Sanningsdan-Day-Truth.html

Incidentally, some musicians that I really like sound pretty much the same on everything (but with different arrangements), e.g. Nico or Dr. John. I don't LOVE Credence, but I admire their consistency.

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Steven Hale
Steven Hale

Written by Steven Hale

Music: Discovering the lost and forgotten. Politics: Exposing injustice. Screenwriting: Emotional storytelling.

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