Books about ABBA and related subjects

ABBA biographies, musical examinations and pictorial surveys

Great book review in Swedish weekend supplement

published March 16, 2022

Wow, is all I can say, after having read culture journalist Jan Gradvall's review of ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions in today's DI Weekend, the weekend supplement of Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri. I'm flattered, to say the least.

Here is the review, with a translation in English following below.

450 pages of culture history

BOOK. Music history feels inadequate to describe what Carl Magnus Palm achieves with ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions, a book financed through crowdfunding.

The book was first published in 1994. This new edition is four times as long - a total of 450 large-size pages - and details ABBA's recordings, day by day, throughout the group's entire career.

Research feels like just as relevant a word as music history.

The result offers a unique insight into how the foremost Swedish pop group of all time created and worked concretely. A random browsing: What were ABBA doing on 7 February 1979? Answer: They began recording a song written in the Bahamas with the working title 'Tidernas blåsning', later retitled 'Kisses Of Fire'.

The scope of the research is staggering, with a flowing narrative and a will to enlighten all the way through. Carl Magnus Palm deserves recognition as one of Sweden's foremost cultural historians.

BBA - The Complete Recording Sessions (revised and expanded edition)

ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions (revised and expanded edition). Published March 31, 2017. English language. 448 pp. Hardback. CMP Text. ISBN: 978-91-639-2656-3 (or 9789163926563). Sold out (but ebook still available).