Happy Birthday Björn & The Most ABBA-esque Artists

Today is ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus' 65th Birthday, so I first wanted to say Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Björn's contributions to ABBA's music is undeniable, as lyricist, guitar player, supporting vocalist, and lead vocalist on many songs.

I would also like to take a little time to write about the groups that are most like ABBA. As a crazily obsessed ABBA fan, I often find myself wishing for more. With only about 100 unique songs (by that I mean excluding the many non-English versions as well as remixes and live performances), ABBA's catalogue is rather small relative to those of other highly successful artists.
One of the side effects of this is that if I am in a particularly ABBA-ey mood, I often must listen to similar artists in addition to their music because 8 studio albums are easy to cycle through and even become tired of. There, I said it in print: Sometimes I get tired of ABBA's music. Not because it is bad, but because one could easily listen through most or all of their 8 albums in a single day, leaving one with the option of listening to the same songs over and over if one wants to relive the ABBA experience.

So, on to the most ABBA-like artists (all are more or less contemporaries of ABBA):
Brotherhood of Man (UK, 1974-1980, Pop) <= Actually 1969-Pres, but these were their years of success in their second, more ABBA-esque, lineup
Boney M. (Germany, 1975-1986, Disco, Pop)
Baccara (Spain, 1977-1981, Disco)
Silver Convention (Germany, 1974-1979, Disco)
Arabesque (Germany, 1977-1984, Disco)
Carpenters (America, 1969-1983, Pop)
Champagne (Holland, 1977, Pop)

All of the artists above attained some measure of success, although none (with the possible exception of Boney M.) even approached the level of popularity internationally as ABBA. Of course, the Carpenters were far more successful stateside than ABBA, but ABBA's sheer chart dominance throughout Europe, Africa, Australia, and Japan was unrivaled.

Boney M., my second favourite group (only behind ABBA), were a German disco group produced by Frank Farian. Their music, most of which featured lead vocals by Liz Mitchell, often had a Jamaican sound blended with the disco style common in Germany at the time. Many of their songs, especially El Lute, have been likened to ABBA. Boney M.'s years of greatest success were 1975-1979, which means their success was eclipsed by ABBA's in terms of the number of years, with ABBA's main success spanning from 1974-1981.

Brotherhood of Man was in many ways the British answer to ABBA. They won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1976 (as ABBA had done in 1974), and one of their hit songs, "Angelo," is essentially a knock-off of ABBA's Fernando. I should admit, however, that I actually prefer "Angelo" to the ABBA song. Champagne was essentially Holland's answer to ABBA.

Both Baccara and Silver Convention competed in the Eurovision Contest in the years following ABBA's rise to fame after having won in 1974, but neither won. Nevertheless, both entries were very ABBA-esque, especially Silver Convention's "Telegram." Baccara's music was very Spanish flamenco-ey disco, kind of a cross between ABBA and Santa Esmeralda, while Silver Convention's music was firmly in the Munich sound, with its heavy string and orchestral sound.

Arabesque also had sounds in the same vain of these two artists and of ABBA. Arabesque are probably the most ABBA-esque and the least original, as unlike the others, their music seemed to have very little regional or stylistic uniqueness.

The Carpenters were quite ABBA-esque in their own way, although it should be recognized that they had their first hits prior to ABBA's formation. The sheer intricacy of their vocal harmonies and care taken to create a layered sound is highly reminiscent of ABBA, but the Carpenter's instrumentation tended to be less complex than ABBA's.

One thing that should be recognized is that all of these artists are regularly compared to ABBA (whenever I read reviews of many other pop and disco artists of the time, I see similar references to ABBA), and not the other way around. I never see comparisons of an ABBA song to, say, a Boney M. or Carpenters song. Not that both of those artists didn't create highly unique music, but ABBA were in many ways the trend-setters of European Pop in the 1970s, and are therefore the yardstick by which other artists are compared.

UPDATE (2 June 2012): See my recent post featuring a 2-disc compilation of ABBA-esque songs :)