BEAT, September (?) 2001

"I heard the riff on 'SOS' - one simple repeated octave pattern. All I did was take that pattern and alter it slightly." Thus Glen Matlock - the Sex Pistol with the Pop sensibility that informs all their greatest moments - composed 'Pretty Vacant', and Punk Rock was forever in Abba's debt. Agnetha was confused - and no doubt a little frightened - when Sid Vicious acknowledged as much when he saw Abba at an airport, staggering up ("...drunkenly", as she diplomatically put it) to get their autographs.

This is a telling story not only because of the way it illustrates that Abba were cool way before their hi-jacking by the camp and the gay, but because it highlights a theme that runs throughout Carl Magnus Palm's brilliant biography "Bright Lights, Dark Shadows". It seems that Abba never really understood their appeal, from the initial miscalculation that led to their worse-than-murder birth as a cabaret act to their underwhelmed surprise at their all-conquering revival. When asked at the height of their re-discovery if he had any questions for his fans Benny said; "I'd like to ask them why we are so popular with gay people".

The overwhelming air of total bemusement that fuddles their friendly faces on arriving in Australia, and the way it gives way to frustrated incomprehension as the tour goes on, is one of the enduring features of the singularly unendearing "Abba The Movie". And who wouldn't be a little nonplussed? "By the time they arrived in Australia they were all grown up. The guys had been major teen stars already in Sweden. Abba were all settled down with children, and then they arrive in Australia to thousands of screaming teenagers! They though it was very odd. It was very odd. I still don't really understand it."

Carl agrees that they seem a strangely a-sexual focus for such adoration. "Absolutely! I think that you can tell just by looking at Agnetha and Frida on stage that they had no idea about the sex-symbol thing - completely unaware that there were people in the audience who would like to…well…you know! Agnetha was turning her back to the audience because she was nervous, not to show her bottom." In one legendary UK TV interview, when asked about her prize-winning derriere, Agnetha famously responded with an exasperated sigh. "The thing with my bottom?" she said "It just keeps getting bigger."

He professes to have never seen the interview, and if I hadn't seen it myself I would take Carl Magnus Palm's word for it and assume it was apocryphal. "Bright Lights, Dark Shadows" is an astonishingly thorough and detailed book. Carl guides us through its near-550 pages with a permanently raised eye-brow, treating surreal moments - like Benny's meeting with Kim Fowley in 1966 to discuss the lanky latter's stealing of a chorus from the chubby former's band The Hep Stars - with a relish for their glorious absurdity, guiding us through the labyrinthine minutiae of Svengali Stig Anderson's financial ventures with a sure hand, and documenting the personal jubilations and tribulations of the personal histories of the band without resorting to prurient voyeurism. It is a book that combines the scholarly rigour of the historian with the implicit understanding of the fan. And most important of all, it doesn't stop treating Abba as a subject worthy of such serious consideration for a second. "I don't think anyone would have been interested in talking to me unless they were absolutely sure I was going to write honestly and truthfully about what went on. I was coming from a different perspective - what interested me first was the music, not the personal traumas or the business deals."

It was his love of Abba's songs that led to Carl Palm writing 'The Abba Bible' - The Complete Recording Sessions. A work of staggering detail inspired by a similar book about the Beatles, it was the interviews with the band conducted for this book in 1993 that convinced him there was a need for a full biography. "I just realised that what was going on underneath was extremely interesting. These weren't the caricature Swedes that the tribute bands portray - all this "we heff to heff our peeckled hair-rings" business. They were very sharp guys indeed. And they were the absolute antithesis of what rock and roll supposedly stands for - Bruce Springsteen in his flanny riding down Thunder Road. A totally different concept."

Of course, 'concept' may not be quite the right word. We're hardly dealing with the stylistic rigours of a Kraftwerk here. But then again, nor are we dealing with the crass commercialism of an Aqua. "Many of Abba's trademarks began by accident - but then they were very quickly capitalised on, and now have become icons almost. Those video clips that were so distinctive and similar stylistically (and so crucial in Abba's worldwide success, coinciding perfectly with the rise of Pop TV and its insatiable desire for video-clips) were simply the result of director Lasse Hallstrom having to make something distinctive very quickly and very cheaply. And Abba were originally interested in him more for his work with TV comedy that music. The only direction he ever got from the band was Benny telling him that people must be able to see the group clearly! And the costumes! Bjorn has said that Abba were never very style-conscious. Benny said that nobody had ever been so ugly on stage. Yet now things like the Cat-dress costumes and the star-shaped guitar are recognised everywhere as part of the Abba 'style' And like many aspects of their success, it was somehow all the more charming for its naivety, for its lack of calculation. And the same goes for the songs - they are simply brilliant songs."

'Bright Lights Dark Shadows' greatest achievement is to never forget that throughout Abba's entire history, what has set them apart from the rest is the sheer size and quality of the body of work. Carl Palm accurately attributes the failure of would-be multi-media millionaire Stig Anderson to become a Swedish Richard Branson to the man's inability to recognise this. "He simply believed that if people had been telling him that making a Swedish group into an international phenomenon couldn't be done, then why should he listen to them when they said he couldn't expand into non-musical areas?" His over-ambition would cost him dear, dragging him into alcoholism and ostracising him completely from former friends Bjorn and Benny, who tired of having Abba's name associated with his interminably complicated and basically questionable schemes.

The songs also remain as powerful now as ever, transcending the circumstances of their writing and scuppering any critics who felt that the interest in them was some kind of subliminal voyeurism. "There is certainly an element of that involved, and it is something that makes their story particularly poignant. But it wasn't something that only began as they became famous. Their relationships had always been marked by tension and incompatibilities." The book is unstinting in its documenting of these tensions - Agnetha in particular seems to have been astonishingly frank about her personal life at all stages of her relationship with Bjorn. "She was unbelievably forthright in interviews! I was astonished at how openhearted they all were! I was surprised to discover that it wasn't all the work of a couple of journalists out to stir gossip, but rather that Abba simply talked about their relationships perfectly openly from day one with everyone. In fact Bjorn and Agnetha said - and Benny later agreed - that if it hadn't been for Abba, they would have split up years before. Some people stay married for the sake of the children, they stayed together for the sake of Abba!"

But as many reluctant divorces testify, determination to make things work rarely makes things work. The relationships collapsed - or rather the partners faced up to their collapse - and Abba as a creative force soon followed. And that seemed to be it. So sure was Bjorn that Abba were history that he sold his rights to the songs. And then the revival. Muriel's Wedding, Erasure, Mama Mia. And the tribute bands.

After swapping favourite Abba songs and laughing about my fondness for 'Why Did It Have To Be Me?' Carl Palm has to be off. He's going to Chadstone. "I have to go to sign the books. Molly Meldrum will be there, and this tribute band - Babba. I'm sure it will be just wild," he says glumly. I admit that I won't be there. He nods. "I understand." As I get out of the lift I realise that I've got 'Thankyou For The Music' in my head. I'm not embarrassed a bit.

DUSTY STUDD