And this is a problem why? Barry Manilow wrote ad jingles, as did most of the Brill Building. Money is money…screw “Art.”
Did Barry Manilow ever apear on TV singing “Oh Esso, you came and you gave without taking”, while enjoying Esso’s many fine products? No, and as fond as I am of the works of Andersson/Ulvaeus, I have to say that this is a particularly grotesque sell-out.
It takes a special kind of person to criticize someone for doing something over thirty years ago.
Sung well, though.
I think I remember these ads.
Wait, was ABBA supposed to have some kind of integrity at any point?
You beat me to it.
Yes, the integrity required to succeed and enjoy their life perhaps?
ABBA forking rules!
I agree with you, actually. I like ABBA too. I just don’t think they ever held themselves as some kind of high art. It’s entertainment, and fun. Commercials probably kept them in the public eye, people remembered their songs, and record sales increased. They were able to keep making more music and became big enough that decades later they are still beloved and earn more fans. I guess it’s like earning respect in reverse, so how can they be held to an ideal that is given them now, only because they did what they did then?
The mind boggles (well, mine anyway). And hell, even Dylan does commercials now.
I don’t understand what you’re getting at. I enjoy ABBA, but “integrity” doesn’t really describe anything about them. They were always aiming for maximum sales, not critical respectability.
Is this “National” company related in any way to BASF? The jist of the ads was very reminiscent of those “We don’t make a lot of the things you buy; we make a lot of the things you buy better” ads BASF was running a while back.
[sub]I found the Lysol douche ad rather amusing, too.[/sub]
It’s a brand of Panasonic - thus the ‘just slightly ahead of our time’ tagline.
Even if it was a different band, what’s the problem? Wouldn’t you rather have a nicer sounding jingle or whatever? I really don’t see it.
Thanks 
If the ads really are from '75 and aimed for the U.S. market, it explains part of it. ABBA always had problems making it as big in the U.S. as they did in other places. Part of it was because Agnetha had a pathological fear of flying, and really never was all that comfortable on stage (she lives as a recluse now). It just might be that by recording these commercials, they were tryin to get more name recognition in the U.S., because by '75 they were making enough mney in Europe, Australia and S. America never having to work again.
No shame in that. Salman Rushdie wrote “Naughty, but nice” to promote cream, and Fay Weldon helped devise “Go to work on an egg”.
Not that I’m comparing Rushdie to Abba in terms of artistic integrity, though lately I’ve been marvelling at the sheer musical quality of their pop (my wife’s a fan you see).
The V/O narrator would have had to sound American. To my ears, he sounds Down-Underish.
I was prepared for some serious cheese, but the ads aren’t all that bad (for the time). At least most show products. The first one (all-singing, no-product) does suck.
I love it when Björn is loading what look like loose pharmaceuticals into his briefcase, and Frida sticks her big ole bare feet into the air so Benny can vacuum under the couch.
The ads are most definitely Australian. Abba were huge there for a while, and I mean Beatles-huge.