Supertrouper

ABBA have seldom been acknowledged by those who arbitrate or presume to arbitrate on matters of rock taste. Apart from a brief flirtation about five years ago, rock culture – in as much as the phrase actually signifies anything concrete – has continued to stick them with the legacy of their Eurovision success.

The group's enormous impact on the global consciousness if anything confirmed their inferior status. It was like an affront, the pre-eminence of this spotless, streamlined affirmation of wholesome middle class values. In as much as they dominated the airwaves and the charts and thus spawned a mini-industry of Abba copyists in the British and European music businesses, they were specifically working against the interest of rock 'n' rollers struggling to find a voice, to be given access to a means of articulation.

The disquieting thing was and is that, prejudice aside Abba's music has a seductive quality that's extremely hard to resist. Forget the past and the accumulated preconceptions about who they are and what they represent and the noise they make has a way of insinuating itself into the recesses of the subconscious the hapless subject never even knew existed.

And the residue they leave there is free of that aura of cheapness and venality that makes sensitive people abuse themselves for humming certain pop songs. That seductive surface obscures neither an entirely hollow centre nor a worm at the core of the perfect seeming apple but a complex and fascinating intermingling of impulses and influences, of which the extent of their popularity is in fact a reflection. The Abba myth – two apparently perfect married couples working alongside one another bearing living witness to the light entertainment values on which Establishment mass culture is based – was persuasive. But ultimately the music is even more persuasive. As the group itself hits turbulent waters on a personal level, and as the voices of the girls hint at a slightly more world-weary, wasted and worn quality here and there – they have produced an album which must rank with their best and a single of staggering commercial potential in the title track 'Super Trouper'.

Abba's distinctiveness stems from their relative ignorance of rock'n'roll. Ironically they have made a virtue of what many still consider their greatest weakness – their lack of swagger, of funk, of that fundamentally lascivious rhythmic thrust that put the pelvis into Elvis and earned for rhythm 'n' blues and its progeny the description 'the devil's music'.

By comparison, at times Abba sound like a host of heavenly cherubims and seraphims, a veritable angelic chorus – for a number of reasons, chief among which is the fact that they adapt to pop music the musical language of European devotional music. They are also influenced by a certain strain of Continental North European folk music, which evokes melodies, a voice thrown out and up towards the sky and whatever other force might be up there. Submerged into contemporary pop, these elements trigger responses in the individual based on the collective subconscious awareness of the sources, in a way analogous to the use of Irish music by the Radiators.

They also realise, in the active sense, better than most, the natural impulse to be melodic: just as dance is an intrinsic response to rhythm, which people clearly have to a greater and a lesser degree, but which is a fundamental form of human actions, so is there a fascination with song, with musical notes in sequences, with the naked human voice. In rock, melody is the lesser partner to rhythm – the contrary is true of Abba's music.

Finally, for the moment, there is the question of harmony. Part of the magic of Abba's music is based on the need people have to be given an image of perfection. Abba supply this with their Nordic handsomeness – whether I find them 'attractive' or not being entirely irrelevant to this – with the symmetry implicit in the concept (Abba – four people, a harmony of opposites and so on) but most significantly through their music. They echo the Beatles and most specifically the Beach Boys but have a distinctive stamp all of their own. People find those immaculate harmonies reassuring. Like master craftspeople making Swiss watches, they mesmerise with the precision of their art. Everything is split-second, finely honed, finished with style and superbly burnished. There is a natural aspiration towards perfection, a desire to exorcise inconsistencies and imperfections of this rotten world through creative activity. Abba vicariously fulfil that aspiration for an awful lot of people.

In a way, it's an impossible role with which to argue. For my own part, I find 'Super Trouper' dauntingly impressive in so many ways that I can no longer dismiss their charm out of hand. On a finer scale, they have developed considerably, leaving their disco phase behind and coming up with lyrics that are no longer naive to the point of bland stupidity. There is a cynicism in evidence that contradicts the global optimism of their music. 'Happy New Year' sounds as if that's what they're saying until you listen through and find that they have an inkling just how out of joint things are.

Nothing too deep mind. They'll never be contenders alongside Costello, or Parker or Neil Young but Chic, Blondie and the Specials are another matter entirely. I see no reason why this album shouldn't be given a fair listen.