Dear ABBA,
I hope this letter finds you well.
As a child growing up in the 1970's, your music was inescapable. Thankfully, songs like "Take A Chance On Me", "Mamma Mia", and "Dancing Queen". among others, were superbly crafted slices of pop perfection that still sound current to this day.
While the group never officially broke up after that fateful "final" performance in December 1982, the group's commercial success had been on a steady decline. When the band sang "All I do is eat and sleep and sing, wishing every show was the last show" (from the song "Super Trouper"), the truth was that we too were burned out and needed a break.
Of course, the music itself, considered by many to be ahead of its time, continued to enjoy a vibrant after-life and the band's popularity has continued to grow over the years, but when a concert promoter offered the group's leaders Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson a billion dollar guarantee to reform in 2000, the duo swiftly declined. This, of course, only added to the folklore and led many to give up on their dream of ever seeing the group perform live, instead celebrating the group's music by attending shows by any number of professional tribute acts touring the world.
Of course, then came the hugely successful stage play, "Mamma Mia", which enjoyed a historic run on Broadway before setting similar records in regional runs throughout the country before making the jump to the big-screen, where it flopped.
If not for that, the play's continuing success would have surely left the band's music to be continually interpreted (i.e., butchered) by one regional theatre group or another until we completely forget the potency of the original recordings.
It's time to kill off the tribute bands, stage plays, and motion picture treatments of said stage plays and allow the members of ABBA to reclaim the music that is yours and yours alone.
For this reason alone, this writer is begging you - Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Anni-Frid - to reform now while you can still perform the music as it deserves to be heard and we are all young enough to enjoy it.
If not now, when?
Signed,
A fan
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abba reunion