Agnetha Fältskog: I Should’ve Followed You Home
Details
Genre: Adult contemporary, PopPros:
ABBA star reveals to the Twitter age how glorious pop music used to (and still should) soundCons:
A bit overdone with glamour pop schlamtzABBA star reveals to the Twitter age how glorious pop music used to (and still should) sound
ABBA star reveals to the Twitter age how glorious pop music used to (and still should) sound
Renowned soprano vocalist Agnetha Fältskog, best known for fronting the international pop group ABBA, hasn’t sung live in 25 years, but she hasn’t been in total isolation. Until her just-released album simply titled A, her 2004 covers-only album My Colouring Book and the Peter Cetera-produced I Stand Alone marks some of her most recent contributions to the lexicon of music history. But it’s not really a surprise for people to call Fältskog a recluse, especially since the idea of an ABBA reunion seems to almost be a thing of the past. But with one listen to the Gary Barlow/Jörgen Elofsson-penned “I Should’ve Followed You Home,” you may start thinking the impossible. After one listen, one can imagine this being a vault track from one of their final releases. It’s dripping with sultry strings, disco struts, AC-friendly piano, charming acoustic riffs and a majestic storyline. And then there’s the magic that happens when the former ABBA singer opens her mouth, revealing a set of youthful pipes that seems to have been chilled all these years for conservation. The track also shows her partnering up vocally with Barlow, the frontman for Brit pop group Take That. He’s a bit younger than Fältskog, 21 years younger actually. But it’s not something to seriously write home about: George Michael paired up with Aretha Franklin for 1988’s “I Knew You Were Waiting for Me” and they were also 21 years apart in age. But on this delicious dreamy piece of pop, Fältskog shows no signs of her age. She’s wrinkle-free, void of a hideous vibrato and still bears the magic heard on ABBA classics like “The Name of the Game.”
If her fellow ABBA stars did reunite – let’s say – for their upcoming 40th anniversary (which may be optional), we certainly know Fältskog would be ready from the very start. If you need some extra proof, check out her rare live performance with Barlow during this year’s benefit fundraiser Children In Need Rocks (see below), ultimately ending that dreadful 25 year gap from performing live on a stage. She seems a bit nervous and she doesn’t lock eyes with her young star for long, but she’s still in good condition.
