This article appears as part of the Herald Arts newsletter.
It’s one of those great pub argument prompts isn’t it – which is the most influential band ever?
Someone is bound to lay The Beatles down early. It’s what I call the Citizen Kane play, after the Orson Welles movie which routinely topped those Best Ever lists until people discovered films with subtitles.
Someone else will make a left-field choice – probably The Velvet Underground or The Stooges – and before long you’ll have run through all the old favourites, from the Stones and Led Zep to the Sex Pistols and The Beach Boys. Some joker will mention Pink Floyd and get sent to the bar for the next round in disgrace (and don’t forget the crisps. Anything but salt and vinegar).
Each of those acts has its merits (though only one had Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico in the same room at the same time). But in the tap room of my imagination I always end up circling back to two acts, neither one of them British or American.
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First up, four German dudes who liked cycling and computers. Second, a Swedish quartet who, had it been possible, would have broken the internet on April 6, 1974 when they won the Eurovision Song Contest. Delivered in English by two glamorous female singers, their entry was an expertly-pitched pop banger that turned the travails of a well-known French general into a metaphor for doomed love.
So yes, it’s either Kraftwerk or ABBA for me.
Today it’s ABBA’s........