ABBA -- Super Trouper

 

Welcome to the regularly scheduled Reminiscings of Youth article for this week. The Swedish group ABBA has immortalized itself in Japan with their "Dancing Queen", a song that has become so ubiquitous in the karaoke boxes that it's practically an obligation to sing it on every visit.

Strangely enough, I never mentioned this in the "Dancing Queen" article, but ABBA was quite the common quartet on Canadian and American television when I was a kid because of the popularity of their disco hits in the 1970s. It would be a rare day when I either didn't see a compilation album on TV hawking an ABBA song or hear one of their tunes on the radio. Disco wasn't disco without them.

Therefore, it's a tad ironic that for the second ever ABBA song on KKP, I've chosen "Super Trouper", their November 1980 single. For one thing, I think it's probably the least disco of all of the songs I've heard by them and yet, next to "Dancing Queen", it's the one ABBA song that I remember the most. It's also catchy as heck in a children's song-like way especially when the chorus hits.

OK, we've established that "Super Trouper" is one of my cherished ABBA tunes but there is the matter of the title. For the longest time, I naturally assumed that it was talking about a really determined and heroic boy scout type but I only found out in the last few days that it was referring to a kind of massive spotlight and from the lyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, despite that super trouper and all of the other spotlights blinding a superstar on stage, she knows that her darling is out there somewhere looking out for her. Awww...💓

I actually looked forward to hearing "Super Trouper" when I was in the car or listening to the radio. But I found out that it didn't do all that amazingly well in Canada or the United States with the former's RPM showing a No. 32 ranking while in America, it only went as high as No. 45. However, it did hit No. 1 in several European nations although ABBA's native Sweden wasn't one of them; it peaked at No. 11 there.

So, what was up in the Top 3 of Oricon in November 1980?

1. Seiko Matsuda -- Kaze wa Aki Iro （風は秋色）

2. The Nolans -- I'm in the Mood for Dancing

3. Mayumi Itsuwa -- Koibito yo （恋人よ）

Tommy february6 -- je t'aime★je t'aime/I'm in the mood for dancing

It's been a little over a couple of years since I put up an article about the persona affected by singer-songwriter Tomoko Kawase（川瀬智子）of the brilliant green called Tommy february6. That first article was for her debut single "Everyday at the bus stop" from 2001.

However, I also remember this other single by Tommy that also did well on the charts. In fact, "je t'aime★je t'aime" was the highest-ranking song by the singer as it hit No. 5 on the Oricon weeklies after its release in February 2003. It ended up as the 65th-ranked single of the year and was a track on her 2004 album "Tommy airline" that peaked at No. 2.

Man, those intro synths! Watching the video and hearing the song again made me think that "je t'aime★je t'aime" was a hybrid of a story of the trial and tribulations of Harajuku romance brought to song by The Pet Shop Boys in the early 1980s. But to give credit where credit is due, it was MALIBU CONVERTIBLE behind the music and arrangements while Tommy february6 took care of the words. There is something appealingly weird about the video so that I could have envisaged it being shown on an episode of "City Limits", that after-hours video program that I used to watch on MuchMusic.

I see that John Arteaga who has commented on some of the early articles on the blog was responsible for the Spanish subtitles, so kudos to him.

The coupling song on the single was "I'm in the mood for dancing", the cover of the original hit disco tune by The Nolans. It's quite a cute synth update on the ol' chestnut that became a huge hit in Japan.

I'm including that original by the Irish pop vocal group of sisters since "I'm in the mood for dancing" is one of those songs that illustrates the phrase "Big in Japan". I mean that the song that came out in November 1979 has attained such legendary pop status in Japan that I used to hear the tune being used on a few commercials over the years such as ones for Softbank.

The song got its release in Japan in July 1980 where it was titled in Japanese as "Dancing Sisters"（ダンシング・シスター）. The disco beat is so imbued into it that I can't remember whether I had first heard it as a youth in Toronto or whether it hit me during my years in my adopted nation. But in Japan, it was one of the few non-Japanese songs to hit No. 1 on Oricon, selling around 700,000 records. On the Oricon Western singles chart, "I'm in the mood for dancing" ended up becoming the No. 1 song of the year. Ben Findon, Mike Myers and Bob Puzey were the songwriters. As for that middle contributor, I think I can safely say that it isn't the serial killer from "Halloween" or the local comedian who hit it big on "Saturday Night Live".