> nobody is forcing you to listen

Not entirely true.

I grew up in the Abba years. I loath Abba's brand of (imho, of course) bubblicious pseudo-music. "Dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen. Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine, oh yeah."

Nauseating.

But there's no denying they were very popular. Particularly, it seems, the adults around me who wanted to appear hip and happening. Abba were clean, and nice. White. Blonde. No swearing, no harsh guitar riffs, no screaming feedback, no weird waily Moog solos.

And you can tell me I didn't have to listen to them, but you'd be wrong. Everywhere I went, every party, every shopping mall,... anywhere a radio played, there was Abba. There was no escape.

Do remember that the bliss and privacy of a Sony Walkman was a thing yet to be invented. It was, I admit, the 1970's, and there's no known cure. So no way to remove yourself by virtual means when your space got invaded by "You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life; See that girl, watch that scene, diggin' the dancing queen," except by actually running far, far away. Even then chances were pretty good that all you'd achieve would be "Hasta mañana 'til we meet again, Don't know where, don't know when". No, there really was no escape.

The worst was getting stuck in a car with some people I was staying with (as an exchange student) for several months, getting taken to on some rare treat expedition. Need I say they were huge Abba fans. The sheer torture of sitting in a metal box, hour after hour, locked in with, "Do you hear the drums, Fernando?" They'd even sing along! Now, I've been stuck on long car journeys with other people whose musical taste I fail to share. I've endured Slim Whitman, Diana Ross and the Supremes and even Tom Jones (second incarnation), and though I never did get persuaded round to their view, I nevertheless came away from each of those trips a richer person. I'd learn to appreciate something, no matter how small, in the music I didn't really like much. Once I was taken, at, I assume, considerable expense, to a live concert of Harry Belafonte. I'd never heard of him. The ticket was wasted on me, but my generous and gracious host clearly thought that Harry's brand of music and entertainment was the best thing since Astroturf. And though, aged 16, I lacked the context, the cultural background to truly love the music, I came away forced to confess that I had actually quite enjoyed it. Not something I'd run out to do again, necessarily, but as a one-time thing, I had a good time. "Day-O. Day-ay-ay-O. Daylight come and me wanna go home."

But Abba, I fear, no matter how harmless, no matter how sweet and innocuous just made me want to bite the heads off kittens.

Waterloo - I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo - promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo - couldn't escape if I wanted to
Waterloo - knowing my fate is to be with you

Time is the great healer. All things pass, and so did the 70's. Abba, along with covers of their songs too numerous to mention by artists too talentless to remember, endured astonishingly longer than deserved. It must have been well into the era of Ian Drury and Sid Vicious before Abba finally - blessedly - began to fade from the public mind.

Just when I though it was safe to once again listen to music in random public places, some idiot decided to cash in on the nostalgia of an older generation. Yes, they made an Abba musical. Dear gods. How do I escape this madness. This sickness. My life has been subjected to an on-going cruel and unusual punishment from which, it seems, I am unable to flee. What devil's work is this, this Abba Life?

Finally I can return to the present. We'd survived the all too enduring Madness, some of us by chewing limbs off to escape. Thankfully by the time of the Return of the Madness we had some better options. We stuck earbuds in our ears and cranked the volume on our iPods to deafness inducing levels, drowning out "Chiquitita, you and I know
How the heartaches come and they go and the scars they're leaving" with the symphonic grandeur of Iron Maiden. Oh yes, at least we had an Abba block plugin.

At last Abba fades. Some of us who passed through the Uncanny Valley live on in fear and terror that the Vikings may yet raid again. After all, how many time did Tom Jones managed to get himself resuscitated?

Mamma mia, here I go again
My my, how can I resist you?
Mamma mia, does it show again?
My my, just how much I've missed you

No. Sometimes they really are forcing you to listen.