New ABBA film divides the sexes

11/07/2008

Could there be a biological explanation for why women seem to love the Abba songs so much more than men do? The new Mamma Mia film, which is going to be played in cinemas across the country this summer, has sparked an interesting debate about why women love Abba (and why men, in general, do not).

There may be a biological explanation for this musical gender split. Lesley Douglas, the co-ordinator of the BBC's popular music coverage, claims that men and women listen to music differently. Women, Douglas believes, are more likely to engage with music emotionally, whereas men are more analytical in their approach, obsessing over the fifth note in the third verse, or the catalogue number's rarity.

Journalist Nigel Farndale, writing in The Telegraph, disagrees with Douglas:
“I don't think she's right. Men and women experience music in the same emotional way, it's just that they talk about it differently.

One of the reasons I suspect men pretend they don't like ABBA is that the phenomenal success of the band seems to defy intellectual analysis. You could argue, for example, that Dancing Queen is the greatest pop song of all time because everyone in the Western world wants to get up and dance when they hear it.

But where is the intellectual satisfaction in saying that? It is not enough to sustain the male population conversationally for what is in store: a whole summer of ABBA-mania.”