My text about Jean-Marie Potiez and his book "ABBA Les coulisses du succès"

 

With ABBA Les coulisses du succès, published in March 2014 at the Renaissance du livre editions, Jean-Marie Potiez enlarges once again his book list about the mythical Swedish group whose story has been told many times by lots of writers or fans, for example Carl-Magnus Palm, Frédéric Courcier, Mikory Anderson (fan), Becky Laine (fan) and others or the ABBA members themselves. "Encore un livre sur ABBA!" (A book about ABBA, again!) has said André Torrent (RTL animator) in the preface he wrote for Jean-Marie. Yes, that's true, once again a book about the four Swedes, but written by THE specialist Jean-Marie Potiez, adds the animator.

As usual, the writer tells us what he knows while making a kind of "update" of his old incomplete works (see ABBA The Book, ABBA La légende, ABBA The Scrapbook and ABBA Une Légende nordique) but adds his personal opinions, his experiences with the group and the story of his books, too. In the opposite of ABBA Une Légende nordique (his previous book about ABBA), there are less illustrations, even if there is a pictures corner (including rare or ordinary ones). ABBA Les coulisses de succès is about the swedish group up and down, from Benny's, Bjorn's, Agnetha's and Frida's births to their lives nowadays, without giving too much informations about their "too" private life.

This book is very well written, full of details (I'd never have imagined some of them!) and anecdotes about the group and Jean-Marie Potiez himself who talks about him as a big fan, and that's why he is one of my favorite writers (Yes, I'm a fan of a fan of a music group whose I'm myself fan!) even if I don't share all the time his opinion about some songs or the four Swedes' other "products" (videoclips, etc) or their reunion. Really, you should read this book which was written by one of the people who know the most things about ABBA, in equality with Carl-Magnus Palm, and that nodoby overtook, except Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Frida themselves (and maybe their families, friends and colleagues). Rune Soderqvist, ABBA's art director and creator of their official logo,  even said once Jean-Marie knows more about him [Rune] than himself! Thanks Jean-Marie Potiez and thanks ABBA! If you're an ABBA fan, you'll certainly like or even love it!

Written by ABBAfan Seventies.
Translated from French by ABBAfan Seventies.