ABBA meanwhile always had incredible orchestration and arrangements. Benny and Bjorn (the two guys, duh) knew their shit. I admit, I never came to this realization until after I bought the Chess Soundtrack and figured out that it's them. One Night in Bangkok, The Deal (No Deal), You and I, etc. Great stuff.
Interesting. I never knew the ABBA guys did the music for that one.
Yep. It was back in the 80's, and I was kinda into musical soundtracks; movie, Broadway, whatever. I had Jesus Christ Superstar, of course, and Godspell, Hair, and a few others. I couldn't find Chess on vinyl, but I found a cassette version that didn't have a lot of liner notes or anything. But on the spine of the cassette box it said
CHESS
RICE - ANDERSSON - ULVAEUS
Tim Rice I knew, as he'd done the lyrics for Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and at least one or two others with Andrew Lloyd Webber. But Andersson and Ulvaeus didn't ring any bells.
That's Murray Head singing "One Night in Bangkok". Murray Head was Judas in the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Jesus Christ Superstar ("the brown cover"). And because Carl Anderson is black and played Judas in the movie, and Murray sounds a lot like him, I thought Murray Head was black for a long time. Then I saw the video for "One Night in Bangkok". Whoa, he's white. Then the VJ (remember them?) said that was from the Chess Soundtrack, music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus from ABBA. My head just about fucking imploded.