It started as a mysterious announcement: an invite to an event deemed "a historic day that celebrates the past and future of ABBA."
Why this message was coming in September 2021, four decades after their gargantuan global success in the '70s, was an open question. As it turns out, there was a future of ABBA — and an auspicious one.
The beloved band would release new music for the first time since 1982 in the form of the album Voyage. The project earned ABBA the first-ever GRAMMY nomination, thanks to the aptly-titled single "I Still Have Faith In You," up for Record of the Year. But in addition to being the group's highest-charting album to date — it debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in November — Voyage was emblematic of a '70s influence that had infiltrated contemporary music in full force.
That's especially reflected at the 2022 GRAMMY Awards: In practically every nomination field this year, the sounds and sentiments of the '70s are thriving as boisterously as a pair of bell bottoms under a shimmering disco ball. From ABBA's inaugural nod to the musical voice of this year's most-nominated artist, Jon Batiste (who received 11 nominations across seven fields), it's an undeniable fact that everything old is new again.
So why are the sounds of the '70s making such a triumphant return? One could argue that after two years of dour headlines and uncertainty, people are eager to remember times when society let loose and the culture was just unapologetically fun. Those two qualities are front and center in Doja Cat and SZA's downright fun "Kiss Me More," nominated for four GRAMMYS including Song and Record of the Year.
"I wanted to make a song about kissing," Doja matter-of-factly told Apple Music's Zane Lowe. "I just thought it would be cute. That doesn't happen too often, but just a song that's solely about kissing." How does one package up that blatant innocence in a musically joyous way? By infusing it with disco beat, of course, courtesy of Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" (though released in 1981, the single borrowed its buoyant vibe from the previous decade).
As ABBA, Doja and SZA have been bringing the disco era's pure pop sounds, Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak's Silk Sonic dug into the soul and R&B of the time. The duo's acclaimed album An Evening with Silk Sonic takes a page from bygone acts like the Stylistics, the Spinners and the Manhattans. All of those groups who sang with deep passion, stacked melodies and slow-simmering rhythms.
Silk Sonic's debut single, "Leave The Door Open," is a recipe for a bonafide throwback gem, with serious harmonizing buoyed by Mars' falsetto. Its '70s stylings clearly resonated: Along with topping several charts, "Leave The Door Open" is nominated for four GRAMMYS, including Record and Song of the Year.
Then there's Jon Batiste. He's the ceremony's most-nominated artist with a whopping 11 chances to win a prized trophy (including Record of the Year for "Freedom" and Album of the Year for We Are,) and the most acknowledged act since Kendrick Lamar scooped up 11 nods six years ago. (Only Michael Jackson and Babyface have been nominated for more GRAMMYS, once each scoring 12 nominations in a single year.) Much like Bruno Mars, Batiste's musical influences have a firm foundation in the past, specifically music popularized decades before his own 1986 birth.
"It has the classic feel I was trying to imitate when I was growing up," said Batiste in a recent interview of We Are's soulful, throwback and funky feel that could have been right at home smack in the middle of the 70s. "My mentors — Stevie Wonder, or Quincy Jones, who wrote the liner notes for the album — when they listen to it, they hear that in it."
The recycling of former sounds is a story as old as the music industry itself, with long-antiquated genres popping up and taking culture by storm on a regular basis. These periods of renewed interest are akin to the revival of any sort of trend in music, fashion or otherwise. It often follows a formula: first something is cutting edge, then it becomes mainstream, sometimes resulting in a period of ultra-proliferation. During this phase, the trend morphs into passé, only to be forgotten about — and then subsequently rediscovered by some future generation.
This oft-repeated cycle, which takes place over a period of 20 to 40 years, is another reason why the '70s are back. It even occurred during the actual 1970s, as the '50s came back into vogue in the wake of the Vietnam War and subsequent American political upheaval. Yearning for a simpler time, that innocence was found through the shows and music stemming from "Happy Days," American Graffiti and That's Entertainment taking over culture.
The 1960s had its comeback moment as well: At the turn of the century, pop had gone fully bubblegum and synthetic, paving the way for a '60s revival. By the mid-2000s, the spirit of the Motown era had returned; GRAMMY-winning artists like Amy Winehouse to Duffy brought soul back to pop radio, and the Beyonce and Jennifer Hudson-starring Dreamgirls revived the Motown story on screen.
Even as the '70s influence is flourishing now, so is the emo music of the aughts. Elements of pop-punk are sprinkled across Olivia Rodrigo's Album Of The Year-nominated Sour (even sampling genre heavyweights Paramore in the hit "Good 4 U"); Halsey's If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power (up for Best Alternative Music Album) incorporates emo sounds in tracks like "Easier Than Lying."
Like ABBA, a few other veteran '70s acts earned GRAMMY nominations this year. AC/DC — who formed in Australia in 1973 and released a variety of acclaimed albums through the decade — received their first nominations since 2010. The group's 17th studio album, 2020's Power Up, is up for Best Rock Album, while its single "Shot in the Dark" also scored nods for Best Rock Song and Best Music Video.
Powerhouse vocalist Mavis Staples notched her 14th GRAMMY nomination — and her first for Album Of The Year — as a featured artist on the aforementioned Batiste's album, We Are. (Staples got her start in the '70s with family gospel/soul band the Staple Singers, who fully came into their own with a string of nominations in R&B categories from 1971 to 1973.)
It's been well-documented that GRAMMY voting has continually been a push and pull between new generations of decision makers and the old guard. The nominating of bygone artists is as much about honoring a legacy as it is about a current place in the music landscape.
Read More: For The Record: How AC/DC's 'Power Up' Continues Their Electrifying Legacy
The same push and pull is happening on a macro level with audiences whose very contemporary love for these past eras translates to streams and album sales. Case in point: AC/DC's Power Up debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album charts, only the third time the band has ever achieved the feat.
Meanwhile, ABBA's Voyage not only enjoyed critical acclaim, but its No. 2 debut on the Billboard 200 marked the first top 10 album of the band's history. It's a long way from the days when ABBA were considered more of a guilty pleasure than icons in the making. Today, they're GRAMMY nominated and widely regarded as legends of the industry, no doubt a result of a changing, nostalgia-loving culture.
While there may be no exact explanation for the '70s making a comeback at this particular moment — even ABBA's Benny Andersson admits "I really don't get it" — Bruno Mars arguably encapsulated the decade's musical revival best in a 2021 Rolling Stone interview about Silk Sonic's process. "I don't know what year it is," he said. "I'm not looking at the charts. So we'd just come here every night, have a drink, and we play what we love."