'70s Rock Style Make You Shudder? Blame Swedish Tax Laws.
Ever wonder just what in hell inspired '70s pop stars to adopt the transvestite trailer trash from Planet 10 (not that there's anything wrong with that) look when they went on stage? Part of the blame lies, of course, with the interplanetary cloud of LSD through which the Earth drifted during those years (few people know that "Space Oddity" is derived from actual NASA transcripts. Maybe). But now it can be revealed that at least some of the blame for the '70s pop look can be placed on…Swedish tax laws. That's the word from Abba member, Björn Ulvaeus.
Reports The Guardian:
According to Abba: The Official Photo Book, published to mark 40 years since they won Eurovision with Waterloo, the band's style was influenced in part by laws that allowed the cost of outfits to be deducted against tax – so long as the costumes were so outrageous they could not possibly be worn on the street.
Ulvaeus is quoted remarking, "In my honest opinion we looked like nuts in those years. Nobody can have been as badly dressed on stage as we were."
As for why your dad wore bellbottoms and muttonchops…Some mysteries are better left unexplored.
Since the 1970s, Sweden has moved in a more market-oriented direction with lower taxes. Swedes have even taken to private health care. That's a big change from the state-dominated period that forced Ulvaeus into sequins. So modern sartorial catastrophes wll have to be laid on somebody else's doorstep. Maybe France.
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