THE late John Peel once confessed that during the '70s, when he should have been poring over obscure Pink Floyd B-sides, he found himself listening to Abba.

He wasn't the only one. Back in the decade that gave us disco and punk, the Swedish quartet were selling records on an industrial scale and overtaking The Beatles in the process.

Record sales, of course, are no barometer of good taste, otherwise UB40 wouldn't have been so popular.

But occasionally the general public spots a good thing, as they did with Abba.

Irrespective of the fact they sold more than 350 million records they were, quite simply, the perfect pop band. The combination of catchy hooks and simple lyrics created a formula that hasn't been bettered.

Mothers and daughters danced to the music while fathers and sons lusted after Agnetha and Anni-Frid, who, no matter how ridiculous the outfits, or vertiginous the platform shoes, always looked the essence of Nordic beauty.

Unlike The Beatles, though, Abba were never really fashionable, which perhaps explains why they don't always get the recognition they deserve. Something that perhaps can't be said of those avatars of minimalist electronica, Kraftwerk.

While Abba were conquering the airwaves, this quartet from Germany's industrial heartland were busy creating their mechanised vision of the world that went on to inspire such beacons of happiness
as Depeche Mode and
Joy Division.

During the '70s, musical styles went on bizarre digressions, something that's perhaps best embodied by Demis Roussos.

At the start of the decade, he was a member of Aphrodite's Child, a group of hirsute, psychedelic Greek rockers led by Vangelis, yet by its close, he had morphed into a moussaka balladeer with a penchant for kaftans.

Many prefer to remember him as the bass player in Aphrodite's Child, whose 1971 album, 666, a musical adaptation of the Book of Revelation, has attained something of a cult status.

Featuring songs like The Wakening Beast and The Battle Of The Locusts, it might sound like a record conjured by a group of hippies who've turned to the dark side, but back then it was pretty ground-breaking stuff, helping to usher in the era of prog rock.

There must have been something in the continental air in 1971, because this was the same year that Serge Gainsbourg released Histoire de Melody Nelson, with his then lover, Jane Birkin.

Two years earlier, the pair had shocked the music-listening world when they released Je t'aime... moi non plus, originally written by Gainsbourg for his old flame, Brigitte Bardot, which was about as suggestive as a song can get. With Histoire de Melody Nelson they took this formula and cranked it up with some dirty rock riffs and orchestrated string arrangements to create what is arguably the most erotic album ever made.

The idea of a middle-aged man cavorting with a 20-something nymph and whispering sweet nothings in her ear, sounds like the equivalent of car-crash TV. In the wrong hands, the Lolita-esque plot would have been an unmitigated disaster but Gainsbourg was already a French national icon and a master at pretty much everything he did.

However, if the '70s were a high watermark in the history of Euro pop, the '80s were its nadir.

Bands like Roxette and A-Ha were popular for a few years, without ever looking like they were going to reach the heights scaled by Scandinavia's greatest musical export.

This left the likes of Europe and The Scorpions, whose attempts to change the world via the medium of hard rock were almost as bad as their hair.

The mid-90s, though, saw a new generation of acts from across the Channel blow away the tumbleweed.

French outfits St Germain and Kid Loco won plaudits for their intricate musical montages, along with Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, aka Air, whose album, Moon Safari, is still considered a chill-out classic.

Today, Europe's pop scene continues to flourish, Iceland's Sigur Ros remain the nearest thing we have to Pink Floyd, while Swedish trio Peter, Björn and John have even managed to make whistling sound cool – and that's no mean feat.


All the drama of Eurovision

"It's one of those ideas that, once people see it, they wonder why it wasn't done before," says Craig Christie. Obvious to him, perhaps.

Christie is the man behind Eurobeat, Almost Eurovision, a musical show that celebrates the Eurovision song contest.

Arriving in Bradford in a fortnight, the show comes to the city on a wave of worldwide appreciation which has seen it go from a concept performed to Christie's friends and family in his home Australia to a global success.

"As an Australian with a British father, I always loved the Eurovision song contest," says Christie.

"I wanted to write a musical that celebrated the contest and was going to work on it with a playwright friend. As we got into it, it became obvious that he wanted to write something quite political and serious, and I wanted it to be a lot more fun, so I decided to work on it on my own. The problem was I had a theatre booked for a showcase, but had no show."

Enlisting the help of his three sons, he hurriedly put together a show, writing new original songs that paid homage to the sort featured in the contest.

It was an immediate hit, and the show became the first Australian musical with an original score to be given a national tour in 20 years.

Sell-outs at the Edinburgh Fringe last year led to a UK tour, arriving in Bradford Alhambra on May 26 until May 31.