You know the funniest thing about Punk rock when it came out is that the music critics of the time were going "GREAT, now we finally have something that will help us get rid of ABBA!"
...And then the opposite happened. Far from avoiding ABBA like the plague, the punk rock movement actually embraced them!
- Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols wrote "Pretty Vacant" aping the piano riff of ABBA's "Mama Mia"
- Joe Strummer of The Clash wrote "Spanish bombs" with an ABBA like song structure.
- Elvis Costello wrote "Oliver's Army" which had a very obvious ABBA Piano riff.
So what was the deal here? Remember what I said in the OP about "Singing it how you lived it?"
What were punk songs about
: being angry with your girlfriend, being angry with the government, being totally broke, being alienated, being totally negative about your foreseeable future.
And what were ABBA songs about
: Abusive relationships, ("Mama Mia" is NOT the happy go lucky song people mistake it to be.), the scare of a nuclear war ("The visitors"), boredom ("The day before you came" oh boy that's a DARK song), Divorce and how devastating that procedure is ("Knowing me, knowing you", "The Winner takes it all" and especially "One of us")
So the topics ABBA's songs were about were basically the same topics which were Punk Rock's bread and butter but sung from a 30-something's point of view and sung with an authenticity that was impossible to fake, and the punk rockers respected that.
Agnetha Faltskog in the music video for the "Winner takes it all" that look of total devastation was genuine. Not even the best actress can fake that.
So when Nirvana headlined the Reading festival in 1992 Kurt wanted to have an ABBA tribute band there so "Björn again" was booked and they played an ABBA style version of "Smells like Teen spirit" which Kurt totally approved of.