My My!

Giles Smith is the author of the pop memoir Lost in Music, an updated version of which will be published by Penguin in the summer of 2023. His writing has appeared in numerous British publications and in The New Yorker. He has published two collections of journalism and a spoof memoir of the comic-strip footballer Roy of the Rovers, and, in the last ten years, he has been the ghost-writer for eight Sunday Times bestselling autobiographies.

‘[Giles Smith] is a perfect guide to ABBA’s ups and down on pop’s stock market [and] an astute musicologist, able to take apart these songs without wrecking their delicate internal workings . . . For such a droll book, then, My My! comes with an existential kick, concerned with the effects of time’s passing on art, the way it can become distorted through hearsay and assumption, like a fuzzy tenth-generation mix tape . . . It’s not a stretch to say that, at its core, My My! is a book about time, death and the possibility of immortality . . . As Smith’s loving testament to the band so clearly shows, in 2024 there’s nothing to hide. ABBA, their avatars facing down death itself from their purpose-built arena, have won the war’