Tuesday 13th November 2012 by Grace Carroll | Photos by WENN

Tags: U2, Coldplay

Roxy Music star Brian Eno thinks that Coldplay and U2 are the next ABBA, in terms of guilty pleasures.

In an interview with The Independent, the legendary producer compares Coldplay and U2 to the Swedish pop group and says that no one originally wanted to admit that they were ABBA fans.

Eno has worked with them both, and is adamant that Coldplay are a good band. He says, "I remember very clearly when I was young, and we were all into the Velvet Underground and Jefferson Airplane. And then ABBA came along.

"Now, everybody secretly loved ABBA, but you could never admit to it. You would have to listen to their records guiltily at home, because they weren't cool. Everybody liked them, for a start - your mother liked them! - and so they had no subversive cred.

"Of course, now, in retrospect, we can all see that they wrote amazing songs, and that they really were a great band."

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He similarly defended U2, who he says are essentially the ABBA of their day.

Eno says, about the band, "Some of their best songs are fantastic, and you can't argue with that. You can't.

"I was in a taxi the other day when 'With or Without You' [from The Joshua Tree] came on the radio, and I just thought, 'Bloody hell, that's good.' Because it is!"

He finished by adding, "The English are constantly in knots over this sort of thing, aren't they? If something is successful, it can't possibly be any good. Anything popular is populist, and populist is rarely a good adjective."

Watch Brian as part of Roxy Music in the 'More Than This' video below:

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