ABBA’s music is like a drug. It is painfully addictive and listeners enjoy a big time high out of its outrageously catchy hooks and melodies. The music is also a multi-million dollar industry that no one admits to contributing to with its obscene success. After more than two decades of shame, users of this Scandinavian designer drug are entering the mainstream with the success of the Broadway musical Mamma Mia!, which is built entirely around 22 of ABBA’s songs.

The musical opened in London’s SoHo district over three years ago and is still selling out performances there, as well as in New York City, were the show premiered last fall. The touring version of the musical is now playing at Miami Beach’s Jackie Gleason Theater through April 7 and will move to the Broward Center for the Performing Arts from April 9 through April 28.

The plot of the musical is thin and offers nothing startlingly original. A young woman, Sophie, is about to get married on the Greek resort island that she has grown up on with her mother, Donna, the owner of a hotel. But she has no father to give her away at the wedding. When she reads through her mother’s private diary, she discovers that her father is one of her mother’s three lovers from the past, Harry, Bill, or Sam. Musical mayhem ensues when the three men are surreptitiously invited to the wedding and encounter their ex-lover and her daughter.

Laughable camp runs rampant throughout the play. A dream sequence features dozens of scantily-clad male scuba divers encircling the Sophie like a scene out of Jaws: The Musical. Even worse is the plan of the play’s wardrobe designers to deck out the actors in the tackiest disco-space duds of all time. ABBA themselves would probably think twice about coming near to these outfits. In typical fun-loving ABBA fashion though, they probably would slip them right on and get on with the show.

The music’s the thing in this play. Classic ABBA tunes like Honey Honey, Super Trouper, Take A Chance On Me, and the inescapable Dancing Queen are all worked into the plot. The only reason this works so well is because of the enduring quality of the original songs’ clear and narrative-driven lyrics.

“‘Mamma Mia!’ takes a new stance on musical theatre. It strays from the newly written songs, made unique for that production and brings music from another era alive, by putting it in the context of the story,” said sophomore Mike McCormick. “I want to see how well they can do it with ABBA’s music.”

What continually keeps audiences happy once the play is over is the raucous encore. It is about the closest thing that audiences will get to an ABBA concert after the group turned down a $1 billion offer to reunite for a tour last year.

The architects of the play are the very men that made ABBA what it was in the 1970s and early 1980s, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. The pair, along with business entrepreneur Stig Anderson, molded ABBA’s hits into melodic pop confections.

ABBA would have probably faltered, though, if it were not for the voices of the two lead singers, Agnetha Faltskog, a soprano, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, a mezzo-soprano. While Agnetha’s angelic soaring in songs like The Winner Takes It All seem like heavenly pop, Anni-Frid’s deeper register made songs like I Have A Dream the stuff of sing-a-longs. Together, their harmonies were impeccable.

All of the hyperboles that accompany descriptions of ABBA today may seem strange to the average American. While the likeability of their music may be arguable, the success the group encountered in their hey-day was unparalleled to anything save for the Beatles. Throughout Europe, Latin America, and Australia, ABBA surpassed the Beatles in record sales and created pandemonium during their stadium tours.

Dance music’s scintillating sounds boomed in discos across the country during the 1970s. Yet ABBA’s sugary tracks were only able to muster a solitary #1 single in the United States, Dancing Queen. The reason remains a mystery.

ABBA’s brand of electronic-inspired pop was without equal in its sheer craftsmanship and earnestness. Songs like the dramatic The Winner Takes It All and acoustic-flared Knowing Me, Knowing You are more intelligent and well produced than any K.C. and the Sunshine Band single of the era.

Perhaps it was ABBA’s shameless love for the bombastic sounds they carved out in their Swedish studios that turned off American audiences. American critics were not fans either; they have always tended to turn up a snub nose against the transient pleasures of pop. Besides, some of ABBA’s biggest songs were Eurocentric with their allusions to Napoleon, Glasgow, and walks along the Seine.

Whatever the case, ABBA’s influence is profound in today’s entertainment industry. Groups like the Australian ABBA-tribute band Bjorn Again and the teen-pop group A*Teens may have never existed were it not for ABBA. Other bands, such as U2, Erasure, Ace of Base, and Hole, continually cite ABBA as one of their biggest influences. Even the film world has succumbed to ABBA as featured in Muriel’s Wedding and The Adventure of Priscilla Queen of the Dessert.

ABBA may have endured their working days as one of the easiest to hate and critically derided groups of the day, but now more than 20 years after they called it quits they are getting the respect long due to them and their music via Mamma Mia!

It is said that everyone has his fifteen minutes of fame. For some, it lasts forever. For others, though, it is temporary, passing as easily as the weather. But for Jim Morris, a high school chemistry teacher who believed his fame had come and gone, comes a story about a rookie that shows it’s never too late to believe in your dreams.

Step aside Kevin Costner-Dennis Quaid dons the glove this time in a film by director John Lee Hancock.

The Rookie is the true-life story of pitcher Jim Morris, who was forced to retire from baseball in 1989 due to a shoulder injury. Ten years later, at the age of 35, Morris was signed to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays after throwing a 98 mph fastball at a tryout in Brownwood, Texas. He made his major league debut a few months later against the Texas Rangers at The Ballpark in Arlington, striking out shortstop Royce Clayton.

“I thought it was over,” Morris said warily. “Everybody has those dreams. Well, what if I had tried it just one more time. But I wasn’t going to quit coaching and teaching to chase something that never worked the first time. I have a group of sixteen and seventeen year old kids to thank for that.”

Morris had the chance to relive his dream through the inspiration of the championship-winning high school team he coached.

Morris recalled, “from the bullpen to the mound, all I could think about was how long it took me to get there, and my whole baseball life kind of flashed before me and I realized how long a journey it was to get to that point.”

But how does someone start pitching so much faster ten years later?

“The doctors told me that if I ever figured out to let them know so they could patent it,” Morris replied with a chuckle. He then paused. “I think the biggest thing was God wasn’t ready for me to do it when I was in my twenties.”

Though the film seems storybook, it is over ninety percent accurate.

“I am so happy with the final product,” said Morris, a smile streaming across his face.

Quaid, a native Texan, agrees.

“This is John Lee Hancock’s vision, and he did an incredible job. I was just there to help him by showing up to work on time!”

Quaid continues: “It’s more than a movie about baseball. It transcends the sport to show everyone to go for that second chance.” Which is exactly what Morris did, becoming one of the most inspirational stories in recent history.

But how do you do it? How does one realize his or her dreams and reach for them?

“Don’t try it unless you have a burning desire to do it, and if you have a burning desire to do it, don’t listen to anyone who’ll tell you, you can’t,” Quaid said.

Morris responded differently: “Don’t ever let yourself ask your own self ‘what if.'”

“I have [my high school team] to thank for learning about second chances,” he said. “They put me up to the thing that you have to practice what you preach, and they threw it back on me.”

Ultra-anxiety: The disorder that occurs when you attempt to jot down a logical schedule of your favorite performers at the Ultra music festival and realize that it is simply impossible.

The organizers at this year’s Ultra festival crammed more than 200 disc jockeys and electronic artists into nine stages, ranging from small wedding tents to the mega-arena. How could you catch Goldie from 5 to 6 p.m. at the Ultra Space stage when Deep Dish was playing the Club Space Stage, and Del tha Funkee Homosapien from Gorillaz was rapping at the Coolworld Revolution Stage? Especially when most of these performances were delayed by half an hour. You either had “luck” on your side or you missed out on something. Better luck next year.

Those who arrived early stood out in the sun to reap irreparable damage to new tattoos and pale skin. The raver crowd, generally scoffed at for their clownish attire, laughed last, proudly wearing space gear from head to toe.

“Girls to the left, boys to the right,” a chubby security guard blasted at high multitude as he squeezed into the entrance, adding to the mayhem. People trickled in and were immediately stopped at the second entry barrier for the body search. Guards seemed more concerned with barring food and water than drugs. Was this because anything small would find its way in anyway or a precaution to ensure that people would cough up $5 for a bottle of water?

Bacardi, with a “hip” slogan, “Never needs a remix”, had its bat logo displayed on every possible surface, including the facade of the Intercontinental Hotel. The Bacardi man, however, failed to show up with free cocktails. At times, the curling lines for booze attracted more people than the nearest stage.

Two of top three disc jockeys in the world, according to the UK’s DJ Magazine, were nowhere in sight. Sasha and John Digweed opted to spin just down the street at the Miami Arena, kick-starting their “North-American Delta Heavy Tour.”

Spring break brought in people from as far as Connecticut, Michigan and Illinois. Three girls from Northwestern University wanted to see Tiesto, “because he is so cute,” and planned on staying sober. A student at Michigan State sporting a French soccer team jersey said he preferred raves in Toronto because the setting is surreal. “They have these raves in front of monuments, it’s incredible,” he said. “Here they don’t trust people enough to do that kind of thing. Americans are too crazy.”

Big stages such as Club Space and Coolworld had their amps set between 30 and 50 kilowatts, though numerous engineers said speakers were being heavily underutilized. For good reason, however, as stages were so close together that fans near the fringe of a stage could hear conflicting beats pumping just meters away.

Police inside were on the lookout for stoners, though most folks under the influence looked unconcerned while massaging each other and practicing Jamaican origami. One officer claimed to have made 11 arrests, but said the crowd was “very, very peaceful overall.” Another officer said her main focus was to help people suffering from exhaustion.

The designer of the drum ‘n bass arena speakers openly said that he had been abducted by aliens, hence his company’s name, Alien Technologies. One of the youngest partiers in attendance was Pedro, only 5. After standing with his Uncle Al right in front of the speakers at the Coolworld Revolution stage, Pedro showed signs of permanent hearing damage, unable to answer any questions.

Sound engineer Einar Johnson, an expatriate living in Glasgow, commented on disc jockeys who merely spin extensive record collections, and those who produce their own sounds, like Ultra headliner the Crystal Method. “But eventually, if it sounds good, it doesn’t matter who made it,” Johnson said.

Patife and SUV, just in from a gig in Puerto Rico, gave the drum ‘n bass crowd a good “rum” for their money, flavoring their set with mixer-induced samba percussion. Patife, a very skinny kid from Sao Paulo, Brazil, looked unconcerned with the celebrity status he has won among fans of drum ‘n bass. Not long ago he was hopping on buses and trains to play in remote parts of the Brazilian megalopolis.

The self-proclaimed junglists, the roughest and most intense crowd at Ultra, also had the most accessible backstage, with very little hassle or supervision. Some of the well-known artists present were Roni Size, Krust, Die, Ray Keith and Ed Rush. Closing off the d ‘n b arena was Miami’s own three-time DMC disc jockey championship winner Craze, who shared the stage with DJ Marky, Brazil’s first drum ‘n bass representative. Towards the end of their set, an incredulous Marky watched as Craze showed off his unmatched skill at extracting a universe of sounds.

Over at the main stage, Paul Oakenfold, George Acosta, Tiesto and Paul Van Dyk sealed the fates of a fanatical crowd while they tried not to fall from their Bayfront Park seats. BT’s set squeezed in enough cross-genre variety to give the audience a break from the thumping repetitiveness of the evening.

At 1 a.m., the sweaty, disoriented throng gathered up their bones and emptied out of Bayfront Park. Those with leftover energy pursued flyers handed out on the sidewalk, promoting more musical chaos in the city.

Clearly the opposite of Ultra’s shear mass of confusion, was the performance of Vienna’s resident ambient re-mixers Kruder & Dorfmeister, last Sunday night at Rain. The entire audience grooved as one boogying Leviathan. Rain’s intimate size allowed for a generally warmer musical experience; one could watch ash growing from the tip of Peter Kruder’s cigarette as his eyes zigzagged between turntables. After their lengthy set, the duo chatted with fans and friends as if they were at a backyard party in Vienna. Then they lugged their equipment into a taxicab and disappeared into another tranquil forgettable night at the WMC.

Tonight

The Source Fashion Nation Tour with a special performance by Tha Liks on the University Patio. For more info call 305-284-6399.

Swivelsitck! at Revolver, 5922 S.Dixie Hwy. Doors open at 11 p.m. For more info call 305-661-9099.

Saturday

Funky locals Hash Brown and Miami bass night with DJ Le Spam in Room 2 at Poplife, 35 N.E. 40th St. in Miami Design District. Show starts at 11 p.m. and tickets are $7. Doors open to those 18 and over. For more info visit www.epoplife.com.

April 2

The Royal Tenebaums at the Bill Cosford Cinema at 8 and 10 p.m.

April 3

Comedian Carrot Top at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts Au Rene Theatre, 201 S.W. 5th Ave. in Fort Lauderdale. Show starts at 8 p.m. and tickets are $12-$39. For more info call 954-523-3309.

April 4

Bombshell Rocks and Homegrown at Millenium Nightclub, 4301 N. Federal Hwy., Pompano Beach. For more info call 954-788-2345.

April 5

The Pat Metheny Group at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts Au Rene Theatre, 201 S.W. 5th Ave., Fort Lauderdale. Show starts at 8 p.m. and tickets are $29-$59. For more info call 954-523-3309.

April 5-6

1st Annual University of Miami “Elements of Spring Breakdown” featuring live performances by Afu Ra, DJ G Brown, DJ Epps and various MC and DJ battles on the University Patio. Friday’s show is from 6:30-11 p.m. and Saturday’s is from 1:30-11 p.m. Admission is free for all ages. For more info call 305-284-2211.

April 6

Jagged Edge at Billboard Live, 15th St. and Ocean Dr. in Miami Beach. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $24. For more info visit www.billboardlive.com

Anticipating the infiltration of hip-hop culture at Saturday’s Ultra electronic music festival, a circle of break-dancers joined the audience at the Coolworld stage, showing off supple movements to old school beats before the events’ sole rap act took the stage.

The act consisted of extended members from the West Coast crew known as Hieroglyphics, who were unsurprisingly and unfairly billed around member Del tha Funkee Homosapien’s association with the successful side project, Gorillaz. Del and his entourage came clean for an alternative performance that breached conventional rhyming and lyricism.

“We get to be the ambassadors of hip-hop for the event and that’s cool as long as people feel what we do,” said Bukue1, Del’s road manager and part time MC.

Bukue1 appeared first to hype up the audience, though people were clearly not convinced. Sporting dreads and labeling himself as the “skateboarding, graf-writing, lyricist,” he paced stage performing Black Star’s Definition. He forced on with some harder themed songs and a reggae tune, until Del’s voice dropped in the background along an eerie, melodic beat. The crowd, perhaps still awaiting Gorillaz goofy cartoon personalities, got a little more animated as Del’s funky, cerebral rhymes blared smoothly from the speakers.

As Bukue1 moved to the turntables and spun a familiar beat, Del appeared with KU, both equipped with backpacks, ripping into some of his older hits, including Mistadobalina. Despite technical difficulties with the microphones, both artists carried out their performances integrally as psychedelic visuals accompanied the songs on two big screens.

“I’m a little disappointed that there isn’t more hip-hop at the event since hip-hop culture is somewhat associated with electronic music,” KU said.

For avid hip-hop fans, the performance was an unexpected disappointment because the performances were brief. However, members of the crowd were given a positive and innovative example of rap’s broad musicianship in an era where glamour reigns supreme.

“There’s nothing wrong with going mainstream and making party songs all the time,” explained KU, who is originally from the Bronx. “I mean, back in the day, people were just presenting at block parties and talking about how fly they were. Lyrics weren’t that deep or anything.”

Many advocates of hip-hop advancement see the genre as a cultural movement rooting from poetic verses, independent thinking and political activism, currently gasping for airtime in a polluted ocean of glitz and materialism. Some members of the Hieroglyphics family see it with a slightly more neutral balance.

“That’s true, but art is art and it’s expressed in different ways,” KU said. “Busta Rhymes raps about money and parties too, but he’s still got talent. A Tribe Called Quest and N.W.A. had two different messages, but both were still good.”

Del, oddly the cousin of rap mogul Ice Cube, recently returned from Europe and has been spending a lot of time in the studios, working on new productions and collaborations. He is known for staying within the subversive circles of the hip-hop world and producing experimental works, as well as lending his rhymes to Dan the Automator’s aforementioned Gorillaz creation. Nonetheless, he doesn’t believe in being labeled as an “underground” artist.

“There isn’t any underground,” Del said. Either people listen to your music or not.”

“And going mainstream isn’t a wrong direction,” he added. “People are just doing what they want to do. Artists put themselves under that ‘underground’ umbrella and then don’t find any outlet and that’s their problem.”

Right now, he’s studying music and familiarizing himself with his roots and said that he is learning more about “the black music experience.” He wants to make money through his music, but that’s not his prerogative. For him, music is more about a journey of self-discovery.

“I can play a lot of different instruments and hardly even need to do any more sampling,” said Del. “I want to be part of a wave of innovators and if people enjoy my work, I’ll be making money anyway. It’s about doing what you like and how you want to do it. As long as artists stay focused on how they want to make their music, then it’s all good.”

Call it a huge South Beach business lunch– Winter Music Conference style. That was the scene on a sunny Sunday afternoon at Moonshine Music’s Beach Barbecue at The National Hotel Beach Bar. With several prominent heavy hitters in the electronic dance music industry wandering about, it was the perfect opportunity for an ambitious disc jockey to shake a few hands and chat business in between hamburger bites.

“It’s all about a friend meeting your circle of friends, people who might be advantageous to him and might help him out,” said Miami resident Omar Hernandez, who was on location filming for an upcoming Miami-based television show called Bump. Electronic dance music is at the heart of Bump. “You see Joe Schmoe the producer talking to the vice president of promotions for Virgin records.”

While some used the relaxed barbecue setting to their foot in the door, the majority of visiting partygoers arrived for the event’s cocktails, tasteful food and roster of live music. Given the reputable dance music scene in Miami, it wasn’t a surprise that people on Moonshine’s guest list were from various nooks and crannies all over the globe. This city has always been willing to accept progressive music like electronica with open arms, making the WMC the perfect place for labels to arrange meetings, throw legendary bashes or do a varying mixture of both.

“There’s just something about the humidity in the air, the sheer amount of alcohol that flows, the women in bikinis,” said Los Angeles resident Bradley Burlingame, also known as DJ Medi4. “Miami is an East Coast version of Vegas.” “This is where the all of the buzz happens for electronic dance music,” he added.

Moonshine Music, an American independent dance label, had scheduled for a talented line up of artists to pump out beats into the night, including Gus Gus, Tall Paul, Dave Aude and DJ Feelgood. However, a consistently strong breeze was just enough to send a turntable’s needle into an involuntary frenzy and hamper the performances.

Unwilling to call it a night, Herb Legowitz from Gus Gus took to the tables, spinning countless house mixes from his personal collection. He went on to play compact disc after compact disc for almost three hours, making sure that the crowd has something to dance to. By the time nightfall arrived and the winds subsided, the crowd was blissfully content with the music. No one seemed to notice that the other world-renowned artists didn’t play, possibly because they had been taking advantage of the cocktail bar since 3 p.m.

Things broke out into a full-scale dance party when Legowitz joined up with fellow Gus Gus members Stefan Arni and Urdur to spin tracks from their upcoming Moonshine release Attention. Although the songs were met with great enthusiasm from the crowd, it was didn’t match the wilder reception that Gus Gus is used to in Europe, especially in their native town of Reykjavik, Iceland.

The group took off in 1992, drawing off the energy and talent of one of the biggest bands to ever come out of Iceland, The Sugarcubes. Instead of following The Sugarcubes down the punk rock path, Gus Gus became engrossed with trance and house mixes and gained notoriety in the Britain with their 1997 release Polydistortion on Warner Brothers. It was the group’s only album released under a mainstream label before they found a more suitable home at Moonshine.

“One of the reasons why major record labels haven’t been able to properly market dance music in the United States is because it is still considered a fringe culture here,” commented Burlingame. “In the UK, dance music is the culture. It’s embraced by radio, television…everyone. America is still 10 years behind the UK in terms of dance culture.”

Moonshine is one of the rare electronica labels that succeeds in gathering talent from overseas, and then feeding it to Americans starved for a solid diet of new dance music. So, while some people might speculate over Gus Gus’ decision to switch to an indie label and step away from mainstream America, the move seems all the more comprehensive when observing the label’s track record.

“It’s always difficult to get some kind of focus towards dance music from a major label in America, so Moonshine is a perfect fit,” said Gus Gus member Biggi Thorarinsson.

In the end it may be true that America is not tuned in to the UK frequency of dance music, but judging from the raised glasses and smiling faces mingling about the barbecue, it’s definitely a place that appreciates it when it’s heard.