ABBA Album: “ABBA Gold”

It would be easy for me to give any Abba CD less than 5 stars, if you consider their music in comparison to all rock music. However, if you consider their music in comparison to all pop, the rating must be different. Abba didn't create good pop, they created excellent pop. Bennie and Bjorn could churn out one catchy tune after another, and Agnetha and Frida could sing in harmony well enough that those of us that watched them on tv fell in love instantly and became immediate Abba fans.

This CD collects the majority of Abba's biggest hits, though they may have been hits in Germany or England or the United States. I know that when I bought this CD (which I purchased after "More Abba Gold" - which I'll talk about momentarily) I recognized nearly every song, which says that most of them did get good airplay.

Most of these songs are classic 70s pop songs, with very little if any disco influence. And while most of the songs are catchy and do little to press the boundaries of rock music, there are a few songs that transcend the genre. Most particularly "Lay All Your Love On Me", "I Have a Dream", "Fernando", "One of Us", and "Thank You for the Music", which in hindsight is the group's goodbye and thank you to fans.

I enjoy Abba's music. It's generally easy on the ears, you can sing or hum it, and pretty darn well written. However, Abba is much more than the music on this CD. If you like this CD you may want to try "More Abba Gold", which has miscellaneous hits of somewhat lower stature (less sales) than those on this CD. While the "More Abba Gold" CD songs sold less than these, I think the music is more complex in some cases, and often shows that Abba was more than just catchy tunes. One step further would be to buy the albums and catch Abba as they were originally released and appreciated by those of us who bought their albums.

Yes, it's a bit of nostalgia from the 70s and early 80s. It's music we heard so often on the radio, and perhaps even more often on our record players (that thing that plays those round black plastic thingies with the grooves on each side). It's takes us back to a fun time when maybe life was just a little less complicated. And yes, it's very listenable and among the best of pop music...go have fun listening...

Gold is an impressive and valuable mineral. But the most impressive and enduring of all is platinum and for that reason alone, this album should be retitled for future editions.

It is almost superfluous trying to review a body of the "greatest" work from arguably the best pop-act the music world has ever known. How do you evaluate a collection of songs that has seeped into the consciousness of pretty much anyone who was around in the mid to late 70's and which continues to impress even the most cynical music listener today?

The best that you can do is merely to remember the exhiliration on first hearing the soaring strings and harmonies of "Dancing Queen" and not quite believing a song could sound so beautiful. Or to recall the moment you thought you might stop breathing as you listened to the aching resignation and almost gorgeous pain in "The Winner Takes it all". Or to decribe the marvel when you first recognised the maturity and balance contained in the mini-opus "The name of the game". Or maybe to smile at the day you knew you had died and gone to pop heaven whilst being serenaded with the delightful suggestiveness of "If you change your mind, I'm the first in line, Honey I'm still free, take a chance on me". And I could go on in similar vein with and each and every one of the remaining tracks.

"ABBA Gold" is a only a sample of music that has transcended time and genres and (now it can be said) generations. A souvenir if you like of the joy and fun and the sheer brilliance of being alive which was contained in just about all of ABBA's 3 to 4 minute pop gems.

Hyperbole and exaggeration? Maybe. But the fact remains that ABBA's music and genius continues to impress people and critics all over the world with its timeless simplicity and complexity, its technical brilliance and a mastery of that most essential element of all great songs - the "hook". Add to that the glorious sounds of Agnetha and Frida harmonising together (every time) and you know that ABBA will never be bettered.

The real point to buying this album is not to be reminded of the days when a pop song could be equally sublime and fun nor to confirm in one sitting that ABBA were (and are) the absolute masters of songwriting and singing the perfect tune. The real point of this collection should be to lead you to discover the wealth of treasures contained in ABBA's lesser known albums and album tracks.

Abba's music is electric, vibrant and fresh despite the passage of time. The group, as Amazon so correctly points out, had a special versatility that enabled them to produce many different types of songs. There's the classic "Dancing Queen" that almost everybody recognizes as being distinctly Abba with their 1970's pop sound; but there's also the rock and roll style of "Does Your Mother Know." "Does Your Mother Know" is just one of the many songs on this CD that has a great musical arrangement as well.

Abba was also very capable of capturing the intensity of one's feelings about love affairs and romance. I enjoyed how they compared a romance to Napoleon's infamous battle with their song entitled "Waterloo." "The Winner Takes It All" also captures the intense bitterness of a lost romance. They sing of other universal themes such as the quest to become rich ""Money, Money, Money" and the sheer delight of celebrating love without ties with "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)."

"Lay All Your Love On Me" has a beautifully haunting disco flavor that deserves recognition all on its own. Powerful! The musical arrangement is strikingly beautiful and very sensitively delivered. I also particularly enjoyed the somewhat autobiographical song entitled "Thank You For The Music." The lyrics are very well written:

I'm nothing special; in fact I'm a bit of a bore

If I tell a joke, you've probably heard it before

But I have a talent, a wonderful thing

'cause everyone listens when I start to sing

I'm so grateful and proud

All I want is to sing it out loud

So I say

Thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing

Thanks for all the joy they're bringing

Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty

What would life be?

Without a song or a dance what are we?

So I say thank you for the music

For giving it to me

Although some people may be tempted to say that the lyrics to Abba songs are just too sugary sweet to be enjoyable; I for one disagree. There is a refreshing honesty to the lyrics that reminds me of a naivet? I myself once had and lost when I learned some painful lessons along the way in my life. That nostalgia probably helps me enjoy Abba's music even more; and I would imagine that at least some other people would feel the same way that I do.

One note: if you want longer "dance" versions of some of these songs, you'll be disappointed here. The CD gives you 19 songs so there's not much time for longer versions. That's a minus, admittedly, but this CD remains quite strong anyway. Hey, the proof is in the pudding: despite being released years ago, the CD is still a big seller! SMILE

The quality of the sound is excellent and the song set is nicely laid out.

The liner notes are excellent. John Tobler contributes an extensive essay about the history of the group that also includes some information about their personal lives. The liner notes include song credits, pictures of the covers of their record albums and quite a few nice color pictures of the group. You won't get the lyrics to the songs, though.

All in all, this is an awesome CD for Abba fans as well as people who want to get to know Abba. I would also recommend this CD for fans of great pop music with a 1970's flavor to it. Try this CD--you won't be disappointed.

I believe that there is a new genertaion of ABBA fans emerging, I'm on of them, I'm only 18, the reason for this new generation of fans is simply the timeles quality of ABBA's music especially their music on the Gold album. I can still remember the first time I heard "Dancing Queen". The song had a tremendous effect on me. I feel that song is their best one. "The Winner Takes It All" is a break up song but the thing that make the lyrics so poignant is that this was actually happening to ABBA and they sang about it! "SOS", "Gimme Gimme Gimme", "Voulez Vous", are some of the great dance songs of ABBA. The CD is just awesome. The sound is still fresh after all these years and you can credit Benny and Bjorn for that. I cannot recommed this CD high enough! Go out and get it today!

Yep, I was one of those 10-11 year old kids who loved disco when it was popular, and then totally rejected it by the time I was 13 (okay, maybe 14). But during when this music was at its peak in 1977-78, there were very few bands that I liked more than this fab foursome from Sweden, who at the time just happened to be one of the most popular in the world.

As some reviewers have mentioned, there was a certain naivete` about ABBA that was so appealing back then. Part of it was that their music was upbeat without being too silly. Another part of it was the gorgeous vocal harmonies between lead singers Agnetha and Frida. Now that I've come full-circle to appreciate the 70's disco I grew up on, as well as the 80's metal and 90's grunge and industrial that I've grown into, I can say that nothing quite brings back the way I felt in my early double-digit days more than putting on GOLD, the definitive ABBA greatest-hits CD.

The CD begins with their first U.S. #1 hit "Dancing Queen", the song that broke them into mega-stardom. Relentlessly upbeat, this song helped define the disco era. It all ends with their very first U.S. (and international) hit "Waterloo", which they recorded back in 1973, and showed that they were upbeat even before there was disco. In between are 70's classics like "Fernando", "Mamma Mia" (which was so well-utilized in the wonderful film THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT), "Money, Money, Money", "Take A Chance On Me" (during which is impossible to resist the urge to toe-tap), and "Knowing Me, Knowing You" (Ah-ha!). There are some 70's curios like "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)", "Does Your Mother Know", and "S.O.S." but even these are entertaining. There are even some early-'80's gems like "Super Trouper" and "The Winner Takes It All" (which is probably the greatest disco-love-ballad ever).

Listen, I don't listen to this CD often, and it is in fact the only ABBA CD I own. But, every once in a while, maybe every 3-4 months, I need to hear some of this music. And if that's what you need to do too, then I think you need to get this CD. 'Cause if it's an ABBA fix you need, then there isn't another CD you can get that can satisfy it as well as ABBA GOLD! :)