ABBA Album: “Arrival [Remaster]”

I truely think that this CD is ABBA's best CD. They must have worked incredibly hard because it shows that they really are talented musicians.

Ratings on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the best.

1."When I Kissed The Teacher" is a really cute song about a student kissing a teacher. Agnetha dreamily croons, "One of these days i'm gonna tell him i dream of him every night. One of these days, gonna show him i care, gonna teach him a lesson alright." It's an adorable song and has really cool lyrics. It's one of those songs that makes you want to get up and dance. (10)

Despite a string of huge hit singles in Europe and Australia, and a few minor hits in the USA, with the release of 'Arrival' ABBA finally fully realized the potential of the band. 'Arrival' was ABBA's fourth album, and all of the tinkering with singers and sounds on the previous three albums paid off big time with this blockbuster album.

While there is little agreement among ABBA fans as to what their best release actually was, almost all agree this was among their best. It is possibly one of the best pop music albums ever created! The CD starts off with the fun, acoustic guitar driven 'When I Kissed the Teacher' and doesn't let up through the great keyboard driven title song to finish off the CD. The CD does misfire once, on the song 'Dumb, Dumb, Diddle', but even that number has a killer hook in the chorus that most bands would love to have come up with.

Both of the big US singles on this CD are simply killer songs. 'Dancing Queen' was ABBA's biggest and most enduring hit in the USA, and possibly the world over. It features great piano licks all through the song and all the keyboard work is a testiment to Benny Andersson's taste and compositional genius. 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' showed the other side of ABBA. Where 'Dancing Queen' is a fun party song, 'Knowing Me...' dealt with relational breakups in a sensitive and well written way that displayed the emotional depth ABBA would delve into even deeper on subsequint releases.

Musically, ABBA has always mixed genres and styles together and always made them sound like their own. 'Arrival' blends disco (Dancing Queen), early 60's rock (Why Did It Have To Be Me), 70's rock (Tiger), ballads (My Love, My Life), instrumentals (Arrival), Broadway (Money, Money, Money) and pure pop (That's Me) into one cohesive CD of sheer pop genius. Both of the girls are in fine form vocally, with Agnetha's 'My Love, My Life' and Frida's 'Money, Money, Money' as standout vocal tracks.

The remastering of the CD adds to an already strong release and really brings out the layers that Benny played in the keyboards all over the CD, and the great bass guitar parts too. To top it off on the new CD release they added the killer single 'Fernando', which features some of Frida's best vocals, and the song 'Happy Hawaii' that later had the melody from the verse lifted for the 'Arrival' song 'Why Did It Have To Be Me'.

'Arrival' is ABBA at the top of the pop music charts, and clearly displays the lyrical and musical depth that continues to seperate ABBA from so much of the rest of the pop music world before and after. Buy the CD, turn up the stereo, and sing and dance along!

"Arrival" was the LP that broke ABBA in the USA with the #1 single "Dancing Queen" which was one of the biggest Top 40 singles of 1976-7. ABBA's earlier LP's were full of Bubblegummy Pop, and this album does has some silly songs like "Dum Dum Diddle" and "Tiger" - despite silly lyrics the melodies grab the listeners eardrums and dont let go. The group also starts dabbling in disco with the B-side of "Dancing Queen" - "Thats Me" which is one of ABBA's most overlooked dance tracks and rocks out convincingly with a 1950's styled number called "Why Did It Have To Be Me?". "When I Kissed The Teacher" is a great opening track and deserved to be a USA single way back then (though it appeared on 45 in other countries).

But this was also the album where ABBA starts maturing and growing up - ABBA first great ballad "Knowing Me Knowing You" is here too. "Arrival" was truely a landmark album for the group and all die-hard and new ABBA fans need to get a copy of this album.

ABBA, all four of them, were geniuses and you need to know that. This was their fourth offering, and not only did it contain the brilliant and perennial 'Dancing Queen' - - a joyous take on the dancefloor as nothing more or less than just that - - it also boasts the devastating empty-house ballad, 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' (as in, 'there's nothing we can do to save this relationship'). Sure, it has the archetypically sloggy 'My Love, My Life' but that particularly maudlin track is offset by the infectious Boots Randolph-inspired hilarity of 'Why Did It Have To Be Me' (a.k.a. 'Happy Hawaii') and the urban-drenched `Tiger'. Sure, Chrome could proclaim 'I Am The Jaw' with all the dark industrial menace they could muster in 1979, but ABBA beat them to it by two years, chirping 'And if I meet you, What if I eat you - - -I am the tiger!!' with voracious delight. As for the instrumental title track, it's a beautiful bit of Celtic-tinged progressive rock that sounds like something Mike Oldfield wished he could write, tee hee. And the extra track, 'Fernando', hey - - you've heard it and already know it's awesome. If ABBA doesn't astound and delight you, check your pulse . . . speaking personally, I hope you don't have one.

I'm salivating Boy, I still love this stuff-Got to get the CD, if only for knowing me knowing you