ABBA Album: “Gold: Greatest Hits”

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.

I also was in Jr. High School and High School when Abba was cranking out top 10 hits. In those days I snuck into the record shop and hid my Abba albums under the cover of Led Zeppelin and then ditched the Zeppelin at the check out counter. It was imperative to hide your face while purchasing Abba albums. They were that uncool. To admit you loved Abba in geometry class was to court disaster and be ostracized for the rest of your life.

Such nonsense mattered as a 14 year old, now I can openly say Abba's music is wonderful and their arrangements were as innovative as anything coming out of the 70's. It is simply impossible to listen to Dancing Queen or Take a Chance on Me and not want to hear the songs again and again. The vocal intricacies on Take a Chance are equal to the harmonies on most Beach Boys records. How about Waterloo? Three minutes of the most pulsing, catchy music ever put on a disc.

Abba's music sounds better today than it ever did, particularly when you know what dreck was produced by other bands in the intervening years. They might not have been Dylanesque lyrically, but few have ever written songs with such clever hooks, bridges and infectious rhythm. Thirty years after the fact, the impossible has happened: Abba has finally become cool!

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! :)