ABBA Album: “Number 1's”

Once again Univeral Music is milking the ABBA cash cow. With the world wide MEGA success of 'ABBA GOLD' why on earth is this compilation needed? With that said, the ONLY territory possibly needing this CD is the USA. Why? The USA is the only country where 'GOLD' has never been remastered or repackaged. In fact, it still has the incorrect ABBA Logo using the wrong font! 3 songs from 'GOLD', "Does Your Mother Know", "Lay All Your Love On Me" & "Thank Your For The Music" have been replaced on 'Number Ones' with "Summer Night CIty" & "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do". For some strange reason, the USA edition only has 18 tracks whereas the European version has inlcuded "Ring Ring" to total 19. (The USA DVD does contain all 19 songs). Another plus for the US is the full versions of "Voulez-Vous" & "The Name Of The Game" are included. (GOLD had the edited versions). If you're looking for a single CD containing most of ABBA's biggest hits, then 'Number Ones' is nice. But for the extra few bucks, I would get double CD 'The Definitive Collection' I choose to give this CD 5 stars because I LOVE ABBA!

The writing team of Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson and their respective partners in music and life, Agnetha Faltskog and Frida Lyngstad, basically invented Europop when they pooled their collective talents and became ABBA. One supposes keeping their past-affiliations names (Hep Stars or the Hootenanny Singers) wasn't quite as catchy. But then they wrote "Waterloo" for a Eurovision song contests and the musical universe suddenly altered.

That one song pretty much laid out the template for Abba's world domination to come. Frothy melodies wed to instantly catchy choruses sung with frothy harmonies by the twin female singers. "Number Ones" captures that cotton candy in all its seventies glory, as the band rocketed from pop-stars to international phenomenon. As their songs moved from the catchy singles like "Ring Ring" and "Waterloo" into the later seventies, ABBA wisely embraced disco and created the immortal "Dancing Queen." They were so insanely wealthy from their worldwide hitmaking that they were forced to take payments in commodities instead of cash, that is how omnipresent the likes of "Dancing Queen" and other dancefloor smashes like "Voulez-Vous" and "Gimme Gimme Gimme" became.

Thus we have yet another ABBA greatest hits. The standard before this was "

," and at a slightly higher cost (but frankly, with more songs than I needed) was "

." While "Number Ones" boasts remastered sound over "Gold," we lose "Does Your Mother Know" and "Lay All Your Love On Me." ("The Definitive Collection" includes those as well as "Ring Ring.")

It also becomes obvious why this compilation was released as soon as the first song begins to play. Thanks to Madonna, who nicked the hook for her own "Hung Up," "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)" has opened the door for a whole new generation of ABBA fans. That is all fine by me - if a new crew of kids can learn the value of genuine musical composition, then I am willing to give "Number Ones" a hearty recommendation.

As noted by previous reviewers, if you own 'Gold' it's time to update!

The new 2005 remasters by Johan Funemyr, DCM are top-notch compared to the 2001 remasters by John Astley with Michael B. Tretow in my opinion. This collection includes all the great hits from around the world, with the exception of 'Ring Ring' (found on the import double CD release). This album would be flawless if they had used the original single version of 'Summer Night City' because the extended part was added using "non-digital" efforts and has a noticeable drop out when the song picks up at the single version.

Drop this CD in and press play. You will NOT be dissapointed! I can only DARE you to try and turn it off!

Oh, and for you Madonna fans...she's quoted in the forward!

These eighteen ABBA's songs represent the best and you probably won't tire of them. It is amazing that four Swedes (Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus as writers and Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog as the main singers) could take such simple English clichés and turn them into pop music magic. Despite sometimes maddeningly simple lyrics, the song arrangements were unnervingly catchy and the multi-level layered compositions are fascinating. The keyboards and synthesizers were used in some of the more ingenious ways during the seventies to produce that unmistakable ABBA sound. The energy and nearly anthemic enthusiasm emanating from each song marked them all as instant classics, no matter how jaded or cynical the listener. It is doubtful if you read the song list here that you would not know the melody. The one ironic thing about this groups phenomenal success, is that of over 400 million album sales, they only had one number one hit in the US - "Dancing Queen" - but when you look at world-wide markets, each one of these songs hit the number one spot at some time. That's quite an achievement.

Bad news for reviewer Michael Allen, but the official sources confirm these are the 2001 remasters - none have been done since, so if you have the 2001 album reissues, they will sound exactly the same as this. This is just another repackaging job.