ABBA Album: “ABBA”

After I bought the ABBA box-set "Thank You For The Music", I also bought the video of the same name. On the video, there was a short vintage film clip of a song called "Bang-A-Boomerang" that was not included in the box-set. I looked through my old ABBA LP's and found it on the album simply entitled "ABBA". This soon became one of my all-time favorite ABBA songs, right up there with "The Winner Takes It All" and "Dancing Queen". As far as I know, this is the only place you can find it on CD.

Having loved the "well known" ABBA classics for some time now, I decided to go back and get to know their entire catalogue ... and until now, I didn't know what I had been missing ... This cd, simply titled "ABBA", is absolutely brilliant ... In addition to the classic "Mamma Mia" and "SOS", there are songs on this cd that could fill a "Greastest Pop Songs" list with ease ... "Bang-A-Boomerang" is probably the most underrated ABBA song ever, a soaring pop masterpiece so impeccably written, and in my opinion is as good as anything they ever wrote and recorded ... "I've Been Waiting For You" is a beautiful and lush piece that will bring out feelings and emotions in the way only ABBA can do ... ( excuse me while I take this moment to say that Agnetha has the most expressive and beautiful voice I have ever heard ... ) ... "So Long" and "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do I Do" are as wonderfully infectious as anything I know, and, if I sound like I am glowing ... I AM !!! .. That's the effect this cd has had on me .... "ABBA" is a brilliant release that you will love forever ...

This is the album where Abba became Abba. The guys only sing one track, and the arrangements (SOS, Mamma Mia) take on that almost baroque quality which marks the best of their songs. Added bonuses are I've Been Waiting For You and Hey, Hey Helen. It all fell together here - the boys wrote the songs and the girls sang them and the rest of us were pretty darn happy.

In many ways this is a far more interesting album than ABBA's next, and their major breakthrough, "Arrival". Their self-titled album is a real grab bag of musical styles, some successful and others definitely less so, but it has songstyles that ABBA never again fully attempted: "Hey, Hey Helen", despite the dippy lyric, is a really fantastic glam stomper, while "Tropical Loveland" is an anomolously sweet reggae tune. "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do", seemingly inspired by northern Europe's "schlager" style, is another ABBA anomoly. Then there's the songs that defined the ABBA sound: "Mamma Mia" and, particularly, one of my favourite ABBA songs, "SOS". By contrast, "Arrival" shows some of the strain of a band having to define their musical parameters for an international audience. It wasn't until "ABBA: The Album" that the group really settled down, but "ABBA" has hints of some of the other directions ABBA could have headed. Above all, "ABBA" has the kind of naive, infectious energy typical of a group trying to win everyone's hearts with great pop music.

1975 and ABBA are on their way to superstardom and top quality albums. This one is almost there. SOS and Mamma Mia are examples of ABBA at their best and I've Been Waiting For You, I Do I Do I Do I DO I Do and Rock Me are great pop songs. Intermezzo no. 1 is even better though very different from the usual ABBA songs.