Disco de ABBA: “Waterloo (Digipak)”

Though occasionally derided for being a bunch of lightweights, Abba reigned supreme during the late 70s and early 80s as the world's most popular rock band since The Beatles. The reason was simple, they were capable of writing and performing great pop songs. Having said that, Abba was also first and foremost a singles band. Any of their various Greatest Hits and anthology collections are better buys for most fans that their original albums, which contain less than first rate filler material in between the hits.

"Waterloo" is actually one of their better original albums. The title track and "Honey Honey" are the big hits, but there are a number of solid less well known songs, including "Dance (While the Music Still Goes On," "What About Livingstone," "Gonna Sing You My Lovesong" and a decent regge attempt with "Sitting in a Palmtree." There are also a few out and out duds, particularly the silly "King Kong Song," a lame attempt at hard rock.

Overall, "Waterloo" is a good album for Abba fans, but I would recommend that casual listeners start with a Greatest Hits collection first.

Abba is the most important pop band of all time, and this CD is one of the best of the group. Their second album is full of beautiful melodies and a lot of amazing arrangements, in memorable songs like 'Hasta Mañana", "Dance (While The Music Still Goes On)", "Waterloo", and "My Mamma Said".

All the record is great, and you can hear and see how they were beyond the times, doing sometimes disco music in 1974, and without the motown influence, or some pre-discoteque kind of music. They were unique, very original, and this CD shows the begginig of the legend, a mature band in compositions, arrangements and ideas, even in this early stage of their career.

That is definitely "a must" to every fan of pop music and good music.

No matter what anyone tells you- ABBA was and still is the greatest band of ALL Time! They were ahead of their time in 1974, which is why they are MORE popular today, especially in the USA, than ever before. Their song compositions are multi-layered, and comlex; that is why critics who really don't know them call them simplistic ballads. That's because they're too complex in nature to be dissected. Just sit back, listen to their songs, and escape reality for a while. This CD and all of their others are masterpieces that will survive time.

This album was the one that introduced ABBA to the USA (with the USA remix of Ring Ring tacked on at the end - I still prefer the single original mix without the added disco kick drum and sax solos).

On their (real) second album ABBA left their acoustic Swedish folk influences behind (though they do surface in many later recordings) and went for pure international Pop, thanks to the huge Eurovision success of the title track.

Despite some childish kids lyrics (Bjorn was still getting the hang of writing in english) every song here is so catchy you'll forget how silly songs like "King Kong Song" and the jangly "Suzy-Hang-Around" are. "(Dance) While the Music Still Goes On" is one of my all-time favorite early ABBA songs, a great 60's inspired track that should have been a single. And "Gonna Sing You My Love Song" was the beginning point for the huge ballads that became ABBA's stock in trade by the late 70's.

The production isn't as quite as pristine as ABBA's later albums, some tracks are very densely compressed and mixed to blast out of radios, not home stereos. Still the new CD is improvement over the CD that was released in the early 90's, with more crispness and clarity especially in the vocals.

Amazingly ABBA created that huge multi-layered sound during this time in a tiny Swedish studio with only a 8-Track multitrack recorder and a BIG Echo chamber using a drained swimming pool - no drum machines, MIDI or sampling here. Though it's not their best album, and might be a shock to hear if you're only familiar with their later classics, "Waterloo" is a lot of fun and a must have for ABBA fans.