Disco de ABBA: “The Albums [Box]”

If you're the completist, whose sensibility almost always goes out the window; whose hard earned money goes out just as fast, then go ahead...blow it! I just did :)

But if you are a bit of a pragmatist and own their lavish, velvetty boxed set "the complete studio collection" from 2005, you might want to pass.

For one, the cd's and sleeves look exactly the same as the 2005 set, albeit without the bonus tracks. Second, audio quality, having been digitalized and remastered by the same blokes, masters of audio, is the same. These are the same folks who ruined Agnetha's "Wrap Your Arms Around Me" and Frida's "Something's Going On" remasters from 2005. When i heard that Universal will release yet another boxed set of the Swedish monolith's recorded work, i would have expected them to set history straight by including ABBA's spanish album "Gracias Por La Musica"...to my non surprise but nonetheless utter disappointment, they still blew that chance, so this would be the third reason not to buy it.

Although both Universal and ABBA have sole prerogative on how to market their body of work, they should realize that we fans, who've made the music a part of our lives by buying their records, are aware of the fact that 9 albums were OFFICIALLY released and not 8. And I'm not even counting in 1986's "ABBA-Live" which should actually bring the tally to 10 bona fide albums.

I can't see the reason why their Spanish album, which has done well in both South America, Spain and even Japan, continues to be denied its rightful place. Such revisionism, may backfire. Who knows, someone or something might knock some sense into me and might choose not to buy another, if Universal milks their catalog one more time with another boxed set.

Purchasing all their albums in one shot makes life easier and cheaper. Of course not every song was a hit, but their are a lot of songs I like better than some of their biggest hits. You will never hear them if you buy their greatest hits albums. I took 57 of the 99 songs and put them on a CD. 58% of the songs I absolutely think are great. That's a good ratio. I've been listening to these guys since they came out in the early 70's and I'm a Headbanger. Beatiful voices and excellent song writing made these four superstars. This is the best way to get all the songs.

This boxed set was a treasure to find. Sure there was the drawback of the 10 discs having sleeves. But this is a "must have" for any ABBA fan, the sleeves are from Europe and have the songs listed for the European audience. The set covers all 9 albums (CDs) from ABBA's decade of stardom, along with a 10th disc that has some great songs (of which some of them were made for ABBA's 10th studio album, which never came to be). The 10th also has some of their songs in Swedish, which were actually part of the European albums, but not released in the US.

It was so much fun going back and listening (and remembering) the songs that ABBA so wonderfully done and very few have even tried to duplicate to any degree of success in the studios.

For every ABBA fan a must, no need to add anything else. If not a fan try first a compilation then if you like go for the hard stuff like these albums.

Although the recorded content is the wonderful sound of ABBA, the box set itself leaves a lot to be desired. The sleeves are not true miniature LP sleeves, but more like picture sleeves for singles (no inner sleeve and no printing on the spine) - with some of the reproduced covers blurred and over-exposed. No great care or time was taken with creating this set - as ABBA would have deserved. Still, this set merited three stars for the good price of the great music contained within. This set might be an ultimate find for those that have no previous ABBA CD's in their collections, or who do not yet have the remastered versions, otherwise it's easily a "pass." It is missing the album "Live" (which was an official release), also "Gracias Por La Musica" (also official) - and that keeps it from being complete.