Review
If you’ve been trapped on an airplane in the past year, you’ve probably spent a couple of hours watching Mamma Mia!, sobbing through your Xanax haze as Pierce Brosnan bellows “S.O.S.” to a terrified Meryl Streep. It’s one of the cheddar-splendent cinematic triumphs of our time, not to mention proof that nothing can kill off ABBA’s eternal allure. But if you’re an ABBA fan, as the credits rolled you probably had a few tough questions for the flight attendant: What about the deep cuts? Why didn’t they sing “Sitting in the Palmtree” or “Bang-a-Boomerang”? No sensual dance routine to “Tropical Loveland”? And where the hell was “The Name of the Game”?
Well, they’re here—every single track from every single ABBA record, on a box set brilliantly titled The Albums. Obviously inspired by the blockbuster success of the movie, it has all eight original LPs, plus a bonus disc of singles and B-sides—the ultimate journey into the heart of ABBA-ology, one silver Lycra pantsuit at a time. If all you know is ABBA Gold or Mamma Mia!, you may be traumatized to hear how many excellent non-hit tracks these Björn-to-be-wild Swedes left behind. So brace yourself for obscure gems like “King Kong Song”—an utterly moronic glam-rock chant (“We do the King Kong song/Gotta sing along”) that bears the warning, “What we’re gonna sing is kinda funky,” forever stretching the definition of the word kinda.
Like their ’70s contemporaries Fleetwood Mac, ABBA comprised two couples who eventually became ex-couples, which added a creepy edge to their mellow plaints. Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid (last names? like anyone ever cared) created a sound so clean, so antiseptic, it was avant-garde, especially when their cheery melodies came packaged in vocals full of despair and fear. (These guys had a song called “Disillusion” on their first album.) Relentlessly, almost militantly catchy—even the drum parts had hooks, for God’s sake—ABBA achieved an unlikely synthesis of high-gloss Euro-schlock and vaguely gothy style, making them hugely influential on the new wave and synth-pop that followed. Listen to “Knowing Me, Knowing You” next to Joy Division, or “S.O.S.” next to the Cure, and you shall know that the void speaks with a Swedish accent.
ABBA debuted as a mild-mannered folkie quartet on 1973’s Ring Ring. But then they heard David Bowie, and the result was their first worldwide smash, “Waterloo.” (The influence must have run both ways, since Bowie’s 1977 masterpiece Low was practically a love letter to ABBA’s synths.) The boys wrote and played; the girls sang; nobody’s sure who picked out the outfits. They were obviously still learning to speak the Englishes, yet the dippy lyrics just added to the vulnerable charm that made them heroes for ’70s kids like Kurt Cobain (who later tapped ABBA tribute band Björn Again to open for Nirvana). Waterloo and ABBA are full of glitter-pop blasts: The ladies sing like they’re exploding out of their bedazzled unitards in “Hey, Hey Helen” and “Rock Me,” and Benny oozes animal passion in “Suzy-Hang-Around.”
But ABBA really took off with Arrival, where Björn and Benny began to obsess over their new synthesizers. It has their most famous hit (“Dancing Queen”), plus the hormonally charged “Dum Dum Diddle” and a kinky tribute to the Swedish school system, “When I Kissed the Teacher.” Believe it or not, they even tried to go progressive on The Album—“The Name of the Game” is an over-the-top epic with flugelhorns, church organ and a spooky goblin choir. All the pretension just makes it ABBA’s most ridiculous moment, and therefore their best.
On Voulez-Vous and Super Trouper, they adapted to the disco and new wave that defined the end of the ’70s, but they saved their weirdest shot for last. The title song of The Visitors is an ode to frigid-pink paranoia at the dawn of the ’80s, with the girls chanting “Crackin’ up!” over chilly electro-beats. If the last hour of Boogie Nights were packed into one six-minute song, this is what it would sound like. It was never a hit, and didn’t make the movie. But hopefully they’re just saving it for Mamma Mia 2.
Download “King Kong Song,” “Bang-a-Boomerang,” “Dum Dum Diddle”
Well, they’re here—every single track from every single ABBA record, on a box set brilliantly titled The Albums. Obviously inspired by the blockbuster success of the movie, it has all eight original LPs, plus a bonus disc of singles and B-sides—the ultimate journey into the heart of ABBA-ology, one silver Lycra pantsuit at a time. If all you know is ABBA Gold or Mamma Mia!, you may be traumatized to hear how many excellent non-hit tracks these Björn-to-be-wild Swedes left behind. So brace yourself for obscure gems like “King Kong Song”—an utterly moronic glam-rock chant (“We do the King Kong song/Gotta sing along”) that bears the warning, “What we’re gonna sing is kinda funky,” forever stretching the definition of the word kinda.
Like their ’70s contemporaries Fleetwood Mac, ABBA comprised two couples who eventually became ex-couples, which added a creepy edge to their mellow plaints. Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid (last names? like anyone ever cared) created a sound so clean, so antiseptic, it was avant-garde, especially when their cheery melodies came packaged in vocals full of despair and fear. (These guys had a song called “Disillusion” on their first album.) Relentlessly, almost militantly catchy—even the drum parts had hooks, for God’s sake—ABBA achieved an unlikely synthesis of high-gloss Euro-schlock and vaguely gothy style, making them hugely influential on the new wave and synth-pop that followed. Listen to “Knowing Me, Knowing You” next to Joy Division, or “S.O.S.” next to the Cure, and you shall know that the void speaks with a Swedish accent.
ABBA debuted as a mild-mannered folkie quartet on 1973’s Ring Ring. But then they heard David Bowie, and the result was their first worldwide smash, “Waterloo.” (The influence must have run both ways, since Bowie’s 1977 masterpiece Low was practically a love letter to ABBA’s synths.) The boys wrote and played; the girls sang; nobody’s sure who picked out the outfits. They were obviously still learning to speak the Englishes, yet the dippy lyrics just added to the vulnerable charm that made them heroes for ’70s kids like Kurt Cobain (who later tapped ABBA tribute band Björn Again to open for Nirvana). Waterloo and ABBA are full of glitter-pop blasts: The ladies sing like they’re exploding out of their bedazzled unitards in “Hey, Hey Helen” and “Rock Me,” and Benny oozes animal passion in “Suzy-Hang-Around.”
But ABBA really took off with Arrival, where Björn and Benny began to obsess over their new synthesizers. It has their most famous hit (“Dancing Queen”), plus the hormonally charged “Dum Dum Diddle” and a kinky tribute to the Swedish school system, “When I Kissed the Teacher.” Believe it or not, they even tried to go progressive on The Album—“The Name of the Game” is an over-the-top epic with flugelhorns, church organ and a spooky goblin choir. All the pretension just makes it ABBA’s most ridiculous moment, and therefore their best.
On Voulez-Vous and Super Trouper, they adapted to the disco and new wave that defined the end of the ’70s, but they saved their weirdest shot for last. The title song of The Visitors is an ode to frigid-pink paranoia at the dawn of the ’80s, with the girls chanting “Crackin’ up!” over chilly electro-beats. If the last hour of Boogie Nights were packed into one six-minute song, this is what it would sound like. It was never a hit, and didn’t make the movie. But hopefully they’re just saving it for Mamma Mia 2.
Download “King Kong Song,” “Bang-a-Boomerang,” “Dum Dum Diddle”
Blender's Most Popular
Most Popular Slideshows
Most Popular Videos
Most Popular Posts
