Album Review: Voulez-Vous

Personally, a lot had happened to the members of ABBA by the spring of 1979 when Voulez-Vous hit the stores.  Agnetha and Björn divorced and Frida and Benny married after a lengthy engagement.  Creatively, things were continuing to evolve too.  Benny and Björn were finding it harder and harder to write material that they felt confident enough in.  Work on Voulez-Vous had actually started in the spring of 1978.  Unlike the sessions for previous albums, there was a decent amount of material that didn't make the album, despite being nearly finished.  The current trend of disco was a strong influence.  The group's style could easily be described as having little in the way of soul.  Somehow, ABBA's tradtional European melodies blended with the disco style to create a very unique sound.  "Angeleyes" and the album's opener, "As Good As New," were two gems perfectly at home in the ABBA catalogue.   The title track was written by Benny and Björn during a songwriting trip to the Carribean.  The backing track was recorded at the Bee Gees' Miami studio without the help of Swedish musicians.  The result is one of the group's funkiest tracks yet.  On "Lovers (Live A Little Longer)" and "Kisses Of Fire," ABBA created an adult image of themselves by singing about sex.  Certainly, the themes on Voulez-Vous were grown up.  "Does Your Mother Know" dealt with the controversial subject of jailbait.  By now, it was clear that ABBA were masters of their craft.  Voulez-Vous was the most sophisticated album yet.

Album Review: ABBA-The Album

The pressure was beginning to really build for Björn and Benny to come up with material when work began on the group's fifth album in 1977.  ABBA was now topping the singles charts on a regular basis, and Arrival had proven their worth on the album charts.  Musically, they had taken a major step forward during the past year.  The progression would continue on ABBA-The Album.  The wonderfully complex "The Name Of The Game" was one of the first tracks recorded, and it is a perfect example of the progression of the ABBA sound that was taking place at the time.  The tracks here were quite polished, not oony from a production standpoint but lyrically as well.  There were no silly "Tiger" or "When I Kissed The Teacher" type songs here.  "Eagle," the opening track of the album, clocks in at nearly six minutes long.  It's multilayered, rich sound showcased not only the quartet's talents, but the talents of their musicians and engineers as well.  "One Man, One Woman" and "I Wonder (Departure)," both with Frida on lead vocals, were incredibly mature.  ABBA even showed a hint of bitterness and exhaustion on the album's closer" "I'm A Marionette," a dark number from the so-called mini-musical featured on their recent tour of Europe and Australia.  But things weren't all somber and heavy here.  The international smash "Take A Chance On Me" and the rock-n-roll tribute "Hole In Your Soul" (featuring an impressive vocal crescendo by Agnetha) showed that ABBA was still fun.  But they were certainly more grown up.  The philosophical, latin flavored "Move On" demonstrated that.  ABBA had gotten to the point where they proved that their music was more important than the flashy costumes.  "Thank You For The Music," another number from the mini-musical, was closer to Gilbert and Sullivan than pop, but the point could certainly be taken.

Album Review: Arrival

By the end of 1976, ABBA had scored a string of international smash singles with "SOS," "Mamma Mia," "Fernando" and "Dancing Queen."  They had also finally broken into the album charts.  Ironically, the first hit album from ABBA was a greatest hits collection filled with singles.  The ABBA-hungry world was ready for a brand new album.  When Arrival hit stores in November that year, it was a blockbuster.  The title was very appropriate:  ABBA had indeed arrived with their first genuinely brilliant album.  The sound on this album was sophisticated, clever and engaging.  There are so many layers to it, so much packed into the sound, that even after a dozen plays, Arrival could still yield surprises to an alert listener.  It took nearly eighteen months to write and record all of the material on this album.  And it showed.  "Dancing Queen" easily became the biggest hit of their career.  The next two singles were not as massive, but were still solid hits.  "Money, Money, Money" was pop magic.  "Knowing Me, Knowing You" showed that ABBA could show emotion and create a mood with their lyrics.  The break-up theme of this song was brilliant, and it was one that ABBA visited over and over again for the remainder of their career.  The women's vocals are top notch here, particularly Frida, who sings lead on "Knowing Me, Knowing You."  Björn sang lead on only one song.  But this time, it worked.  The raunchy "Why Did It Have To Be Me" was fun and engaging.  "That's Me" (which Agnetha chose as her favorite number from Arrival-perhaps explaining its selection as the b-side of the "Dancing Queen" single) had a rhythmic feel like no ABBA song so far.  The only weak spots were "When I Kissed The Teacher," "Dum Dum Diddle" and "Tiger."  But despite their weaknesses lyrically, these tracks all work because of the vocals and production.  ABBA had stumbled onto a winning formula.  They had the world's ear.  From there, it only got better.

Album Review: ABBA

By the time ABBA was released in 1975, the group was on their way to becoming a truly international phenomenon.  Although the first two singles from the album (the glam-rock "So Long" and the '50s era flavored "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do") failed to be commercially successful, they showed a new ABBA.  More polished, more energetic.  Most telling is the fact that Björn's lead vocal duties had been reduced from half of the album to only three of the eleven songs.  On the ABBA album, the women finally (and rightfully) took center stage.  The result was an album that spawned two bonafide international hit singles ("SOS" and "Mamma Mia").  These two tracks were arguably the best things that the quartet had released to date.  But there were more highlights on the album.  Frida's warm, deep voice was given the perfect showcase on "Tropical Loveland," while Agnetha's innocent, high pitched vocals are perfect on "I've Been Waiting For You."  After his distasterous lead vocal on Waterloo's "Suzy-Hang-Around," Benny showed his true power on the progressive rock instrumental "Intermezzo No. 1."  As an album, ABBA was much stronger than either Waterloo or Ring Ring, but it was still not what you could call a cohesive collection of songs.  With so many different styles (glam rock, reggae, pop, progressive rock, ballads and '50s bandstand), it was hard to tell exactly who ABBA was.  They were still finding their style.

Album Review: Waterloo

A year makes a big difference, and the Waterloo album proves that.  A much more cohesive effort than 1973's Ring Ring, 1974's Waterloo featured a good number of classics, instead of a precious few.  "Waterloo" and "Honey Honey" were hit singles, while "Hasta Mañana," "Dance (While The Music Still Goes On," "Gonna Sing You My Lovesong" and "What About Livingstone" demonstrated that ABBA was becoming masters of the pop genre.  But, as brilliant as all of the aforementioned tracks were, there were still some failures here.  "King Kong Song," "Sitting In The Palmtree" and "Suzy-Hang-Around" did nothing to advance the cause of taking the group seriously.  "My Mama Said" is a good attempt at funk, while "Watch Out" showcased the rock side of ABBA.  But still, one thing became clear:  ABBA could do pop, and do it well.  Critics in Europe gave Waterloo a luke-warm reception, but in America, critics compared ABBA to the innocent girl-group sound of the previous decade.  The second album was clearly a step in the right direction.

Album Review: Ring Ring

Not quite ABBA: 1973's Ring Ring LP.

1973's Ring Ring was admittedly not a strong album.  It contained material from a wide variety of sources.  Benny and Björn had been trying to make it as a duo since leaving the groups that had brought them fame in the '60s.  A few of the tracks on Ring Ring were simply songs that they had come up with during that time, with the girls singing backing vocals.  Agnetha had been a singer/songwriter before the group started, and she contributed the beautiful, yet out of place "Disillusion" to the album. 

The lyrics were not all that great (particularly on "Me & Bobby & Bobby's Brother") and often dealt with trivial subjects.  "I Saw It In The Mirror" has to be one of the group's most forgettable songs, almost painful to listen to.  There were glimpses of the future greatness that the quartet would achieve: "Nina, Pretty Ballerina" and "I Am Just A Girl." 

Still, the title track remains the group's first real gem, ushering in the legendary "ABBA sound."  But mostly, Ring Ring contains tracks that showcased the group's potential without quite succeeding in convincing the listener that they had what it took to become a genuinely successful international group.