Abba - ABBA - Gold: Greatest Hits
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Free Music Notes for ABBA - Gold: Greatest Hits
Free Music Review: THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC!
Hit: 5 Stars
Abba's music is electric, vibrant and fresh despite the passage of time. The group, as Amazon so correctly points out, had a special versatility that enabled them to produce many different types of songs. There's the classic "Dancing Queen" that almost everybody recognizes as being distinctly Abba with their 1970's pop sound; but there's also the rock and roll style of "Does Your Mother Know." "Does Your Mother Know" is just one of the many songs on this CD that has a great musical arrangement as well.
Abba was also very capable of capturing the intensity of one's feelings about love affairs and romance. I enjoyed how they compared a romance to Napoleon's infamous battle with their song entitled "Waterloo." "The Winner Takes It All" also captures the intense bitterness of a lost romance. They sing of other universal themes such as the quest to become rich ""Money, Money, Money" and the sheer delight of celebrating love without ties with "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)."
"Lay All Your Love On Me" has a beautifully haunting disco flavor that deserves recognition all on its own. Powerful! The musical arrangement is strikingly beautiful and very sensitively delivered. I also particularly enjoyed the somewhat autobiographical song entitled "Thank You For The Music." The lyrics are very well written:
I'm nothing special; in fact I'm a bit of a bore
If I tell a joke, you've probably heard it before
But I have a talent, a wonderful thing
'cause everyone listens when I start to sing
I'm so grateful and proud
All I want is to sing it out loud
So I say
Thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing
Thanks for all the joy they're bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me
Although some people may be tempted to say that the lyrics to Abba songs are just too sugary sweet to be enjoyable; I for one disagree. There is a refreshing honesty to the lyrics that reminds me of a naivet? I myself once had and lost when I learned some painful lessons along the way in my life. That nostalgia probably helps me enjoy Abba's music even more; and I would imagine that at least some other people would feel the same way that I do.
One note: if you want longer "dance" versions of some of these songs, you'll be disappointed here. The CD gives you 19 songs so there's not much time for longer versions. That's a minus, admittedly, but this CD remains quite strong anyway. Hey, the proof is in the pudding: despite being released years ago, the CD is still a big seller! SMILE
The quality of the sound is excellent and the song set is nicely laid out.
The liner notes are excellent. John Tobler contributes an extensive essay about the history of the group that also includes some information about their personal lives. The liner notes include song credits, pictures of the covers of their record albums and quite a few nice color pictures of the group. You won't get the lyrics to the songs, though.
All in all, this is an awesome CD for Abba fans as well as people who want to get to know Abba. I would also recommend this CD for fans of great pop music with a 1970's flavor to it. Try this CD--you won't be disappointed.
Free Music Review: ABBA Platinum
Hit: 5 Stars
Gold is an impressive and valuable mineral. But the most impressive and enduring of all is platinum and for that reason alone, this album should be retitled for future editions.It is almost superfluous trying to review a body of the "greatest" work from arguably the best pop-act the music world has ever known. How do you evaluate a collection of songs that has seeped into the consciousness of pretty much anyone who was around in the mid to late 70's and which continues to impress even the most cynical music listener today?
The best that you can do is merely to remember the exhiliration on first hearing the soaring strings and harmonies of "Dancing Queen" and not quite believing a song could sound so beautiful. Or to recall the moment you thought you might stop breathing as you listened to the aching resignation and almost gorgeous pain in "The Winner Takes it all". Or to decribe the marvel when you first recognised the maturity and balance contained in the mini-opus "The name of the game". Or maybe to smile at the day you knew you had died and gone to pop heaven whilst being serenaded with the delightful suggestiveness of "If you change your mind, I'm the first in line, Honey I'm still free, take a chance on me". And I could go on in similar vein with and each and every one of the remaining tracks.
"ABBA Gold" is a only a sample of music that has transcended time and genres and (now it can be said) generations. A souvenir if you like of the joy and fun and the sheer brilliance of being alive which was contained in just about all of ABBA's 3 to 4 minute pop gems.
Hyperbole and exaggeration? Maybe. But the fact remains that ABBA's music and genius continues to impress people and critics all over the world with its timeless simplicity and complexity, its technical brilliance and a mastery of that most essential element of all great songs - the "hook". Add to that the glorious sounds of Agnetha and Frida harmonising together (every time) and you know that ABBA will never be bettered.
The real point to buying this album is not to be reminded of the days when a pop song could be equally sublime and fun nor to confirm in one sitting that ABBA were (and are) the absolute masters of songwriting and singing the perfect tune. The real point of this collection should be to lead you to discover the wealth of treasures contained in ABBA's lesser known albums and album tracks.
Free Music Review: Free to Be, ABBA and Thee!
Hit: 5 Stars
It is difficult to steer popular culture toward art that both entertains and addresses the chaotic nature of Man, who has a tendency to be both architect and destroyer of his own being. Perhaps the music group ABBA succeeded best in this quest; by wearing the birrus of pop-culture and "Have a Nice Day" madness, they cleverly kissed the worldly castle of post-modern gluttony, and simultaneously tore it to the ground, burying its insolent tyrants in the compost pit named The Fool.
The mirrored image of the four letters "ABBA" has haunted the international psyche since that great Eurovision battle in the 1970s. Whether the ABBA logo was spray painted on a wall, viciously tattooed onto the arms of angry teens drunk on angst, or nihilistically plastered above stages in huge blinking lights, ABBA delivered complex messages that puzzled an arrogant public.
We will never see Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Anni-Frid perform their message as a team on stage again, as they have disbanded and taken refuge in monetary splendor, a phase I am certain they were impelled to embrace after years of media scrutiny (I have often wondered if they disbanded after hearing the song "Born To Lose" by Johnny Thunder---even though I felt on top of the world when I first heard that song, the lyrics and riffs ripped a huge hole in my soul, and it took me eons to recover). The good news is that their war cries live on in this collection: "ABBA Gold."
The simplistic gold on black CD case serves as the perfect overcanópy to the harrowing glee captured on these tracks. The collection opens with "Dancing Queen," the modern day cry of the nightclub siren, tempting men with Pierrothic visions to dance under the spell of a swaying harmonic vixen, only to be discarded with the sludge that oozes into the sewers of London whilst the pub owners chill beer against the patrons' wishes.
Perhaps the quintessential sagacious performance of potency comes when Anni-Frid sings "Money, Money, Money," her wickedly beautiful voice lavishly ripping all humanity to shreds, kicking the poor and hungry into panic while she spends, spends, spends her cash, credit cards and bond-bonds! I found myself screaming and pounding my fist into my mailbox, until it was scabbed and really hurt, after I finally comprehended the seductive albeit painful message Dame Frida delivered. Only The Dead Kennedys' "Kill the Poor" comes close to the intensity of this power-ode to gluttony (I wonder if Anni-Frid and Jello Biafra might someday do a spoken word performance together?).
Listening to this entire compilation serves as a swan dive into a pool filled with undiluted cola syrup, forcing us to swim madly through our cerebral serfdom until our spirits add water, mix, stir; thereby freeing the multitudes into one big sparkling bottle of sweetness. "ABBA Gold" will do more than make you sing and dance; it will dance along with you until you expel the Guajardian demons that taunt us. ABBA forever!
Free Music Review: Pure Pop Defined
Hit: 5 Stars
During the 1970s and early 80s, the Swedish band ABBA created irresistable pop songs and dominated sales and airplay charts around the world. Their success in the USA, while large, gives no indication of the incredible phenomena they were across the globe.
With GOLD, listeners can remember why ABBA was so huge. Granted, it's all amazingly sugary, but behind those crystalline harmonies, bouncy rhythms, lush arrangements, and gorgeous melodies, there is a measurable sense of melancholy that pervades many of the lyrics. This blending of joy and pathos proved unstoppable for the group, and though ABBA eventually disbanded, their songs keep rolling along.
GOLD is jam-packed with one killer tune after another. "Dancing Queen" with its huge piano runs gets the steamroller off to a roaring start, all happiness and light. But the sadness creeps in with "Knowing Me, Knowing You," belied by the breathy "a-haaas" that punctuate the tale of inevitable breakup. The delightful vocal arrangement of "Take a Chance on Me" may have been the best of their career. "Mama Mia" nearly overdoses on sweetness, which is followed by the entrancing "Lay All Your Love on Me."
Once "Super Trouper" gets in your head, it will NEVER leave. Days later, you will be bouncing around singing, "Soo-pah-pah, troo-pah-pah," and you won't care. The lyrics are a bit overwrought on "I Have a Dream," but its sung so convincingly and affectingly...and there go those gorgeous melodies again...that it works somehow. "The Winner Takes it All" is genuinely devastating; an incredibly beautiful and heartbreaking slice of Europop.
"Money Money Money" and "S.O.S." are patented ABBA repeating phrase songs...they will have you chanting along if you're not careful. The rollicking piano-based "Chiquitita" plays like a classic folk song, with its soaring, memorable chorus. ABBA continues in the folk vein with the great, lovely story classic, "Fernando."
Then, they dabble in a heady Eurodisco/rock fusion with "Voulez-Vous," "Gimme Gimme Gimme," and the mildly disturbing "Does Your Mother Know?" ABBA returns to classic balladry with "One of Us" before delivering the memorable, moody, simmering, and superb "The Name of the Game."
"Thank You for the Music" is a bit of a show-tune, but again, so beautiful and sincere that you forgive the cheese quotient. The CD closes with the rousing, crackling, swinging "Waterloo," which got their career rolling back in 1974.
This CD is a roller coaster ride, not in terms of quality, but it terms of mood and theme. It all holds together, and it delivers one thrill after the next. Sing along...you know you want to.
Free Music Review: "Thank You For the Music!!"
Hit: 5 Stars
Many years ago, I wouldn't have touched an ABBA CD with a ten foot pole. I was just too darn cool for that! How then does an avid Rock N'Roll fan, who's been collecting classic rock music for close to thirty years suddenly become addicted to the lighter than air, Euro-Pop sounds of the '70s supergroup, ABBA? There are three sources of my ABBA-ization. One reason was that my wife of over ten years, finally got a new car, that actually had a CD player in it. Now, let me tell you, usually my wife has virtually no interest in the subject of music at all! But once she had access to that CD player, the one thing she wanted was ABBA's "Gold: Greatest Hits". At first I was quite resistant! "Ugggh, You want me to listen to that "POP MUSIC??", I protested! But she was persistent and little by little those beautiful voices of Agnetha & Anni-Frid, singing those hook drenched tunes of Benny & Bjorn, slowly began to infiltrate my brain. My ABBA fate was finally sealed. when I saw two different movies. The first is "Muriel's Wedding", an Australian film about an unhappy young women, who escapes her pain listening to our favorite Swedish songbirds. The other film was Spike Lee's "Summer of Sam". Although the film is somewhat gruesome (It's about the famous '70s era serial killings in NYC) it makes a brilliant visualization of my favorite ABBA song, "Dancing Queen". But that did it! I am now truely a huge ABBA fan, collecting both their music and videos. But no matter how much I buy, I always go back to this original "Gold: Greatest Hits" which started it all. The voices are beautiful and the songs have this power to make you unconsiously start tapping your feet. This combination just seems to take me to another place. It dosn't matter if the song's subject matter is happy or sad. It just seems to put a smile on my face. This is especially good if you've had a hard day and just want to lay back and forget about your troubles! My personal favorite tunes include the before mentioned "Dancing Queen, "Mama Mia", the especially addictive "Take a Chance On Me", "Super Trouper" and the beautiful anthem "Thank You for the Music". If you really get down to it, the whole darn album is great! I've gotten to the point, that I'm now driving my wife crazy by playing this CD, whenever we are in the car! Now, just the other day, I suddenly heard my three year old son start singing the words, "see that girl, watch that scene, dig in, Daaaancing Queennnn!!" Uh-Oh, it's caught on to a whole new generation....