Quintessential 70s.
It all began in the late 70's. I seldom admit this, but I'm an ABBA fan. I bought a compilation album called "ABBA's Greatest Hits. " In my circles, listening to ABBA was considered uncool, but I secretly thought their songs were wonderful. What was it? Perhaps I enjoyed the beat-heavy, keyboard-dominated, dancehall arrangements. Maybe it was the blended female vocals. Plus, let's face it, the songs were brilliantly crafted pop music. Every song on the record was outstanding and could be so "catchy" that you'd have it in your head for hours thereafter. When I was in the right mood, the "ABBA's Greatest Hits" album provided wonderful uplifting music.
More recently, I noted that the movie "Mamma Mia" was playing at the local theaters and I just had to see it. In short, the movie was outstanding. In my theater the audience applauded at the conclusion of the film and I don't experience that very often. The movie was a musical, of course. The somewhat lightweight story line was woven around a collection of ABBA songs. "Mamma Mia," "Waterloo," "SOS," "Honey, Honey," "Dancing Queen," "Take a Chance on Me" and a host of others were interspersed in a tale of a wedding taking place on a Greek Isle. The story was touching in places, and the cast was excellent, but the main star of the movie was the ABBA music.
The cast did a reasonably good job of presenting the ABBA songs, difficult though that must have been. I grimaced at a few, but some were outstanding. A soundtrack from the movie is currently a best-selling CD. In evaluation, I'd say the movie music is rather good, but it just can't mark up to the real ABBA. If I wanted to listen to ABBA music, I'd much rather listen to a good ABBA compilation album rather than listen to the soundtrack album of this very fine movie. A variety of compilations are available, including the venerable "ABBA's Greatest Hits. " The CD version contains exactly the same songs as my old vinyl record, but they have a slightly different order. It's a wonderful selection of ABBA songs and I highly recommend it.
Gary Peterson.
Fantastic Album Cover
A lot of American ABBA fans, like myself, don't know songs like "Honey, Honey", "I Do" or the mind numbingly infectious "Nina, Pretty Ballerina". In addition to the awesome album cover artwork this album captures the groups pre-disco era and has a much more innocent peppy tone to it than the career spanning ABBA Gold. Am I better off now that I know the chorus to that song? I don't know, but at any rate, this will round out any ABBA collection very well.
greatest hits rock,again!
OTHER THAN THAT,I LOVE THIS CD!All the songs that introduced me to the group are here plus one,hasta manana. I bought this cd because I wanted to get the original greatest hits from the super swedes!If there is one down side to it,I would have to say that it is that the tracks are not arranged in the oiginal order from the 1977 release. I can't believe it has been thirty years since this group and record/cd was released!I. . . I feel kind'a old. Every song is here,s. o. s;fernando,honey honey,so long,waterloo,etc;etc. The front cover was kind'a diappointing but I read the review from another amazoner,so it was cool!Interesting to know this was suppose to be the original art cover for the 1977 album. You will love this cd and add it to your library and listen to it frequently(like I do). This is the ABBA cd to have to complete your collection!.
Finally! An MLPS Design Worthy To Challenge the Best of the Japanese!
k. For many, many years now our friends from Japan have been the undoubted masters of the mini-lp replica sleeve a. a. mlps design format. In addition to the usually brilliant sound quality of their discs, they have consistently managed to build great lp sleeve replicas using high quality cardboard very well put together and the attention to detail is astonishing too. They also have the sensitivity to protect the disc itself from scratches and dust with polythene bags that resemble those used for the original lps.
Now whenever our friends from Europe or even the U. S. try their hands at mlps design, they have always fallen way short in some way or other. Now though, we have an exception to the rule! This 30th anniversary version of Abba's early Greatest Hits album is a real classic which rivals the best of the Japanese mlps designs that I've seen. In some ways, such as the way the cd itself is a replica of a black vinyl disc, they have even surpassed their Asian counterparts who rarely even go to this detail.
Although this version doesn't have the polythene bags to protect the disc from dust or scratches at least they had the good sense to ensure the inner sleeve fold is on the outside and so not risk scratching the disc every time you remove or put the disc back. Another ingredient that is missing as compared with Japanese mlps designs is the booklet inserts that frequently include the lyrics as well as essays and other interesting liner notes about the band or the album. Still, I suppose as the original lps never had these, this version is still very faithful to the original.
A word about the tracks themselves though as although the sound quality is very good, the tracks are still a little muddy and not as good sound-wise as those found on the 2-disc "Abba: The Definitive Collection" album. However, there are tracks here that are not found on that album; besides the brilliant "Hasta Manana" we also have "Nina Pretty Ballerina", "Bang a Boomerang", "Another Town, Another Train" and "Dance While the Music Still Goes On. "
Overall, this is a surprisingly good mlps design from a European issuer although sound quality-wise it isn't as good as the remastered 2-disc compilation mentioned above, it does have many tracks that are not on those discs. For fans of well made mlps cds, this is a must have and comes highly recommended.
Classic seventies album
It became the second biggest-selling album of the seventies in the UK, only beaten by 'Bridge over troubled water' by Simon & Garfunkel. I was thrilled to hear that this album would finally be released on CD, because it is undoubtedly one of THE classic albums of the seventies and ABBA's definitive breakthrough in the albums market. This CD version was long overdue. Actually, in my country we got a slightly different compilation back in 1976. That one omitted 'He is your brother' and 'Another town, another train', had a different running order and also a different (not fold-out) cover. I remember playing that album to pieces.
The artwork of this CD release is exceptionally well done, staying as close as possible to the vinyl version. This was how the album was released in Sweden, with 'Fernando' as the first track (in the UK it was the last track).
At the time, the album title was rather puzzling, since several of the tracks were from ABBA's first, internationally unreleased, album 'Ring Ring' and therefor completely unknown to an international audience. That didn't prevent the album from becoming one of ABBA's biggest worldwide sellers.
This album may not have all of ABBA's biggest hits (you would have to resort to 'ABBA Gold' for that), but for nostalgic reasons it is an essential addition to any serious CD collection.
You can see a complete list of all ABBA discography, or go back to the ABBA tabs
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