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The Albums

Abba - The Albums Audio CD

A fair review of the Abba "The Albums" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Abba reviews here, or go back to the Abba tabs.

Band: Abba
Title: The Albums
Rating:

Release Date: 2008-11-11
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Ring Ring 2: Another Town, Another Train 3: Disillusion 4: People Need Love 5: I Saw It In The Mirror 6: Nina, Pretty Ballerina 7: Love Isn't Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough) 8: Me And Bobby And Bobby's Brother 9: He Is Your Brother 10: She's My Kind Of Girl 11: I Am Just A Girl 12: Rock'n Roll Band 13: Waterloo 14: Sitting In The Palmtree 15: King Kong Song 16: Hasta Ma�ana 17: My Mama Said 18: Dance (While The Music Still Goes On) 19: Honey, Honey 20: Watch Out 21: What About Livingstone 22: Gonna Sing You My Lovesong 23: Suzy-Hang-Around 24: Mamma Mia 25: Hey, Hey Helen 26: Tropical Loveland 27: SOS 28: Man In The Middle 29: Bang-A-Boomerang 30: I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do 31: Rock Me 32: Intermezzo No.1 33: I've Been Waiting For You 34: So Long 35: When I Kissed The Teacher 36: Dancing Queen 37: My Love, My Life 38: Dum Dum Diddle 39: Knowing Me, Knowing You 40: Money, Money, Money 41: That's Me 42: Why Did It Have To Be Me 43: Tiger 44: Arrival 45: Eagle 46: Take A Chance On Me 47: One Man, One Woman 48: The Name Of The Game 49: Move On 50: Hole In Your Soul 51: Thank You For The Music 52: I Wonder (Departure) 53: I'm A Marionette 54: As Good As New 55: Voulez-Vous 56: I Have A Dream 57: Angeleyes 58: The King Has Lost His Crown 59: Does Your Mother Know 60: If It Wasn't For The Nights 61: Chiquitita 62: Lovers (Live ALittle Longer) 63: Kisses Of Fire 64: Super Trouper 65: The Winner Takes It All 66: On And On And On 67: Andante, Andante 68: Me And I 69: Happy New Year 70: Our Last Summer 71: The Piper 72: Lay All Your Love On Me 73: The Way Old Friends Do 74: The Visitors 75: Head Over Heels 76: When All Is Said And Done 77: Soldiers 78: I Let The Music Speak 79: One Of Us 80: Two For The Price Of One 81: Slipping Through My Fingers 82: Like An Angel Passing Through My Room 83: Merry-Go-Round 84: Santa Rosa 85: Ring Ring (bara du slog en signal) [Swedish Version] 86: Waterloo[Swedish Version] 87: Fernando 88: Crazy World 89: Happy Hawaii 90: Summer Night City 91: Medley: Pick A Bale Of Cotton -On Top Of Old Smokey - Midnight Special 92: Lovelight 93: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) 94: Elaine 95: Should I Laugh Or Cry 96: You Owe Me One 97: Cassandra 98: Under Attack 99: The Day Before You Came

The ABBA Era
Their unique sound and harmony is the best I've ever heard. I could listen to ABBA all day and never get tired of it. Can't get enough of them. Too bad they had to break up.

The Complete ABBA
They started as European favorites and quickly became World favorites. This is an excellent collection that shows how and why their popularity exploded.

Great collection for those who want to hear more than ABBA Gold
By that I mean releasing the albums without bonus tracks. First of all, I think it was a great idea to release the albums in their original form for a change. Most of ABBA's albums had very poignant closing tracks and the effect of them was lost when bonus tracks (in the shape of B-sides or previously unreleased material) were added to the original albums in earlier CD-releases.

Another plus for this collection is the remastering. This release uses the same remastering as the (more comprehensive) Complete Studio Recordings box set (released in 2005) and the tracks sound much fresher and more vibrant than the very poor remasters that were done in 1997 and 2001 which sounded flat and lifeless.

To make this box set completely satisfactory, they should have put more effort into reproducing the original album sleeves. They are printed on thin paper and some of them look like they've been Xeroxed. Furthermore, none of the inner sleeves that came with some of the original albums are included here. One just needs to turn to the 2004 Japanese box set of ABBA's albums to see that this can be done in a much classier way. The latter even used the lavish gatefold sleeve of the UK-release of The Album.
Apart from that, the booklet is very minimal. It doesn't offer any liner notes about the albums. However, it does offer a brief timeline of ABBA's career that includes no info that any true ABBA-fan doesn't already know.

Therefore, this release is probably aimed at the casual ABBA-listener who wants to hear more of ABBA's output than just the hits that were included on ABBA Gold. For that target group it's an excellent way to get their hands on ABBA's hidden gems. Among them, great tracks such as That's Me, One Man, One Woman, If It Wasn't For The Nights, Our Last Summer, Like An Angel Passing Through My Room and. . . and. . .
ABBA has so much more to offer than just ABBA Gold. When recording their albums, ABBA treated every track as a possibe single. This meant that only the cream of the crop made it onto the albums, there are no fillers.

Without a doubt, ABBA is one of the biggest acts in the history of popular music. So I rate the music included here with five stars, the reproduction of the original artwork and the booklet three stars at the most.

A Little Disappointed
There were many duplicated songs on the albums. I was a little disappointed in this collection. I did enjoyed the different variety of songs, ranging from the typical Abba to a touch of Reggae. .

only for the completist
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. .

You can see a complete list of all Abba discography, or go back to the Abba tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.