Saturday 27 September 2008

Studio, 1982: ABBA's Frida solo

When ABBA’s brunette Frida gets to make her own album, she can obviously enjoy the fruits of the fame and fortune that she’s gathered over the years. She has the best songwriters, producers, studio-musicians, recording-facilities, and so forth, at her disposal. When it comes to that, she’s just like a little princess, that gets a music box, decorated with jewellery, for her birthday, instead of a humming top.
As you know, meanwhile Frida has been able to make that own record. It’s called ‘Something’s Going On’, named after the Russ Ballard-penned song, that has already managed to become a hit. Apart from Russ Ballard, among others, Stephen Bishop, Peter Belotte & Giorgio Moroder, Rod Argent, Bryan Ferry and Phil Collins have contributed songs to the album. On top of that, Phil Collins acted as a producer for this album, that was recorded in Stockholm for the most part. The names of Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus are notably absent from the list of songwriters and musicians. It’s clear that Frida needed to create something that wouldn’t remind one of ABBA in any way.
Frida can sing beautifully, but lacks a strong personality. Because of that, her work inevitably remains somewhat thin. But Phil Collins did the best he could with the available material, and the result is an entertaining pop-album, of which ‘I Know There’s Something Going On’ is clearly the strongest track.
I guess now we’ll be looking forward to a solo album by Agnetha as well. Still, we hope that these outings will not be at the expense of ABBA, because in that context, the ladies are still at their best.

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