Saturday 11 February 2012

1977: ABBA - The Album album review

Anyone who watched the ABBA special that Veronica aired on the evening of the film premiere of 'ABBA - The Movie' has been able to see and hear a track from this new album 'ABBA - The Album'. In a magnificent film clip we saw the illustrious Swedish quartet perform the song 'Eagle'.
This record offers a very diverse range of songs, from the ballad 'One Man, One Woman' with good guitar and piano accompaniment and a multi harmony chorus to the rousing rocker 'Hole In Your Soul' wherein ABBA's speed and energy is highlighted in an excellent way.
In between we have commercial songs like 'Take A Chance On Me' - vocally a masterpiece and according to us a very strong follow-up to 'The Name Of The Game' - obviously included on this record too, the very unusual 'Move On' that is sung in a lower key than we've come to expect from ABBA but that once again accentuates the excellent vocals and production.
The trilogy 'The Girl With The Golden Hair' however comes across a little odd with the cabaret sounding 'Thank You For The Music', the soft 'I Wonder' and the somewhat sourish 'I'm A Marionette'.
Either way, this record once again proves that ABBA has tons of talent. We are absolutely sure that this album is going to sell well too and that the ABBA empire can look forward to some nice years to come.
Something that strikes me though is that Björn and Benny are focusing more and more on composing and producing the album instead of vocal contributions, a job that they leave to the ladies. If that's one of the reasons that more technical trickery and special sounds were used on this album is something that only ABBA has the answer to.

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