Definitive Collection, The (Deluxe Edition/+DVD) - Abba

This album is undoubtedly the best collection to put together the work of the legendary Swedish band ABBA. This year is the thirtieth anniversary of ABBA’s success at the Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Waterloo’, so consider this my way of celebrating the magnificent legacy of Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad…

Unfortunately when many people remember ABBA, the first thing they think of ...
...songs of the 1970’s. True, they are all aspects of the ABBA legend, but there has always been something darker about ABBA that I have liked. The fact that they were two married couples who divorced and continued as a band and slowly dissolved, their music mirroring their personal situations, has truly fascinated me ever since I first heard an ABBA record back in the mists of time when I was about 10 years old.

In a market already saturated ... more

This album is undoubtedly the best collection to put together the work of the legendary Swedish band ABBA. This year is the thirtieth anniversary of ABBA’s success at the Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Waterloo’, so consider this my way of celebrating the magnificent legacy of Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad…

Unfortunately when many people remember ABBA, the first thing they think of is ‘Dancing Queen’, the gaudy outfits, Eurovision and the cheesy songs of the 1970’s. True, they are all aspects of the ABBA legend, but there has always been something darker about ABBA that I have liked. The fact that they were two married couples who divorced and continued as a band and slowly dissolved, their music mirroring their personal situations, has truly fascinated me ever since I first heard an ABBA record back in the mists of time when I was about 10 years old.

In a market already saturated with ABBA collections, including ABBA Gold and More ABBA Gold, what is the need for this album, which differs from the others? Well, this collection, which seems affectionately compiled with great new pictures of the band and new sleevenotes which detail every song, brings together every last one of ABBA’s singles that they released anywhere in the world. So this double album gives you the complete story altogether, putting the tracks in chronological order for full effect. The change in the band between their first single, ‘People Need Love’ (1972), and their last, ‘Under Attack’ (1982) is startling and demonstrates an astounding musical development. In the 1990’s, and rightfully so, ABBA members and songwriters Ulvaeus and Andersson, and the legacy of the band were reappraised and given new respect, which they totally deserve. The development in a ten-year period is impressive, to the point that the band sound like different people altogether by the time they split up in 1982 to that innocent first record back in 1972. The difference is so marked that the ABBA of CD1 of this collection sounds different to the ABBA of CD2, so this is something of a tale of two ABBA’s…

CD 1 takes us from 1972 to 1979 and has many highlights. Here, we sense the innocence, naivety and fun, although numbers such as ‘People Need Love’, ‘He Is Your Brother’ (1972) and ‘Love Isn’t Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough)’ (1973) really lack any kind of depth and seem awfully lightweight and middle-of-the-road, having dated pretty badly over the years. ABBA’s first high point comes with 1973’s ‘Ring Ring’, which was almost chosen as Sweden’s entrant into that years Eurovision. However, they missed out, and would try again the next year, getting chosen to represent their home country and going on to win the competition with ‘Waterloo’, which is one of the poppiest singles ever recorded, surely. The Swedish accent and often strange lyrics added a cool quirk to the band, evident on this song.

ABBA then had problems following up their success with ‘Waterloo’ and this is noticeable with a series of weak tracks such as ‘So Long’ (1974) and ‘Honey, Honey’ (1974), which are passable but lack the spark of ‘Waterloo’. However, ABBA’s first real moment of genius would come in 1975 with ‘SOS’, which was the first real time that they employed sadness in their songs, their previous material being pretty happy-go-lucky middle-of-the-road fare. ‘SOS’ for a mainstream pop song, is chockfull of heartache and heartbreak, and this would characterise a lot of ABBA’s material for the next few years.

CD 1 also has some really strong songs such as ‘Dancing Queen’ (1976), ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ (1976) (another use of heartache and pain!) and ‘Take A Chance On Me’ (1977), all of which are familiar to the public, unless you really have been living in a cave for the past thirty years. However, my personal favourite is the absolutely phenomenal and sorely under-rated ‘Summer Night City’ (1978), which made the Top 10 but is something of a forgotten classic with deserves re-appraisal as it is light years ahead of ‘Dancing Queen’, arguably ABBA’s most recognisable track, which I have never really liked because it just seems so absurdly camp… ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ is also another strong point on the album and the first indication that trouble was brewing the ABBA camp. Indeed, Ulvaeus and Faltskog’s marriage was starting to enter stormy waters. It is slightly odd that the traumas of their personal lives (and that of Andersson and Lyngstad, who divorced shortly afterward) was undoubtedly reflected in their material, as though they were playing out their troubles in a very public arena.

CD 2 opens with the throbbing, pulsing ‘Voulez-Vous’ (1979), followed by ‘Angeleyes’ (1979), the two being a double A-side in Britain and the States. ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!’ (1979) is another noteworthy record and indicates a startling development in terms of musical prowess. The Ulvaeus/Andersson songwriting axis was by now set in concrete, churning out hit after hit and making the whole process seem effortless. ‘I Have A Dream’ (1979) follows, which I have always found terminally dull and one of the band’s weaker efforts, but I guess there are some people out there who like it…

One of ABBA’s crowning glories came in 1980 with ‘The Winner Takes It All’, one of the saddest songs ever written. By now, Bjorn and Agnetha had divorced and you had the situation of Bjorn writing a sad, gloomy, divorce song for his wife to sing, quite a bizarre situation it seems and one can’t imagine the tension in the studio at the time. Agnetha gives an incredibly vocal performance, singing solo on this heart-wrenching song.

Frida gets a rare chance at a solo vocal on ‘Super Trouper’ and the song was another smash hit. ‘On And On And On’ (1980) is another under-appreciated classic, which we learn was Andersson’s tribute to the Beach Boys and the fantastic vocal harmonies pay the legendary American band a fitting homage. ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ (1980) is another dancefloor filler in the mould of ‘Voulez-Vous’ and the like, but is also noteworthy for the fact that the vocal sounds so tragic. ABBA took a happy, dancefloor tune and put a seething, jealous, angry lyric over it, which nobody seemingly noticed at the time…

From this point on ABBA get increasingly depressed and depressing. Their material became introspective and joyless, lacking the innocence and fun of the early years, but I think these later years saw some of ABBA’s best material. ‘One Of Us’ (1981) is another divorce epic sang by Agnetha, while Frida reflects on the collapse of her marriage to Benny on ‘When All Is Said And Done’ (1981). The lines between reality and song are blurred to the point where there seems to be no distinct division. The song was mirroring the real-life situation of the band, giving tracks such as these an added tragedy. ABBA also tackled more difficult matters such as dissidents in Communist Russia (on ‘The Visitors’ (1981), stuff you could hardly have imagined them writing in the ‘People Need Love’ era…

‘The Day Before You Came’ and ‘Under Attack’, both from 1982, are my favourite ABBA tracks. They failed miserably in the UK charts and were largely ignored in the US. Despite this, they are incredibly rich in quality, with more fantastic vocals and a maturity which is lacking in their earlier work. ‘Dancing Queen’ may get the plaudits as one of the greatest songs of all time (which it isn’t), but is ABBA’s true high point, songs which remain some of the finest ever written and ones which will never age.

It is interesting to see that on these two tracks, as is the trend towards ABBA's split, Agnetha gets the lead vocal. Indeed, 'The Day Before You Came' is virtually an Agnetha solo number, with Frida not featuring at all. It makes me wonder if Frida ever got jealous at how Benny and Bjorn kept giving the lead vocals on the singles to Agnetha, while she seemed to be assigned backing vocal duty many times.

This is a fine collection of songs. In sum, I would seriously advise you to buy this album. Don’t bother with ABBA Gold, More ABBA Gold and all the other collections that may be out there. In fact, you don’t really need to buy an ABBA album either, as ABBA were a truly terrible album band (it’s the truth!). But as a singles band ABBA excel and put together a run of singles that puts them up there with the greatest bands of all time, and as this collection pieces together all of their singles, it really does deserve a place in your record collection. 

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