Obviously it’s January now, and part of my January ritual is (apart from completing my self assessment in the nick of time) is having a rifle through my shelves and boxes to see if there’s anything I should be passing on. An area I always bypass is the small amount of vinyl I’ve inherited or been given on the middle shelf, so this year I’m not bypassing, I’m listening.
We all know ABBA. It occurred to me though that I’ve never actually sat down and listened to a whole ABBA record. I mean, we own the greatest hits cd, most people probably do, but it appears in the course of my research that their first greatest hits record, released in 1975, is really kind of anything but. The greatest hits of 1975 really only serves as a summary of their work up until that point, i.e. their first three records, “Ring, Ring”, “Waterloo” and “ABBA”.
Up until this point in actual fact, ABBA’s impression on the U.K. had been far from groundbreaking. Yes, they won the EuroVision Song Contest in Brighton with “Waterloo” in 1974, but we gave them ‘nil points’. In the years that followed that, the combination of the greatest hits record, and the massive hits “Money Money Money”, “Fernando” and “Dancing Queen” makes our lack of interest in them somewhat ironic. When the subject album of today’s blog “Arrival” literally arrived in October 1976, ABBA’s grip on the hearts and minds of the U.K. became assured. “Arrival” went platinum, and “Greatest Hits” went on the be the second biggest selling album in the U.K. of the 1970’s, beaten only by “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel, that, being released in 1970, had a six year head start.
So, today I’m listening to “Arrival”, ABBA’s fourth studio album, from front to back, on the vinyl I inherited from my parents when they had a clear out.....
Superficially, it’s got a cool cover. The four band members sitting in the front of a helicopter, looking like they’ve just landed from an episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, but let’s get into the music.
I’ve already mentioned two of the albums biggest hits “Dancing Queen” and “Money Money Money” the third is “Knowing Me, Knowing You”. These songs need no introduction. I always think it’s the tracks in between that really make the record. So is this an album of fillers supporting the big tracks? Well to me in some ways, yes, but it doesn’t really feel deliberate or that there’s a lack of ideas.
Some of it feels like it’s all purely in the translation. ABBA wrote and sang in English, but not in the way that a native speaker would. Sometimes that ‘glitch’ supports the song, sometimes it doesn’t, for me anyway. We British can be a bit sniffy about ‘europop’, like it’s often not terribly cool or a bit two dimensional. “When I Kissed The Teacher” and “Dum Dum Diddle” feel a bit like that, but with songs like “Tiger” (which is the best ABBA song I’d never heard) it’s perfection.
You can listen to the whole album here on youtube....
None of the lyrical subjects on the record appear happy. The generally upbeat nature of ABBA’s often disco-esque sound disguises the fear and general unhappiness of the protagonists. It’s something that ABBA often did really well. Think about “The Winner Takes It All”. It’s a really sad song. Occasionally though, they dress that idea in the wrong coat. “Why Did It Have To Be Me?” is a fine song lyrically, it’s just dressed up as some kind of country rock’n’roll. It doesn’t do it any favours. “Arrival” the title track is pretty much instrumental. It sounds like the theme music to a Swedish mythology documentary : the most unABBA ABBA song I’ve ever heard. At first you think that it might be at odds, but once you’re used to it, it fits well with the best the album has to offer.
In Conclusion
So in conclusion, I’d say I like ABBA when they’re just doing what they do, not trying to be something else. Sid Vicious of The Sex Pistols liked ABBA. Joe Strummer of The Clash liked ABBA. Pete Townshend from The Who loved ABBA. Apparently. If my rock music credentials don’t sway you towards a better listen to some back catalogue (which is pretty unlikely), then maybe theirs will.
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