Don Ignacio's Music Reviews

Ring Ring 1973 ★★½

Ring Ring • Another Town, Another Train • Disillusion • People Need Love • I Saw It in the Mirror • Nina, Pretty Ballerina • Love Isn’t Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough) • Me and Bobby and Bobby’s Brother • He Is Your Brother • She’s My Kind of Girl • I Am Just a Girl • Rock ’N’ Roll Band

A band with two guys and their girlfriends. Young, dumb, in love, and still a few albums away from the sequins, unbeatable hooks, and that distinctly melancholic glow. Even so, this is hookier than ninety percent of the pop albums floating around at the time—just not the ninety-nine-point-nine percent of ABBA’s own peak material. The biggest difference is that Benny and Björn are still taking lead vocals nearly as often as Agnetha and Anni-Frid. Interesting historically. Slightly unfortunate musically. They don’t have bad voices, but the group would soon discover that letting the women handle most of the singing was one of the smartest decisions they ever made. This debut wasn’t released in the United States until the mid-’90s, and it contains precisely zero ABBA hits the average person would recognize. Still, the album is better than its reputation. “Ring Ring” was a hit in Sweden, and it’s the keeper here. Catchy little pop-rock thing. Grinning too hard, maybe, but it works. They’re not pop-meisters yet. Still, this already feels more deliberate than beginner’s luck. A few songs could use a jolt of electricity: “I Saw It in the Mirror” and “I Am Just a Girl.” Even worse, “Me and Bobby and Bobby’s Brother” is the sort of thing that might make you cringe at Eurovision—though you’ve heard worse. “Merry-Go-Round” starts out like psych-pop before a more mechanical rhythm picks up. “Santa Rosa” and “She’s My Kind of Girl” could have slipped off a Turtles record from 1968—and a pretty good one at that. But in terms of how pop aged back then, 1968 to 1972 was practically a geological era. “Rock ’N’ Roll Band” and “People Need Love” are foot-stomping glam songs that sound more appropriate for the era. “Disillusion” might be the second-best song here, a melancholy ballad that points firmly toward the band ABBA would become. Primordial ABBA, then. But with traces of almost everything you’ll later like about them.

Waterloo 1974 ★★★

Waterloo • Sitting in the Palmtree • King Kong Song • Hasta Mañana • My Mama Said • Dance (While the Music Still Goes On) • Honey, Honey • Watch Out • What About Livingstone • Gonna Sing You My Love Song • Suzy-Hang-Around

They more or less cement their polished sound here. The problem is their songwriting still hasn’t fully grown into it. Of course, the opener is “Waterloo,” the huge Eurovision hit, and possibly still the one song from that whole contest in the history of the contest like a moose among a sea of mice. Agnetha and Anni-Frid turn in such rollicking vocal performances that I freely admit to hollering along at the top of my lungs while I’m driving, and there’s absolutely nothing stopping me except for maybe the police but they haven’t stopped me yet. It’s a pounding, thunderous song about Napoleon’s final defeat, because apparently ABBA found romance in surrender. And maybe students of history, gather round. “Honey, Honey” floats through the air nicely, even if it’s pretty simplistic. “Hasta Mañana” has a sweet melody. “Watch Out” is a solid little rocker. “King Kong Song” is goofy pounding rock, clearly a joke of the sort they’d mostly stop making later. They didn’t seem to mind looking ridiculous in public. “Sitting in the Palmtree” is cute, maybe too cute. “What About Livingstone” sounds like a children’s song that got lost on its way to Sesame Street. Forget it exists. Good album, though. Altogether one of ABBA’s weaker records, which means it’s still pretty rad.

ABBA 1975 ★★★★

Mamma Mia • Hey, Hey Helen • Tropical Loveland • SOS • Man in the Middle • Bang-A-Boomerang • I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do • Rock Me • Intermezzo No. 1 • I’ve Been Waiting for You • So Long

ABBA already had two solid pop albums behind them, but this is where they start turning into deities. Not fully ascended yet. Still a little goofy. Still taking novelty detours here and there. Still capable of clunky choices. But now the sound gleams, and the songs start doing that ABBA thing where heartbreak gets dressed-up in thick layers of frosting and served with ice cream. (Hence, I suppose, why ABBA has been for decades my go-to cheer-up music.) “Mamma Mia” is a perfect slick little pop symphony—the hooks magnificent, texturally varied musical passages flowing together so gracefully that the song keeps lifting itself to higher floors. “SOS” is pure delight—by which I mean pure adult heartbreak and a chorus sharp enough to take the edges off. “Rock Me” and “Hey, Hey Helen” hit harder than expected, with surprisingly tough rock beats. The latter even sneaking in sharp lyrics (and surprisingly progressive for the ‘70s) about a recently divorced woman learning to thrive on her own. “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do” is cheerful oompah barroom pop, probably too cute but absolutely infectious—therefore impossible to deny unless you hate joy and small brass instruments. “Bang-A-Boomerang” works in a similar lane, only with more rhythmic punch. Even “Tropical Loveland” isn’t bad. Apparently ABBA required one novelty tropical number per album at this point, but it’s produced here with enough care and warmth that resistance starts to feel like you’re turning down a free tropical vacation. Why would you? The album does feel much like Waterloo version of the group, but the writing is richer now, the arrangements more pristine, the emotions more adult. This is the first truly polished album. And the best news is that it was only uphill from here.

Arrival 1976 ★★★★½

When I Kissed the Teacher • Dancing Queen • My Love, My Life • Dum Dum Diddle • Knowing Me, Knowing You • Money, Money, Money • That’s Me • Why Did It Have to Be Me? • Tiger • Arrival

ABBA must have discovered a glowing suitcase in the woods or something, given how many monumental leaps they’re taking. The hooks are bigger. The production cleaner. The emotional undercurrent runs even deeper than before. “Dancing Queen” is the big one—on an album where it’s honestly difficult to pick out a highlight. Sometimes people tell you it’s disco, but it’s not disco, really. It’s more like pop music discovering that it can levitate. The pianos come in sparkling, voices rise to the top of the cathedral, strings sweep in. It’s a song that’s spirited and elegant—tender too. It’s also uncanny how this song feels communal and private at once. Like everyone in the room dancing to the same memory. “Money, Money, Money” is spiteful piano-pop with a mouth full of bile, about someone contemplating turning marriage into a financial instrument. “Knowing Me, Knowing You” places heartbreak under a clean dance beat—a song you’ll sing along to with a wide grin while tears gush profusely down your face. “When I Kissed the Teacher” opens the record with a pop-rock grin so catchy it should have been a hit. And maybe it would have been if the album wasn’t already stacked with enough hits to jam the airport carousel. Add “Fernando” as a bonus track—a non-album single. Like “Waterloo” before it, a song that finds romance in battle. Such a warm and comforting melody, yet attached to lyrics about “the roar of guns and cannons.” Still, who’s going to resist singing along with that chorus? The weaker tracks are still pretty great. “Why Did It Have to Be Me?” is a bouncy ’50s-inspired boogie-woogie number with a melody that found a way to burrow into my brain. “Dum Dum Diddle” is symphonic in a way similar to “Mamma Mia”—just not quite as inspired. “Tiger” stomps in on glam-rock rhythms while the ladies belt out “I am behind you, I always find you, I am the tiger.” ABBA are just ridiculous here—pristine, theatrical, mercilessly catchy. Pop music that might try to wreck your emotional stability but also spoon-feeds you ice cream.

The Album 1977 ★★★★★

Eagle • Take a Chance on Me • One Man, One Woman • The Name of the Game • Move On • Hole in Your Soul • Thank You for the Music • I Wonder (Departure) • I’m a Marionette

By The Album, ABBA are operating at a ridiculous level. I’m not even sure what the argument against them is supposed to be anymore. The hits are here. The weaker material has almost vanished completely. “Eagle” opens the album with a huge, dreamy ballad that barely even sounds like Euro-pop anymore. More like art-pop. It puts you right there—in the air, wings out, soaring over blue lakes and pine forests. Then comes “Take a Chance on Me.” An a cappella intro, ridiculous hooks, and a dance pulse. “The Name of the Game” is death-by-melody, elegant and lethal. That little synth toot in the background reminds me of the piccolo trumpet from “Penny Lane.” Even “One Man, One Woman” is great—a song that should have been schmaltzy country-pop filler, but that chorus gets me. “Thank You for the Music” is the big beauty here. Could have turned to mush, but it doesn’t. It gleams instead. The last two songs find ABBA wandering into mini-musical territory. “I Wonder (Departure)” goes broad and emotional, nearly an aria, and it’s beautiful. “I’m a Marionette” is more severe and dramatic—the orchestra tightening around it until the song starts sounding a little deranged. I used to think “Move On” and “Hole in Your Soul” were the weak spots. Not really anymore. All in all, a wonderful album. The arrangements gleam and the emotions hit hard. Even more, the melodies keep coming for your throat. People can keep dismissing ABBA if they want. People can also keep making poor decisions in parking lots.

Voulez-Vous 1979 ★★★★

As Good as New • Voulez-Vous • I Have a Dream • Angeleyes • The King Has Lost His Crown • Does Your Mother Know • If It Wasn’t for the Nights • Chiquitita • Lovers (Live a Little Longer) • Kisses of Fire

This is where ABBA finally go disco for real—plugging directly into the late-’70s machinery of thumping beats, glassy production, and songs made for mirrored rooms and satin shirts that are unbuttoned just a bit too far. And yes, it’s a step down from The Album. Then again, most albums are. The melodies aren’t quite as deathless, and some of the production has a flatter, more anonymous shine. But nothing—apart from the thematically questionable “Does Your Mother Know,” about a seventeen-year-old and a grown man getting flirty—exists below some shade of ecstatic. “As Good As New” opens the album with some classical filigree before snapping into the dance floor. “Kisses of Fire” is pleasant—not quite the killer closer you want after their previous album. The title track is the best of the full-on disco material. It pumps along nicely and does what it needs to do. Your foot starts tapping, and suddenly you’re not too concerned about how profound it is. The album’s most valuable jewels are where ABBA stop making music for the dance floor and remember that the room usually builds itself around them. “Chiquitita” is the big one—folk-tinged, mid-tempo, meltingly melodic, so hard to resist you wonder what’s wrong with you for thinking you have to. “Angeleyes” is the sleeper, a perfect little Euro-pop dagger with one of those melodies that comes at you smiling—then stays with you for the rest of your life. If the last twenty-five years of my own life are any indication. This is lesser ABBA, but “lesser ABBA” is still a ridiculous luxury item. Even when they’re slightly less divine, they’re still handing you hooks that most pop acts would commit light fraud to possess.

Gracias Por La Música 1980 ★★★★

Compilation

Gracias Por La Música • Reina Danzante • Al Andar • ¡Dame! ¡Dame! ¡Dame! • Estoy Soñando • Mamma Mia • Hasta Mañana • Conociéndome, Conociéndote • Chiquitita • Fernando

I’m not going to lie. When I found out—after a quarter century of listening to ABBA and enjoying them in the privacy of my own ears—that ABBA also recorded these songs in Spanish, I felt a little betrayed. Here they were, recording those wonderful classics in English, pop music’s mother tongue, just for me. But then all this time they were also turning right around and re-recording these same songs for other people… (I may be Don Ignacio, but I do not speak Spanish.) At least I can say the Latin world isn’t getting anything the Anglo world doesn’t already get. Same songs, same backing tracks, same impossible ABBA polish, just in Spanish. Listening to this album could be a good idea if you want to combine ABBA with your Spanish studies. Or you just want the novelty. Or if, for some reason, you speak Spanish.

Super Trouper 1980 ★★★★

Super Trouper • The Winner Takes It All • On and On and On • Andante, Andante • Me and I • Happy New Year • Our Last Summer • The Piper • Lay All Your Love on Me • The Way Old Friends Do

By this point, ABBA are easing back a little from the disco side of things. The pulse is still there, but there’s more room now for bigger emotions and melodies that ache a little instead of simply sparkling. All still, of course, under the guise of slick pop. The album isn’t necessarily better than Voulez-Vous—just different. That one glittered under the disco ball. This one stares at it a little too long, hours after the party ended. The songwriting is still operating at a frighteningly high level. “Super Trouper” itself is instantly memorable, bright and gleaming but touched with exhaustion underneath. This, if I remember right, was the first of many ABBA songs I became obsessed with. Then the utterly transfixing “The Winner Takes It All” comes next, and probably the greatest ballad they ever recorded. A song where the emotional pain doesn’t merely decorate the melody—it drives it. And the melody—well, it’s killer. Agnetha sings it like someone trying very hard not to fall apart in public. “Lay All Your Love on Me” keeps one foot in the disco era, though the mood is darker and more obsessive than the beat first suggests. Then “Our Last Summer” drifts in with all those Paris memories and soft-focus regrets, the melody hanging in the air long after the song should have ended. An odd little prize is “The Piper”—folk-pop with a medieval-ish prog shadow over it, and somehow not embarrassing. “Andante, Andante” and “Me and I” don’t hit quite as hard, but they’re hardly dead spots. “The Way Old Friends Do” is a live recording dropped at the end of a highly polished album. It’s a fine song, but the recording sounds murkier than everything else. Still, we get a consolation prize in the bonus tracks. “Elaine” is a slick and surprisingly menacing little pop song with a melody as infectious as anything here. Most bands would kill for just one song that good. For ABBA, it’s in the back of a dusty shelf as a mostly forgotten B-side.

The Visitors 1981 ★★★★½

The Visitors • Head Over Heels • When All Is Said and Done • Soldiers • I Let the Music Speak • One of Us • Two for the Price of One • Slipping Through My Fingers • Like an Angel Passing Through My Room

The Visitors is ABBA’s swan song—that is, apart from that brief resurrection forty years later. But it doesn’t sound like a farewell so much as a door opening into a colder room. The shiny Euro-pop machine is still here, only the lights are dimmer now. Moody synthesizers have taken over. What used to be big bittersweet emotions have sunk into something far sadder. Yet the melodies are strong enough that everything still feels like it’s levitating. An album with a strange power. “One of Us” is the obvious classic—a song about the persistent ache of loneliness. It’s bleeding internally, yet the chorus somehow still finds the energy to soar. “Head Over Heels” has a jazzy little strut without breaking the album’s darker synth spell—Agnetha trying to sound chipper in a dank nightclub. One of my favorite vocal performances on any ABBA record. “I Let the Music Speak” and “Slipping Through My Fingers” are hopelessly beautiful ballads. The title track is strange and tense too, political paranoia dressed in immaculate pop clothes. Even the bonus tracks matter. “Under Attack” is their last great single, and “The Day Before You Came” is a synth-pop epic so quietly devastating everybody should hear it at least once. “Two for the Price of One” might be the weak spot. The lonely-hearts-ad premise is a little smarmy. But the hooks are still there, and it doesn’t puncture the album’s spell. Otherwise, this is haunting, gorgeous stuff. It finds ABBA in darker, trickier emotional territory, staring into the abyss without forgetting how to write a chorus.

Live 1986 ★★½

Live Album

Dancing Queen • Take a Chance on Me • I Have a Dream • Does Your Mother Know • Chiquitita • Thank You for the Music • Two for the Price of One • Fernando • Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) • Super Trouper • Waterloo • Money, Money, Money • The Name of the Game / Eagle • On and On and On

There was never much chance ABBA would sound better live than they did in the studio. It’s nothing to despair over. Just like you don’t despair that gravity causes things to fall. The studio records had shimmering vocals and immaculate production—rife with countless little studio decisions that could push each hook closer to perfection. Take them out of the studio and go it onstage, and of course something gets lost. Still, this isn’t bad. ABBA were perfectionists, and even live they don’t sound sloppy. Agnetha and Anni-Frid sound terrific here, and not in a polished-studio way. They really sing. Benny and Björn are there too. That is also important. Instruments are played. Guitars happen. Björn even throws in a few electric guitar solos. No, the man is not Eric Clapton. We carry on. Some songs hold up better than expected. “Thank You for the Music” has enough life in it to survive the missing studio shimmer. “Eagle” is surprisingly convincing too. I assumed the song was mostly carried by studio gloss, but the live version also manages to soar quite a bit—helped along by those guitar parts. “Waterloo” is mandatory, of course, but it doesn’t quite burst open here. “On and On and On” is the better curveball, gaining a little grit from the live treatment. Other choices are more difficult to defend. “Dancing Queen” lags a few light years behind the original. “I Have a Dream” adds a choir of children singing, because apparently the corn needed irrigation. “Two for the Price of One” being the lone selection from The Visitors is a crime against sequencing, taste, and maybe Sweden. And where are “Mamma Mia” and “The Winner Takes It All”? But a live ABBA album is still what you expect. Nice enough, then. Useful for fans who already know the studio albums backwards and want the alternate angle.

ABBA Gold 1992 ★★★★★

Compilation

Dancing Queen • Knowing Me, Knowing You • Take a Chance on Me • Mamma Mia • Lay All Your Love on Me • Super Trouper • I Have a Dream • The Winner Takes It All • Money, Money, Money • SOS • Chiquitita • Fernando • Voulez-Vous • Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) • Does Your Mother Know • One of Us • The Name of the Game • Thank You for the Music • Waterloo

As much as I’ve been trying to make the case that ABBA were a phenomenal album band, I would be a blight upon God himself if I didn’t claim they were a superior singles band. These are nineteen pop grenades lined up in a row. The best thing I can say about ABBA Gold, and maybe any compilation, starts with the obvious: it has the hits you want. Any hit you think might be missing—well, you’re not thinking about it anyway, because everything here is too busy being perfect. It starts with “Dancing Queen,” arguably their biggest song and one of the few things in existence that, however briefly, is capable of making the human race seem tolerable. From there, the album just keeps firing: “Knowing Me, Knowing You,” “Take a Chance on Me,” “Mamma Mia,” “SOS,” “The Winner Takes It All,” “Waterloo,” “Fernando,” “Voulez-Vous,” “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” One thing that caught me listening through this is that the songs aren’t in chronological order. But they are arranged in an order that makes a kind of alchemical sense. Arranged by feel. Someone clearly spent time feeling out what song should follow what. And the result plays less like a filing cabinet of hits than a perfect party thrown by perfectionists. Nineteen songs, one hour and eighteen minutes. No dead air. It ends with “Waterloo,” just like Napoleon’s impressive run did. As compilations go, maybe the only one that could possibly beat this is Past Masters, Vol. 2 by the Beatles. We’ll see how long I go before I contradict myself. Probably quite a while.

More ABBA Gold 1993 ★★★★

Compilation

Summer Night City • Angeleyes • The Day Before You Came • Eagle • I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do • So Long • Honey, Honey • The Visitors • Our Last Summer • On and On and On • Ring Ring • I Wonder (Departure) • Lovelight • Head Over Heels • When I Kissed the Teacher • I Am the City • Cassandra • Under Attack • When All Is Said and Done • The Way Old Friends Do

At one time, More ABBA Gold had a real job to do. While the first Gold grabbed the obvious masterpieces, this one went back for the lesser hits, the non-album singles, the B-sides, and other assorted stragglers. These days most of this material has been stapled onto the ends of the studio albums as bonus tracks—rendering the compilation less essential as an object. But as a listening experience? Still ridiculously good. “The Day Before You Came” is the crown jewel here, a gothic synth-pop masterpiece and one of the strangest, most quietly devastating things ABBA ever recorded. “Under Attack” has that late-period icy synth feel too, while “I Am the City,” previously unreleased at the time, reminds me of early Depeche Mode and points toward the brighter synth-pop direction ABBA might have taken had they gone on to record a ninth album. Then there are the album cuts, which I’m doomed to sit through again. “Angeleyes,” “Eagle,” “On and On and On,” “The Visitors,” “Head Over Heels,” “When I Kissed the Teacher.” Terrible burden. Like Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition torturing me with the comfy chair. The first ABBA Gold is practically bulletproof. You won’t get a cleaner blast of pop perfection than that. This follow-up is messier by design, with lesser hits, deep cuts, loose ends, and other leftovers. But they all have diamonds stuck to them. The fact that More ABBA Gold still plays this well only proves the obvious: ABBA’s second drawer had better stuff in it than most bands’ front window.

Thank You for the Music 1994 ★★★

Compilation

Disc 1: People Need Love • Another Town, Another Train • He Is Your Brother • Love Isn’t Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough) • Ring Ring • Waterloo • Hasta Mañana • Honey, Honey • Dance (While the Music Still Goes On) • So Long • I’ve Been Waiting for You • I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do • SOS • Mamma Mia • Fernando • Dancing Queen • That’s Me • When I Kissed the Teacher • Money, Money, Money • Crazy World • My Love, My Life. Disc 2: Knowing Me, Knowing You • Happy Hawaii • The Name of the Game • I Wonder (Departure) • Eagle • Take a Chance on Me • Thank You for the Music • Summer Night City • Chiquitita • Lovelight • Does Your Mother Know • Voulez-Vous • Angeleyes • Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) • I Have a Dream. Disc 3: The Winner Takes It All • Elaine • Super Trouper • Lay All Your Love on Me • On and On and On • Our Last Summer • The Way Old Friends Do • The Visitors • One of Us • Should I Laugh or Cry • Head Over Heels • When All Is Said and Done • Like an Angel Passing Through My Room • The Day Before You Came • Cassandra • Under Attack. Disc 4: Put on Your White Sombrero • Dream World • Thank You for the Music (Doris Day Version) • Hej gamle man • Merry-Go-Round • Santa Rosa • She’s My Kind of Girl • Medley: Pick a Bale of Cotton / On Top of Old Smokey / Midnight Special • You Owe Me One • Slipping Through My Fingers / Me and I (Live) • ABBA Undeleted

As far as giant retrospective box sets go, ABBA’s four-disc Thank You for the Music devotes plenty of real estate to songs casual fans already own. But the real draw is the rarities sitting off to the side like the weird cousin at a family reunion. Taken as a portable march through the band’s history, it’s a beautiful testament to hours of Swedish precision, glittery divorce lamentations, and melodies buffed to a brassy shine. Still, it’s a grueling way to experience the band chronologically. Most listeners would be better off taking the scenic route through the proper studio albums before diving into this attic stuff. The real catnip is “ABBA Undeleted.” Twenty-three minutes of demos, scraps, abandoned songs, and ideas that never quite made it out of the workshop. Not exactly buried treasure. More like being allowed to poke around the ABBA junk drawer for a while. Among the standalone curios, “Dream World” is the standout rarity—it starts out like carnival music, and it’s quite good as far as carnival music goes. But check it out for a refrain that was later recycled into “Does Your Mother Know.” History buffs will also appreciate “Hej gamle man,” a slice of pre-ABBA folk-pop from Benny and Björn that features Anni-Frid and Agnetha already providing unmistakable backing vocals. Conversely, the obscure “Under Attack” B-side, “You Owe Me One,” starts out like bottom-tier Eurovision with a melody that seems trapped in a ticking clock rhythm. But then the clunky thing still manages to go widescreen when a classically ABBA chorus comes soaring in. Ultimately, this box set makes a useful, deeply fun cabinet of hits and pop shavings. It isn’t the ideal way to introduce a novice to the band—unless the goal is to trap them in a car across several state lines—but its place in this pop band’s pantheon is entirely secure.

Live at Wembley Arena 2014 ★★★

Live Album

Gammal fäbodpsalm • Voulez-Vous • If It Wasn’t for the Nights • As Good as New • Knowing Me, Knowing You • Rock Me • Chiquitita • Money, Money, Money • I Have a Dream • Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) • SOS • Fernando • The Name of the Game • Eagle • Thank You for the Music • Why Did It Have to Be Me? • Intermezzo No. 1 • I’m Still Alive • Summer Night City • Take a Chance on Me • Does Your Mother Know • Hole in Your Soul • The Way Old Friends Do • Dancing Queen • Waterloo

Quite a bit better than ABBA’s 1986 live album, mostly because the sound quality is better and there’s more of it. Nearly two hours’ worth, taken from their 1979 run at Wembley Arena in London. Which means the earlier live album, now out of print, starts to look more like somebody peeking through the keyhole. This release gives you a better sense of ABBA onstage—not preserved in studio amber, but standing there in front of a very large room, playing to their cheering fans. The big ones are here: “Fernando,” “Dancing Queen,” “Voulez-Vous,” “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” And they sound confident and perfectly comfortable in an arena, even stripped down compared to the studio cuts. Still no “Mamma Mia,” though, which feels like something you might want to write the mayor of Stockholm about. Because I assume this person would have a little governmental pull over the group. Also, you won’t find anything after Voulez-Vous here, since Super Trouper wasn’t out yet and they weren’t time travelers. Unless you count “The Way Old Friends Do,” which had manifested here as a different live cut than the one that later showed up at the end of Super Trouper. They hold up remarkably well in an arena setting. Agnetha and Frida sound terrific. The vocals are clear and nearly flawless, as far as I can tell. “Rock Me” and “Hole in Your Soul” are maybe the two songs that seem especially happy to be out of the studio and in front of thousands of people, as if those “heavy rockers” are thrilled to finally get the chance to stretch out a little. Even “Intermezzo No. 1” shows up, mostly as a piano-and-guitar piece. Like Mozart with a rock ’n’ roll spark. And while the songs’ natural habitat may still be the studio, live albums exist—at least partly—for you to shut your eyes and imagine that you were there in the stadium for a while. This one does that remarkably well.

Voyage 2021 ★★★

I Still Have Faith in You • When You Danced with Me • Little Things • Don’t Shut Me Down • Just a Notion • I Can Be That Woman • Keep an Eye on Dan • Bumblebee • No Doubt About It • Ode to Freedom

Better late than never. And better something than nothing. After decades of ABBA refusing to take the bait on a reunion tour—including reportedly turning down a billion-dollar offer—it seemed likely they were going to leave the planet without handing us orphaned fans another note. Then, out of nowhere, Voyage appears. Not a comeback, exactly. More like a postcard from an old mansion that everyone assumed had been locked up years ago. Now the bad news. This is handily their weakest studio album since Ring Ring. Though that sounds harsher than I intend. A few pieces reach back toward the glory days, and they didn’t exactly leave the cream of the crop on the cutting-room floor. Also, the singers are septuagenarians now and lack some of the exuberance they once had, though it’s impressive how little you notice. There are still real pleasures here. “Just a Notion” is a cheerful little boogie-rock leftover from 1979—even assembled from vocals captured back then. You can guess why it was left off Voulez-Vous; it sounds like it belongs to a few albums earlier. “Don’t Shut Me Down” runs away with the title of best song on the album. It has an ethereal opening, then satisfyingly lifts into synth-pop. If ABBA had made that mid-’80s album after all, you’d expect this song to be on it. “I Can Be That Woman” gets close to recapturing the old ABBA melancholy—the adult hurt under the immaculate surface. “Bumblebee” borrows a little of that “Fernando” flute-wistfulness and turns it into a pretty, modest ballad. “No Doubt About It” could pass for one of the non-hit album tracks on Arrival. Perfectly sturdy. Perfectly ABBA-shaped. Perfectly not going on the greatest-hits album. “Keep an Eye on Dan” isn’t especially worth discussing, except that it makes you wonder what Dan did. Is Dan a real person, or was his only offense having a name that rhymes with can? The album’s worst crime is “Little Things”—a Christmas casserole so cheesy it should come with a warning from a cardiologist. It’s so ridiculously cutesy, complete with a children’s choir, that it might just be the most difficult thing in the ABBA catalogue to sit through. A lesser ABBA effort in the end, but I’m glad Voyage exists. It doesn’t rewrite ABBA’s ending. It’s more like a small, occasionally lovely annex to the mansion.