Abba - The Album

Exclusive import limited edition digipak is remastered, has extensive liner notes and lyrics, and includes one bonus song, 'Thank You For The Music'(Doris Day Version)'. 10 tracks in all.

Without a doubt, 1978's The Album is the Swedish pop demigods' finest moment. (Forgive them the film.) From the opening stanzas of the visionary "Eagle" (a "Born Free" for the late '70s) to the pure joyous rush of "Take a Chance on Me" (has a cappella ever sounded so irresistible?) to the drop-dead perfect chorus on "The Name of the Game," not a heartstring is left untouched. The melodies are matchless, the production virtually defining the era. The final three tracks, subtitled "Three Scenes from a Mini-Musical"--the celebratory and often copied "Thank You for the Music," "I Wonder," and the self-deprecating "I'm a Marionette"--merely confirmed what ABBA's fans knew all along: this was pure showtime and Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha, and Frida were masters of the form. --Everett True

The Album's closing trilogy, "The Girl with the Golden Hair: 3 Scenes from a Mini Musical," was Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus's most ambitious work yet. But despite "Thank You for the Music," a more humble "I Write the Songs," and the barely veiled complaint "I'm a Marionette," it wasn't the 1977 LP's best stuff. That came in two great singles: "Take a Chance on Me" and "The Name of the Game," which continued the two Abba couples' string of growing-up-in-public heartache songs. ("Knowing Me, Knowing You," from the previous Arrival, inaugurated the tradition.) "The Girl," though, hinted that the Bjorn-and-Benny writing team was bent on storming the musical stage, as it did by the mid-'80s with Chess. --Rickey Wright