Customer Reviews

ABBA: Arrival (The Worlds Greatest Albums)

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If you'd like to watch some unremarkable talking heads discuss Abba, you may like this. It told me nothing about "Arrival" that I didn't already know. I've purchased other DVDs that concern specific albums (one devoted to Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" comes to mind) that I thought were very interesting. This one isn't -- I'll avoid the "World's Greatest Albums" DVD series from here on. I think somebody's just out to make a buck.

There has never been any doubt to ABBA's worldwide appeal, although their music didn't fully catch on in the US until "Dancing Queen" topped the American charts in 1976. "Waterloo" did hit the top 10, but only briefly. This video picks the "Arrival" album apart piece by piece, analyzing all the pieces to find out what made it come together so well. Indeed, this was the first album from the Swedish supergroup that was completely cohesive; that didn't only use album cuts as mere fill. Every cut on the album stands up in its own right, even those that were never released as singles. I also found it interesting that the group would use an instrumental as the title song. The album previous to this one, the self-titled "ABBA" album, also featured an instrumental called "Intermezzo No. 1". Both showed the versatility of style Benny and Bjorn could deliver. There were also many clips from Swedish, Polish, Japanese, and American television programs, but quality was extremely variable. As I mentioned above, there were also some downsides to this presentation. First, the album cover lists the playing time as 75 minutes. In reality, it ran less than an hour. The surround mix, although I appreciate that they tried, should have been left as stereo. I would have also liked to have had this program feature the entire "Arrival" album in full 5.1 surround stereo. That UMG hasn't offered any of ABBA's albums in 5.1 either on SACD or DVD-Audio is a major faux pas on their part. They need to remedy that situation soon! As for this video, unless you're a diehard ABBA fan, as I am, skip it and just play the album.