Customer Reviews

The Albums

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

OK, admit it. You love ABBA. I do too. I didn't realize how brilliant ABBA was until well into adulthood, but this Swedish quartet put out some of the most exciting, catchy, and brilliant music of all time.

Until I bought this box set, I was only familiar with ABBA through their greatest hits collections: ABBA Gold and More ABBA Gold. All of the songs of these collections are brilliant, but there is so much more to ABBA than just their hits. ABBA was not just disco. Their discography of music is surprisingly eclectic, and they could rock hard just as easily as they could light up the dance floor at Studio 54.

Every one of ABBA's albums, from their 1973 debut to their final album in 1981, The Visitors, is a masterpiece. Every song ABBA created could have been a hit. As many others have said, ABBA truly never released a song or album that wasn't good.

And it is through this box set that I discovered how much incredible music from ABBA is unknown. Wall of Sound? It's more like a Cube of Sound with ABBA. Every song is meticulously composed, arranged, and sung. And it's because of this perfection that ABBA's music, even the songs on their debut album, sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday. Here's a brief rundown of each album in this set:

Ring Ring (1973) - What a debut! Powerful, peppy, Europop. The title song is probably the best known song from this album, but every song is terrific. Another Town, Another Train and Rock & Roll Band are two fantastic songs that could have been hits but weren't. I also love Nina, Pretty Ballerina, a fun, slightly silly song about a woman who's all business by day, but performs for the masses on Friday nights, and People Need Love, the first song Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha, and Anni-Frid recorded together. And again, thanks to that brilliant ABBA craftsmanship, most of these songs don't sound nearly as dated as others of the time period.

Waterloo (1974) - Wanna know what ABBA's best album was? This was it, despite a lack of true hits. This is ABBA's most eclectic album. Waterloo, the title track, is again pure power Europop, with great sax and piano work. ABBA rocks hard with Watch Out (probably their heaviest song) and the super silly, but brilliantly composed King Kong Song. My Mama Said is a song that proves ABBA may have helped to invent disco. But the song is much funkier that the typical disco song, with a great bass line, and therefore it doesn't sound dated at all. Honey Honey is a lovely little romantic ditty with synth work that ABBA created with a synthesizer than they got from the future. The album closes with Suzy Hang Around, a beautiful folksy song about a girl who just want to hang out with the boys but gets rejected, and it's wonderfully sung by Benny. Every time I play this album, my jaw drops when I think about the fact that most of these songs were recorded in 1973! They don't sound dated at all. This is not the music you think of when you think of ABBA. And that's why I love this album the most.

ABBA (1975) - Now the hits start coming. This album starts off with one of ABBA's best known songs, Mamma Mia. Mamma Mia is followed by one of ABBA's heavier rockers, Hey Hey Helen. The fantastic love song S.O.S. is also on this album. The highlight among highlights on this album is the beyond astonishing Intermezzo No. 1. Twenty years before Trans-Siberian Orchestra started to bring a fusion of hard rock and classical music to the masses, ABBA did it with this nearly four minute magnum opus. Words cannot describe how brilliant this composition is. And it was recorded in 1975?!? I can't believe it, and neither will you. I would say that this album is tied with its successor as ABBA's second best.

Arrival (1976) - Yes, ABBA truly did arrive with this album, and it's another masterpiece. This album features more hits, including what is probably ABBA's best know song, Dancing Queen. This album also features the best breakup song of all time, Knowing Me, Knowing You. The album starts off with the super peppy When I Kissed the Teacher, a song about a girl who shocks her class when she does exactly what the title says she does. The terrific Money, Money, Money is also on this album. While not a big hit when it was originally released, it has morphed into a pop staple over the years.

The Album (1977) - While a hair less brilliant than the three albums that preceded it, The Album still shows ABBA as masters of their craft. This album starts off with the majestic Eagle, which is followed by another one of ABBA's best known songs, Take a Chance on Me. One Man, One Woman is a great romantic ballad. Hole in Your Soul is the best "Should Have Been a Hit, But Wasn't" song on this album. A super uptempo rocker with tremendous energy, it will have you singing along every time you hear it. The albums ends with a trio of Broadwayesque "mini-musical" songs, Thank You for the Music, I Wonder (Departure), and I'm a Marionette.

Voulez-Vous (1979) - Here it is, the "Disco" album. I would say that this is my least favorite ABBA album. It's still brilliant, but not quite as terrific as the albums that preceded it. The heavy disco influence makes the songs on this album sound a little more dated than the other albums. Still, ABBA's disco songs will blow any other group's out of the water, thanks to the brilliant composing and arranging. The highlights of this album are the title track and the fantastically playful Disco/Rock fusion song Does Your Mother Know.

Super Trouper (1980) - As the 70s morphed into the 80s, something happened to ABBA that happens to most of us: they grew up. Super Trouper showcases a more mature, more introspective ABBA. The music toned down the super happy Europop a bit and brought in some more adult contemporary elements. It was like Voulez-Vous was ABBA's giant party, and this album let everyone know that it was time to get serious. The album starts off with the terrific Super Trouper. Other highlights: Me and I, the new waveesque On and On and On, and the terrific medieval sounding The Piper. This album is a bit different from the others, but still great.

The Visitors (1981) - While the final albums of most groups often shown a notable decline in music quality, that's not the case here. The Visitors is a terrific swan song. Like its predecessor, the albums tends to be more serious in tone than ABBA's 70s albums. The album starts off with the sci-fi inspired The Visitors, a great song with the typical hooky ABBA chours. Two for the Price of One is ABBA's "fun" song on this album. The album does have a bit of a somber tone throughout, but the quality of the songs still does not disappoint.

This set also contains a bonus disc with many extra songs from all of ABBA's different eras. Included are Swedish version of Ring Ring and Waterloo and some early songs sung by Bjorn, including Santa Rosa and Merry Go Round. I particularly like the Medley: Pick a Bale of Cotton, On Top of Old Smokey, and Midnight Special, recorded around the time of ABBA's self-titled album in 1975.

The packaging of this set is super compact, and all of the CDs are housed in replicas of the original LP album covers. There is also a bonus book containing little tidbits and dates about many of ABBA's songs.

The sound of every one of the CDs is absolutely stellar. Benny and Bjorn must have put their magic touch on these CDs. Every note is crystal clear.

I cannot recommend this collection enough. ABBA's contributions to pop music and, in fact, to music in general, cannot be praised enough. Pick up this set and you will get the opportunity to enjoy some of the best pop, rock, and disco music ever created. Yes, indeed, ABBA, thank you for the music.

If you're the completist, whose sensibility almost always goes out the window; whose hard earned money goes out just as fast, then go ahead...blow it! I just did :)

But if you are a bit of a pragmatist and own their lavish, velvetty boxed set "the complete studio collection" from 2005, you might want to pass.

For one, the cd's and sleeves look exactly the same as the 2005 set, albeit without the bonus tracks. Second, audio quality, having been digitalized and remastered by the same blokes, masters of audio, is the same. These are the same folks who ruined Agnetha's "Wrap Your Arms Around Me" and Frida's "Something's Going On" remasters from 2005. When i heard that Universal will release yet another boxed set of the Swedish monolith's recorded work, i would have expected them to set history straight by including ABBA's spanish album "Gracias Por La Musica"...to my non surprise but nonetheless utter disappointment, they still blew that chance, so this would be the third reason not to buy it.

Although both Universal and ABBA have sole prerogative on how to market their body of work, they should realize that we fans, who've made the music a part of our lives by buying their records, are aware of the fact that 9 albums were OFFICIALLY released and not 8. And I'm not even counting in 1986's "ABBA-Live" which should actually bring the tally to 10 bona fide albums.

I can't see the reason why their Spanish album, which has done well in both South America, Spain and even Japan, continues to be denied its rightful place. Such revisionism, may backfire. Who knows, someone or something might knock some sense into me and might choose not to buy another, if Universal milks their catalog one more time with another boxed set.

Simply, this is a collection of all of ABBA's original albums. If you have the "Gold" collection or the "Definitive" Collection, you are going to have a few repeats. This is a great collection of ABBA music. The discs are in sleeves that look like the original album jackets which is pretty cute. The box the CDs come in isn't the same size as a standard jewel case so it probably won't fit in easily or uniformly with the rest of your collection.

But whatever. That's the packaging. As for the music, it is great. In fact, after having heard some ABBA songs I'd never heard (they were a little before my time in their original run), I am thinking that whoever put together the Definitive and Gold collections was asleep at the wheel. There are some really catchy songs that don't get much play or recognition. I love "Nina, Pretty Ballerina," "King Kong Song," "Me and Bobby and Bobby's Brother," and "Happy Hawaii." They all have really catchy melodies and are a great change from some of the overplayed standards.

I got this as a Lightening Deal and so got it for a lot less than list price. I am thrilled with my purchase. My coworkers, who've had to sit through hours of ABBA might not be quite as thrilled as I am though!

Purchasing all their albums in one shot makes life easier and cheaper. Of course not every song was a hit, but their are a lot of songs I like better than some of their biggest hits. You will never hear them if you buy their greatest hits albums. I took 57 of the 99 songs and put them on a CD. 58% of the songs I absolutely think are great. That's a good ratio. I've been listening to these guys since they came out in the early 70's and I'm a Headbanger. Beatiful voices and excellent song writing made these four superstars. This is the best way to get all the songs.

I have every single song recorded by ABBA, including the bootleg recordings of the rareties. I understand the bootlegs will never make it to a compilation like this, but please, if your going to re release the same music at least give the true fans a bit more, like the rarely heard "On the Carousel" from The Album. I have the full version and it is a great song. There are so many rareties that have never been officially released in the U.S or Canada but have been found on imports from China, Turkey and even from Afghanistan. These were official releases in those countries. Universal should consider finding them, or asking the members of ABBA for permission to release them. They might actually sell a few more million copies. Otherwise this is just another greatest hits package.

ALL of ABBA's albums plus singles and rarities in one collection? There has got to be a catch, right? There isn't.

Not since the time I went on an obsessive splurge to buy all twenty-odd albums of the enchanting Ofra Haza have I felt so happy to receive a set of CDs. ABBA are absolute legends. If anyone deserves a comprehensive collection, they do. From the mini-vinyl jacket slips to the detailed photo booklet, this is a stylish set.

More importantly, it's all here: the hits, the obscurities ("Lovelight," "Happy Hawaii," I'm talking to you), the big singles not appearing on any CD that you simply couldn't live without ("Gimme Gimme Gimme"); the odd quirky choices ("King Kong Song"...what was that?); the sublime melodies you'd sell your soul for but they never appear on greatest hit albums (and yes, I'm talking about "The Piper"). Yes, they overlooked "I Am the City" and "Ah Vilka Tider" along with some truly obscure recordings, but mostly every song ABBA ever recorded is in here.

This is it, people. The evolution of one of the greatest pop acts of all time in a box. With a big electric blue sign on the cover inviting you to the disco.

I was thinking about trying to collect the full ABBA catalog, but this made it a lot easier to do it all at once. I like the compact format (each CD in a replica of the original album sleeve), instead of the bulk you normally get with a multi-CD box set. 9 CDs don't take up any more room on my CD rack than 3 in jewel cases. I also like the look of the discs themselves; like miniature vinyl records.

This boxed set was a treasure to find. Sure there was the drawback of the 10 discs having sleeves. But this is a "must have" for any ABBA fan, the sleeves are from Europe and have the songs listed for the European audience. The set covers all 9 albums (CDs) from ABBA's decade of stardom, along with a 10th disc that has some great songs (of which some of them were made for ABBA's 10th studio album, which never came to be). The 10th also has some of their songs in Swedish, which were actually part of the European albums, but not released in the US.
It was so much fun going back and listening (and remembering) the songs that ABBA so wonderfully done and very few have even tried to duplicate to any degree of success in the studios.

For every ABBA fan a must, no need to add anything else. If not a fan try first a compilation then if you like go for the hard stuff like these albums.

I'm surprised that noboby has to date reported that these are not the *original* studio albums. (and I'm not talking about them missing the Spanish language album)

What they have given us is the sleeves of the original 8 studio albums which all include a list of the tracks on those original albums, yet the tracks on the CDs provided in those first two album sleeves do not match the list of tracks the sleeves say are in them.

The completely unbelievable decision has been made to remove the two Swedish language tracks from the first two albums (and put them on the "bonus" CD). In the case of the first album, Ring Ring in Swedish has been replaced by "My Kind of Girl" and in the case of the second album they have dropped Waterloo in Swedish which started that album and instead start the album with Waterloo in English which on the original album completed the album. (For this removal there is no replacement).

The key thing with the Waterloo album is that it was issued after they had won the European Song Contest with Waterloo sung (as the rules then insisted) in Swedish and they had then when they sung it again as winners had (for the first time in the history of that competition (?)) an English language version already available which they therefore (to the extra applause of the audience) sang.

In other words for that album - labelled "Grand Prix of the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest" - the presence of both langauge versions IS important.

Having a Swedish language version of Ring Ring is less important but again that otherwise English language original album included both language versions (with again the Swedish language version as the first track) so any box claiming to have the original albums should have that as first track on the CD.

One consequence of having different songs on 2 of the 8 albums than those listed on the album sleeves means that lots of space is wasted in the booklet by repeating the albums' front sides with lists of the tracks that are actually on the CDs.

This means that no space is left for useful information on a track-by-track basis of for instance who is the first (and second etc.) female solo singer on each track. [I suggest the broschure makers look at the Crosby, Stills, Nash box set's broschure which has background information (mainly from Graham Nash) on each track)

Otherwise I agree with most of the posters about the quality (still) of the music. I've for a long time had Abba Gold on my IPod but until I bought this set thought that most of the "non-Gold" stuff was pretty poor in comparison. Well some is (mainly from the early albums) but not as much as I expected.

I don't agree with the comments on the sleeves. As we don't have a vinyl box available, the best you can do is scaled down sleeves and for me there's nothing wrong with the quality of these.

There was also an earlier comment about the quality of the re-mastering. My first hearing was of a "start of late period" album and there it struck me how well the music responded to the re-mastering, but since then I've not been as impressed so I think we can say that the re-mastering is OK and better in parts than in others.

But despite the only three stars (caused mainly by me being so annoyed that the Waterloo album (which is the only one I listened to often soon after it came out, but never bought) isn't as I remember it to be (and for anyone who cares I didn't live in Sweden at that time but in another (non-Nordic) European country), I'm still very glad I bought this set.