ABBAsolutely Fabulous

ABBA’s The Album, released in late 1977/early 1978 (depending on your location in the world), was the first album my sister Lisa ever bought for herself. She says she bought it “for $1.99 or $2.99” at Wilmington Dry Goods, a local department store.

Lisa has never regretted this purchase. It is, after all, ABBA.

I thought my copy of The Album was possibly Lisa’s and I was ready to pass it back on to her, but she ensures me that it’s not and that her original record is safe with her. This is a good thing.

Lisa and I can trace our early exposure to ABBA to a.m. radio, of course, which is where we would have heard ABBA tunes like “S.O.S.” and “Dancing Queen”, when they were current hits. But Lisa strongly agrees that cousin Annette was our true ABBA influencer, as she would extol the virtues of the emerging Swedish superstars whenever we were together.

By 1977, ABBA had conquered the world with “Dancing Queen”, and were prepared to wow us all again with The Album. Propelled by the hit singles, “Take a Chance on Me” and “The Name of the Game”, The Album was another glittering stop on ABBA’s road to pop music immortality, which would eventually encompass a musical about chess and Frida’s Phil Collins-infused hit, “There’s Something Going On”. And even Agnetha’s minor 1983 solo hit, “Can’t Shake Loose”, which nobody remembers today, and which I honestly didn’t even know existed until just now.

ABBA has become a revered pop music entity in the 21st century. This is due to the classic pop songs created by the band, of course, but ABBA was aided immensely by the 1992 release of ABBA Gold, a stellar — but, still, imperfect, if you ask me — greatest hits collection that recontextualized ABBA and their music for new generations.

I didn’t just make that up either — ABBA Gold was the focus of an entire book, written by Elizabeth Vincentelli, for the 33 1/3 series of books focused on one album apiece.

One bit of unintended fallout from the enormous success of ABBA Gold — and to some extent, its follow-up, More ABBA Gold — is the diminishing of ABBA album tracks/deep cuts from worldwide consciousness. To be fair, it’s highly improbable that ABBA deep cuts are going to be as good as the luminous, glittery hits, but surely there are hidden gems to be found by tenacious listeners.

Basically this means if you didn’t grow up listening to ABBA studio albums, you’re bound to get fidgety attempting to listening one of them now. This played out in real time when Donna and I listened to The Album recently. I was familiar with the album from Lisa having owned it way back when, so I knew beforehand that “The Eagle” has some lite prog overtones, that “One Man, One Woman” is a bit of a snoozer, and that “Hole in Your Soul” rocks out with some conviction. Donna, on the other hand, was pining for the hits when these tracks were playing.

Make no mistake: ABBA deep cut erasure is a real thing, and ABBA Gold is to blame. Therefore, I’d urge to you to take a ch-, take a ch-, take a chance chance chance, and listen to The Album front-to-back today. Those lost non-hits might just fill a hole in your soul.