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The Album
ABBA
Atlantic Records, 1978
http://www.abbasite.com/
REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 10/09/1998
To the generation that has spent their youth in the nightclubs
enjoying the second coming of disco, Abba's music is a never-ending
fountain of joy. Just look at its use in movies like
Muriel's Wedding.
And then, there are those of us who actually lived through
Abba's heyday - and they're still pretty hard to swallow. Oh, time
has helped to make the songs that got overplayed on the radio
easier to take, and I will admit that some of the music of Abba
that I've listened to in this job hasn't been too bad. But in the
case of
The Album, Abba's 1977 release, even the band started to
take themselves too seriously.
In one sense,
The Album begins to feature Abba's shifting from dance music
(they were never truly "disco", though their music always was quite
danceable) to more of a serious pop vein. Two words: bad move. I'll
concede that "Take A Chance On Me" is still danceable, but that's
about it on this one. For the remainder of the album, Abba is on a
journey of self-discovery. At times, such as on "The Name Of The
Game" and "Move On" (I swear I've heard that song before listening
to this album), they make the journey interesting. (One memory I
have of my childhood is my father recording music off the radio -
one track being "The Name Of The Game" - using the family's new
stereo with an 8-track built in. He still has that thing in the
garage.)
Unfortunately for Abba, this is where the praise stops. The
remainder of
The Album just doesn't come together like some of their
other works. "Eagle" and "Hole In Your Soul" are two numbers that
could have been something with a little better songwriting and more
focus in the music. Instead, they're not the easiest songs to get
through.
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