ABBA wasn't my thing at first. Most of the Swedish music scene back then was garage, prog, pre-punk and singer/songwriter, 90% of the lyrics were left-wing and many artists posed as communists. I was totally into that and almost embarrassed ABBA's cute melodic pop represented Sweden throughout the world. It was first with a growing interest in producers and recording techniques and their studio engineer Michael B. Tretow I started to play the records. It's clear Tretow did a lot to create their special sound. Apart from developing old techniques like dubbing and layer-on-layer to the extreme he also made up new ones. So when I gave the songs a more close listen and appreciated the meeting between the catchy songs and complex formula, most of them grew on me. Although much comes through as sugar pop, the composing and developing of the tracks are very complicated. You can hear inspiration from four main sources - art music, US disco, classic British pop and Swedish folk music - non of them clearly distinguishable, but as a perfect blend. IMO that's the secret behind their huge success - simple and catchy on the surface to get sudden attention, but also an elaborated core making it stick and remain with the listener. This is my only ABBA record - all A-sides 1973-82 and to my ears their absolutely best songs. The tracking on this follows the time-line. I can skip the first and the last ones, but from "Fernando" to "The Winner Takes It All" I dig them all. They were issued on different labels all over the world and there are lots of various compilations. I'm not sure if this UK is the absolutely first press but guess it's early with label as shown here, glossy f/o stickered cover and picture inners. (SCÄ*)(FÄV*)(ÄBBÖ*)
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