Don't go wasting all your ballots/Lay all your votes on me -- ILM Artist Poll #20 -- ABBA (voting thread)

yeah i guess i feel "spoof" is kinda faint praise, the chorus is properly gorgeous

Love Isn't Easy" is a massive tune for me, is it a deep cut? i never know anymore but dammit it bangs and bangs.

― Cyders from Mars (Noodle Vague), Thursday, May 24, 2012 3:26 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for real! probably my second favorite song off Ring Ring

y'all have convinced me that listening to the "full album" youtube is inadequate and i need to go out and see if i can find a copy of Ring Ring and/or Waterloo, today!

Dr Casino, both are on Spotify fyi

dude listen to Waterloo right now!

i listened to both the other day! they were good! I WNAT LPS

good point tbh

I've never been keen on the Waterloo or Ring Ring albums, apart from the singles from them. The ABBA story begins proper for me with the ABBA album (which is definitely my favourite record of theirs). From then up until The Visitors, I'd only really call the Voulez-Vous album a slight dip.

Meh. I don't agree. Waterloo and the selftitled albums are p much my favorite. Waterloo has the title track, "My Mama Said" (which is likely top 5 for me) and "Watch Out" at the very least. Plus I love the Wall-of-Sound production. Selftitled is almost as good. The later albums I've had a harder time getting into so far.

Tbh I'm starting to wonder if maybe I'm the wrong person to do this write-up, since the stuff that I think lots of fans like leave me cold. But I mostly want this to drum up interest for this poll, and being completely RONG might work in that capacity.

Actually, third album is probably my favorite too.

They didn't have 'em and I just shuffled on to the grocery store. :(

"My Mama Said" is def up there for me.

Don't not do the write-up bc it will be contrarian. Lord knows the world doesn't need another "SOS" testimonial. Keep going.

Voted.

Voted!

Voted!

keep em comin folks! i won't really be around this weekend to encourage more votes but i'll peek in whenever i get a chance!

I'm still gonna do these. I just started a new job (p much out of nowhere) yesterday so I've fallen behind a little. Anyways:

Second Album: Waterloo. ABBA breaks through to England and the US.

Waterloo - I remember the first time I heard this song: it was a very brief snippet of the first verse, being sung, karaoke-style, by Toni Colette and Rachel Griffiths in the Muriel's Wedding trailer, in some other Miramax movie that I watched as a teenager. It made me sit up and take notice. I didn't even know what song it was for another four or five years at least. When I finally found out, and finally heard the rest of the song, I was a bit dismayed to hear that perfect lightning bolt of a verse suddenly transform into cheeky 50's style R'n'B in the chorus. I had once entertained the thought of a possible cover for the imaginary band in my head, but that dream was dead. Even now I haven't completely reconciled myself to the disappointment, but I still consider it one of the best songs of the '70s: how many songs out there have perfect lightning-bolt verses? They really are silver streaks of protopunk perfection, as if the New York Dolls really had spontaneously transformed into women whilst simultaneously channelling Ludwig von Beethoven. And the chorus really is a lesson, not just in counterpoint, but how to let momentum dissipate without any loss of force, to manage that dispersal of forward motion be a ratcheting up of intensity, how abrupt changes in direction can operate functionally as massive hooks themselves.

Sitting in the Palmtree - Nicely demure pop song after the immense title track, this has a major Caribbean flavor. Calypso? Reggae? To be frank, I think that Toots and the Maytals do a better job at ABBA-style soft rock ("Beautiful Woman") than ABBA does with lilting island lovers rock or whatever you want to call it. But I still like this lots: that staccato guitar, the way I barely notice that the second verse takes a shortcut through the chorus, the bell-like "bom bom" back-up vocals by the women in the verses. Nothing incredibly new here, but everything is assured and deployed with maximum effectiveness.

King Kong Song - Okay, this sound like Sabbath, or at least Tony Iommi laying down guitars on a Bowie or Elton John song. This is incredible. The vocals are mixed low so that the thud-rock never stops battering in you the face. Wow! lots of screaming going on here. This sounds almost unhinged! Raaaaad as fuuuuuuck! (Ha ha, apparently this song's original name was "Mr. Sex")

Hasta Manana - A lush country ballad. Production-wise, this seems to reverse the last track, where the female vocals are mixed way up front and center and lots of the instrumentation (esp the lead guitar) are barely there, and coated in reverb besides. Though it should be pointed out, there is a very audible (and awesome) burbling bass doing gymanstics just under the vocal melody. Seems like ABBA is being much bolder with the production this time around; this album sounds very Spector-esque (which, I'm pretty sure is intentional). Which is a very good thing by me. Now I'm not going to go and dismissing anything as sounding like Linda Ronstadt after going ga-ga for "Disillusion", (though I guess they were consciously imitating Connie Francis on this one) but suffice to say, this is not my favorite of their ballads. But fantastic bass and outstanding use of the Wall-of-Sound go a long way.

My Mama Said - Yowza! Disco attack! And I was just frothing over awesome bass in the last track, and the bassist almost sounds as if s/he's doing victory laps in the fills. This song reminds me of Las Grecas, which by my standards is A++++++++++++. Man, I am loving this album.

Dance (When the Music Still Goes On) - This is really cool too, though after some of the wicked curve balls this album has thrown at me, it seems a bit more like standard-issue ABBA. It seems almost like a halfway point between "Be My Baby" and stuff like Roxette or maybe Nena. The opening especially has a strong '80s Europop flavor.

Honey, Honey - The second single from this album. This is cool, but this could have totally fit in with Ring Ring if not for the Wall of Sound. Though it would probably be one of the better songs. Love the icy synthesizer solo, if nothing else.

Watch Out - Another YOWZA! track. This album is amazing! This song sounds like it was a formative influence on some of Ted Nugent's solo stuff. And that chorus: it's fucking irresistible. You better WATCH OOOOUUUUUUTTT! And that divebombing synth sound at the end. Holy shit!

What About Livingstone - Even dinkier than Honey Honey. I like this song, and it doesn't detract from this album any, but obviously they could've left the kiddie-pop out of the album without any damage. When I think that the only other song from this album to appear on either of the Gold albums was "Honey Honey", then I feel like there is a sort of misunderstanding about their music, a tendency to still play it safe rather than to their myriad strengths. This song has a fun, bouncy bass part played by fun, bouncy synthesizers, and a funy singalong chorus, but it's safe, and grates slightly in the context of one amazing discovery after another. Of course, if this song is pro- imperialism, then that is at least a somewhat perverse subject for kiddie-pop...
(Note: after reading the lyrics (and jettisoning the questionable chrus), this song seems more like a kiddiepop retelling of Wings in Honneamise which raises it in my esteem quite a bit)

Gonna Sing You My Love - This is an alright ballad, albeit a bit nondescript. My favorite part is the intro, where twinned echoey guitar and synthesizer gives the opening melodic line a cool effect. The chorus is okay, too. I am really happy that the band has discovered synthesizers; their icy tones actually do elevate some of the more conventional material here, including this, which seems very much more wintry than it would without them.

Suzy-Hang-Around - And here is a song that would be jangle-rock REO Speedwagon if the main instrument was Rickenbacker instead of harpsichord (or is that clavicle?). I like this song, and it does a good job of closing proceedings, but it doesn't blow me away. Just as well. I've been blown away by this album enough already. One of the best of 1974 imho.

These writeups are incredible. Thanks! But any musings I might've had seem kind of superfluous now.

(There isn't much I want to say about those two anyway, except to praise the amazing, overdriven, sustained guitar sound on Waterloo, and which keeps recurring through their catalogue)

Good stuff -- tho I have to disagree about "What About Livingstone," which on the virtue of its arrangement alone made my ballot.

Hold on, Linda Ronstadt is awesome!

Congrats on the job?

Yeah she probably is.

And thanks.

Third album: ABBA (s/t). ABBA makes a name for themselves

Mamma Mia - Just as the first verse of "Waterloo" made me sit up and take notice of ABBA, the chorus for "Mamma Mia" pushed me away, and made me think twice about getting into them. The chorus that birthed the name to the ABBA musical seemed too stagey for me; though I was in lots of plays as a high-schooler, I am usually not looking for overtly theatrical, Broadway musical feel from my pop music; part of my innate & insufferable rockism. The whole thing just gave off this vibe of irredeemable preciousness. But, amazingly enough, I always forget the "JUST ONE LOOK" part right before it, when those well-honed glam-rock afterburners kick in, out of nowhere just like everything always happens in ABBA songs. That sense of craft has progressed steadily in these albums, so that now a song like this is full of bold twists and turns, no matter how outrageous, that never seem forced, always seem effortless: this is basically prog without the noodling. How fucking appropriate is it that this song took the #1 spot in the UK charts directly after "Bohemian Rhapsody"?

Hey, Hey Helen - You can tell by that drumbeat that electric guitars won't be long in coming, and when they arrive, the song turns into another satisfying glam stomp. And I am sighing with relief that they didn't leave the rock behind. Man, no wonder Creem magazine was besides themselves, gushing about these early records. Lyrically, Agnetha and Anna-Frida embody that nagging sense of doubt that any woman likely experiences when contemplating an unsatisfying relationship: the split has happened and now you're all alone, can you make it? are you any happier? what's the matter with you? (though there are more reassuring back-up vocals that sing "lucky woman" and "yes you do, yes you do") Shrewd, but not as shrewd as the breakdown, which reminds me of Stevie's "Superstition". A great song.

Tropical Loveland - This album's "Sitting in the Palmtree," ie this album's lovers rock turn. But there isn't that nifty guitar figure, and it doesn't seem quite as memorable. The rare occasion when a male-led ABBA song is more memorable than a female-led one.

S.O.S. - Arguably ILX's favorite ABBA song. Alex in NYC says calls this protopunk, but its no more protopunk than "Mamma Mia" to be honest. What it is, though, is superhumanly hooky. The verses are chained to its own forlornness by the classical-sounding piano, but once the bubbling synth boils over then in an instant we're transported to pop Valhalla. But the sensation is fleeting, and the song turns urgent: we are overtaken by the glam rush, as if the girls are sprinting after the their unavailable aloof objects of desire. "When you're gone, how can I even try to go on?" The song swings back and forth from corrosive despair to desperation, implying that fulfillment might only be a transitory state in between the two. It doesn't just embody the tensions of classic pop, it totally nails how it feels to live in a pop-song world (ie, our world). I can see why ILX favors it so.

Man in the Middle - If the bridge of "Hey, Hey Helen" implied that maybe ABBA had been listening to Stevie Wonder, this is a full-scale confession. Electrified funk boogie. It's weird: ABBA never quite leaves behind its European sense of vanilla, but they are pretty great at creating some authentic blue-eyed soul type stuff. This might beat the Average White Band at their own game. Just saying.

Bang-a-Boomerang - This song written for another Swedish group to compete in Melodifestivalen to represent Sweden in the 1975 Eurovision Song Contest. They then went and took this song and recorded themselves into it. This is some pretty winning pop music, the momentum not coming from the typical monomaniacal charge forward like they've been doing for the last couple albums, but instead moving forward with a gentle gallop. I am getting a real ELO vibe from this song--it bears some similarity to "Hold On Tight". Of course that song wouldn't be released for another six years. Was it Penman who said that ELO and Roxy Music were negative versions of each other? Where would that leave ABBA?

I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do - Another great song. I'm starting to get the impression that I like this album more than the last one, which would be something. It's almost like a pitch perfect amalgamation of Fats Domino and a German drinking song. And that is probably one of pop's perfect choruses. I was going to give this the short shrift because the most salient context I have for it is catching the last twenty minutes of the Mamma Mia! movie, but this is an undeniable classic song, infectious and celebratory.

Rock Me - This is very minimal, opening with just drums and vocals, showing everyone that the "Hey Mickey"/"Hollaback Girl" playground chant pop got its start in their House of Ideas. I'll be honest; it sounds punk as fuck, sort of like "The King Kong Song" without any of the chunky, Sabbathy guitars, or barely any instrumentation at all. I had serious doubts that ABBA would get more punk than they did on Waterloo. I stand corrected. And yet they still combine this incredible pared down arrangement with an incredibly sophisticated hook, which is a pretty impressive feat when you think about it.

Intermezzo No. 1 - And how do they follow up "Rock Me" which could be described somewhat accurately as "screaming over a drumbeat"? With a prog instrumental. Straight up, the Wikipedia page for this album calls this "a grand pseudo-classical keyboard instrumental in the traditions of Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman".

I've Been Waiting For You - And after that? The most compelling ballad they've come out with since "Disillusion". This song almost feels like a culmination of all the ballads from the last album: a reprise of the country-pop of "Hasta Manana", the hopeful Europop of "Dance", the icy imperious synthesizer of "Gonna Sing You a Lovesong". But this hits harder than these other songs; the latter two tended to fall back on a chorus repeated ad nauseum, where as this ascends gloriously to the zenith, that chours which is just that one titular line, sang at a volume that dwarfs anything on the previous album, and with a conviction that overcomes all resistance. I love Waterloo a whole lot, but this is better not because it rocks harder but because it rocks smarter. It's not about volume this time around, it's about impact. This song is akin to a cold-wave theme song for the Olympics, a song that sees them at the absolute peak of their abilities, surveying the miles around them, ready to conquer the world. We are the ones who have been waiting for them, though we didn't know it.

So Long - Okay, this was the first single off of the album, which makes it the first released song here, and its some riotous honkytonk dance music, which comes as a bit of a surprise. This song is tons of fun to be honest, and the bridge is a layer of atonal shrieking on top of some climbing chords. I guess this was their least successful single, which is a travesty, considering how much raucous fun this is. Perhaps that's the reason why they turned away from the more overt rock music later on. It's been a total revelation, just how good they were at it.

Crazy World - The first bonus track is a male-sung ballad which may or may not bring the o_0: I wasn't listening really closely, but the impression I got was that in order to keep his cheating wife from leaving him, he invites his brother in the house to ball with her, and then he looks the other way, pretending the whole thing isn't happening. But I could likely be wrong!

Medley: Pick a Bale of Cotton/On Top of Old Smokey/Midnight Special: It's cute but not essential.

Hey Hey Helen cracks me up, it sounds like mean girls sneering "HAY HELEN HOW IS YOUR LIFE IS IT LIKE TOTALLY AWESOME NOW THAT YOU'RE NOT MARRIED ANYMORE???"

it's totally sneery!

voted!

ugh, i doubt i'm going to be able to become expert enough on these albums to give a vote not 85% driven by greatest hits vol. 1/2, man these cats had some great album tracks though!

Crazy World - The first bonus track is a male-sung ballad which may or may not bring the o_0: I wasn't listening really closely, but the impression I got was that in order to keep his cheating wife from leaving him, he invites his brother in the house to ball with her, and then he looks the other way, pretending the whole thing isn't happening. But I could likely be wrong!

hahahaha this is great, unfortunately this is not actually the twist ending to this song but yours would be much better than the corny one they picked. Meanwhile, them doing "Pick a Bale of Cotton" is just O_o although I guess I basically admire the idea of music to earworm its way into really remote cultural contexts.

keep em coming folks! tonight's the deadline!

and thanks to all who have been discussing stuff, i've been a fairly absent moderator this whole time

Thanks for running this. Sadly (mercifully?) I will not be getting all the albums' rundowns done by the end of the night. I will probably continue to work on them throughout the next week though.

Fourth Album - Arrival. ABBA goes synthpop, sweeps disco off its feet.

When I Kissed the Teacher - A brisk acoustic guitar starts this album off, then the girls' vocals, with their thick Scandinavian accents out front, much more noticeable then I remember them being, at least since the first album. This is some effortless pop, pulled along by a synthetic, almost Teutonic, chug, with the chorus changing it up with some funk/disco bass. ABBA was krautrock! J/k (for now). This song pelts hooks at the listener from every possible angle, like the world's most lopsided dodgeball game. They've really nailed this whole layering thing down.

Dancing Queen - I'm not going to insult your intelligence by pretending I have anything novel to say about this song, ABBA's most universally known and loved hit, the one song of theirs that is the welcome guest at any wedding reception. I mean, obviously it's ravishing, in a way that hasn't really worn away. Those who decry it for being schmaltz ignore the fact that schmaltz is a crucial ingredient in safeguarding against the wear and tear of overplay. Jeered at in its heyday, especially by those who love an easy target, as a corny pop hit, it is precisely that corn that. as time passes, can help it embody an irretrievable past, a lost innocence that never really existed but is all the more poignant for its cheap deceit. Of course their disco visions of dancing queens were fake, but they sell it with enough conviction that we don't have to struggle to believe and therefore can use it to mourn the youths that we, often as not, hated living through the first time. And that sort of universality of effect, almost utilitarian, is exactly what the preterite masses has over the critical elite. Anyway, um: Dancing Queen is a song. You've heard it before. It's good.

My Love, My Life - ABBA is like the Henry James of pop music. I remember reading something by Wallace Stegner about how the Master was constantly refining his approach, using his technical versatility to clear whatever obstructions that the narrative posed. ABBA does the same with songwriting, constantly pushing forward, even after hitting perfection. The last album's "I've Been Waiting for You" was a dizzying apex in their developing balladcraft. This song is similar to that one, with the cool synthesizers (which I am starting to suspect are going to dominate this album) stirring refrains, and legitimate grandeur, though this one is more grounded, lacking the vertiginous thrust of the other, trading for a more emotional urgency, a steadily growing emphasis every time the chorus reappears. It's really good, but I'm not sure I have room for both this and "I've Been Waiting For You" on my ballot.

Dum Dum Diddle - I'm starting to get a sinking feeling that this album is going to have no glam-rock in it. There is a nicely frenzied synth part that starts the song and keeps being repeated, but the stuff in between is just goofy carefree kiddie bounce-pop. This sounds like a Ring Ring outtake, which is not such a bad thing, but they couldn't bring in some hot glitter instead.

Knowing Me, Knowing You - Haha, so I'm not the first person to notice that the real hook in this is that little 'Ah-hah!' that comes at the end of the 'knowing me, knowing you' phrase. It's pretty brilliant. a little twist of sexiness in what is essentially a break-up song. And here's one of the many facets of ABBA's genius. Their music sets up a context of care and craftsmanship and musical sophistication, and yet they still have an incredible knack for those immortal throwaway gestures Pop stars through and through, they knew exactly when and how to puncture the earnest heartache with a sly come-on, or how to enhance it with seductive call-and-response breathiness. There really isn't anything about the song I don't like. Is that a flanged electric piano in the first verse? Whatever it is, it adds a psychedelic flavor to a song that can't help but refuse to dwell on its own heartbreak. Great song!

Money Money Money - Wow, this is about ten times more theatrical than "Mamma Mia" (though dig the disco beat). I'm not a huge fan of its excess, though it's hilariously great how the lead-in to the chorus reminds me of the Oompa-Loompa songs ("You'll get no commercials!"). Still this kind of thing is not my bag.

It's Me - This is okay at first. There's some awesome synthesizer, and the beat is infectious, and the song goes through some very cool melodic twists, but for some reason it's all less than the sum of its parts. Something about the way the song rushes through the "I'm Carrie, not the kind of girl you'd marry" part, when that's precisely the time to hit hard with a great hook, that kind of robs it of memorability. Lots of fine window dressing, but a bit soulless imo.

Why Does It Have to be Me? - Here's a rock song! ABBA has the whole European sing-songy take on overtly bluesy material down. The best example of this (so far) is "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" but this doesn't really sound like a copycat of that. But it falls short of classic.

Tiger - I was looking forward to this song, to be honest, and it's...okay. It does have some glimmer of the glitter I was looking for. But to these ears, for some reason, the hook kind of falls short of sublime. The songwriting smarts have been vacant throughout this second side in my opinion. It's that instinct for impact again: cannily knowing that the last two albums had four or five knockouts each, this time they arranged them all on the first side, presumably to give the initial impression of an embarrassment of riches. Of course that makes the second side almost entirely dispensable. Though I am somewhat troubled by the lurking doubts that maybe the songs are better than I give them credit for being, and I'm just reacting badly to the fact that they've left the wicked rockers like "Watch Out" and "Hey Hey Helen" behind for a smoother synth-pop sound. But I'm going to go ahead and say that this album seems much weaker than the previous two for me.

Arrival - I like this better than the Intermezzo song. Synthesized bagpipes can still bring the drone.

Fernando - Q: How do you get to be my second favourite ABBA song? A: Be featured prominently in the disco episode of That 70s Show. I love this song. Yeah, I know, 'lol piccolos' and everything, but there's something elemental about this song; the arrangement undulates like waves in the sea, and the chorus is as lush and inviting as pop music got in the 70s.. I'm not a superfan of these lyrics but this is some luminous disco music.

Happy Hawaii - This is pretty good. Obviously the contrast between the clean and spacious guitar figure (that goes on to suggest Hawaiian steel later in the song) in the beginning, and the upbeat, slightly bluesy dance-pop in the verses is exactly the kind of depth of texture that ABBA has made their specialty. Hawaii didn't quite need a Brian Wilson to sell the world on the island paradise idyll, but it would still have been great if they had one.

Arrival weaker? Nooooooooo

:)

xpost:

I've always had a fondness for 'Tropical Loveland', it's 'Bang-A-Boomerang' that's my least favourite song on that album! Totally agree with you that 'Hey Hey Helen' and 'Rock Me' are ace, though. 'Tiger' is fucking awesome, too.

And I too think that the self-titled album is superior to Arrival.

Rock Me RULES

Haha, so I'm not the first person to notice that the real hook in this is that little 'Ah-hah!' that comes at the end of the 'knowing me, knowing you' phrase. It's pretty brilliant. a little twist of sexiness in what is essentially a break-up song.

Were I to ever be asked why I like ABBA, I'd point to this moment.

ok, voting is CLOSED! i will try to tabulate results tonight and hopefully roll out the results starting on thursday

Hooray!

Thanks Donna! v excited

Any chance you could confirm receipt of ballots? Silence makes me nervous.

i just sent an e-mail confirmation to everyone who sent in a ballot, let me know if you didn't receive one

(matthewjweiner the e-mail i sent you bounced back but i got a ballot from you)

How many ballots?

(matthewjweiner the e-mail i sent you bounced back but i got a ballot from you)

Sorry, sent it from my Evernote account. Thanks!

all told, 19 ballots (inc. mine)

First one of these I've voted in where I've felt that there were just massive number ones that were not going to make it to number one on my ballot. Three of them.

Really sad that there were only 19 ballots.

more than i was expecting tbh! i feel like there'd have been a lot more if we'd done this in like, 2005

That's okay. It will just be an exclusive party.

Yeah, this being the first time I managed to get a vote in I'm amazed how few there are.