Abba's best? Definetely!

I've heard Waterloo, I've heard Ring Ring, I've even heard The Album, but none of them have kept my CD player on repeat as long as Voulez-Vouz. From the the funky As Good As New, to the relaxing Chiquitita, to the all-time ...shaking hand-clapping Voulez-Vouz and the groovy Does Your Mother Know, this was the swedish pop phenomenon's best. I don't know how I discovered Abba, all I know I was going through some boxes in the garage looking for some video game stuff, I uncovered a box of old tapes. I found a tape with a faded cover with a strange word on it that had a backwards B. I decided to pause my search and play the tape, because it had a picture of two pretty women and two handome men on the front. After popping it into my stereo, I heard a string section playing followed by a groovy beat. I looked at the back of the box to see what the name of the song was, and it said "As Good As New". And then after listening to the song once I rewinded the tape, started it again, and started dancing to the irresistible beat of As Good As New. I later learned that the tape was not an Abba album, it was some strange Abba bootleg mix from Egypt (I later realized that because it didn't have Voulez-Vouz or Does Your Mother Know on it), which is easy to understand beacuse that's where my dad grew up in the 70's and 80's. Since the tape was so old the sound quality was really bad, and I longed for it on CD. And until about a week ago my dream came true. I walked into a Tower Records store in Harvard Square (which is in Massachusetts) with my dad, and I went over to the computer database thing and typed in "AS GOOD AS NEW". I hit enter, and suddlenly a big list of songs with the title As Good As New appeared. I clicked on the one that said "ABBA" next to it, and on the screen it said "AS GOOD AS NEW- ALBUM-VOULEZ-VOUZ- ARTIST-ABBA" I ran over to the Abba section, went through the CDs, and pulled out Voulez-Vouz. I ran over to my dad with the disc in my hand and begged him to buy it for me, and he agreed. And so in the car I was holding a little bag with Voulez-Vouz inside, and some (heh heh) Beatles Cds. I kept thinking, "I've got As Good As New on CD at last!!" As Good As New was the only reason I got the CD, but I didn't care. When we got home I put the bag on the table, and took out Voulez-Vouz, leaving the (heh heh) Beatles Cds inside. I put the disc into my CD player, and immediately began grooving to the sweet sounds of As Good As New, and after playing and dancing to it three times I sat down on my bed, out of breath. I decide to let the CD run so I could hear the other songs, and not making myself feel guilty for making my dad pay ... for one song. After hearing As Good As New again, something made me jump off the bed and begin dancing to the super disco beats of Voulez-Vouz. When Voulez-Vouz was finished (I played it 5 times) I made myself promise to let the CD run without repeating a song, unless of an emergency. It turns out I had one more emergency, this time with Does Your Mother Know. After playing it twice, I thouroughly enjoyed every other song on the album, with the exception of I Have A Dream. Since then I have copied As Good As New and Voulez-Vouz into my MP3 player, and have listened to them on a daily basis. So, this ends my review. But if you haven't got this gem, GET IT NOW!!

Only the Hits Make This Album Worthwhile

Well, if you weren't exactly sure how to expand the sound of your work, you would probably end up deciding to follow on the latest trends in music, too. In the case of ABBA, the decision to flirt with disco on their sixth album, VOULEZ-VOUS, makes perfect sense- their previous work could be related to disco in more ways than one. For instance, their productions were lush, just like disco often was; their songs were often supplied with bouncy dance beats (even if many of the songs weren't really made for dancing); and even songs like "Dancing Queen" and "Take a Chance on Me" had been filling up dance floors. (We won't mention that some critics, at least in the United States, had the perverse nerve to tag ABBA as a disco group.) But just because an artist flirts with the sound of disco doesn't make that artist an automatic natural for the groovy beat, since it takes plenty of skill to craft a groovy beat around a song. VOULEZ-VOUS is proof positive of this; it shows very well why ABBA is a Europop group- a group that works bouncy dance beats around pop songs- and not a disco group- a group that works songs around bouncy dance beats.



Even if not every song on VOULEZ-VOUS was meant for the disco clubs, it sometimes feels that way, namely because the songs that don't work resemble a forced constraint over the disco beat. Take the opener "As Good As New"- any richness the opening strings may have had is erased by the entrance of the disco rhythms, which sound remarkably heavy-handed and stiff. This heavy handedness almost ruins the song, but it sounds subtle compared to the dreck that is the closer "Kisses of Fire"- attempting to be both soothingly seductive and excitingly shocking (an event of making love, in simpler terms), it ends up as a three-and-a-quarter minute indulgence that is filled with overdramatic and underplayed vocals and forced harmony parts while blanketed under a fussy, sterile production that never lets the song breathe; it's easily one of the worst songs ABBA ever waxed.



From these two songs, it's easy to guess the situation of the songs on VOULEZ-VOUS: the worse the songs are, the worse they end up under the disco groove. Fortunately, even if Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson prove here they don't instantly enter the songwriting hall of greats, they still prove they have enough songwriting skills to keep a stumble like this from being totally disastrous. Those songs, almost naturally, were the songs that became the hits: the title track; "Does Your Mother Know" (ABBA's best song with Bjorn on lead vocals); "I Have a Dream"; "Chiquitita"; and "Angeleyes." It should be mentioned that only two of these songs were disco songs, which puts VOULEZ-VOUS in perspective: ABBA may have tried to dress themselves up as disco stars, but through this set, the group unintentionally shows they are better delivering middle-of-the-road pop. Even if those five said hits aren't quite genuine classics along the lines of "Dancing Queen," they are still well crafted songs that contain nary an embarrassing moment found in the other five songs on the album, and they alone make the album worthwhile. But since those songs are scattered throughout the album, and the opener and closer are both duds, VOULEZ-VOUS can't help but reveal ABBA's shortcomings as a hip group.

Take it now. Don't leave it.

Voulez Vous is one of the best, if not the best, ABBA album. I know everyone says "Super Trouper" is the best, and "Super Trouper" (the song) is great too, but this transcends it completely. "Voulez Vous", "As Good As New", "Angeleyes", and "Lovers (Live A Little Longer)" are all excellent. Also "The King Has Lost His Crown" is great. Get it, and I really don't care voulez-vous (would you like to) or not. Get it anyway. Fave Tracks: Voulez Vous, As Good As New, Angeleyes.