ABBA?s best album.

I am an ABBA fan living in Norway. I think Super Trouper is ABBA?s best album. I have of course all their albums and videos (VHS). My favourite track of ABBA is "Like an angel passing through my room". It is the most beautiful song I have ever heard. A pity it is not included on Super Trouper, but is the last song on the cd "The Visitors". Because of the terrible song
"Two for the price of one" I don?t think "The Visitors" is a very good album. This song destroys the album and should in my opinion never has ben released.

Formidable, mature and complete

From the title track with PERFECT keyboard melody and compilation favourite "The Winner Takes It All" to the best modern Christmas song ever (well, at least on par with "White Christmas" and "Jingle Bell Rock"), "Happy New Year" and chillingly majestic anthem "The Way Old Friends Do", this album is as powerful as ABBA gets.

It is equal in its completeness to "The Visitors", and I would be hard pressed to say which one is better. Buy it. There are not too many non-compilation ABBA albums, after all.

My Favorite

This album must be the very best of ABBA. I like and enjoy whole tracks. In particilar, "The piper" and "Me and I" are special to me because of their inspring words and unique arrangements. Never cloying and all time refresher! Just one song I don't like very much is "Andante, Andante" because its lyrics are a bit creepy.(You know what I mean)

Super

The best album by the best pop group the world has heard. After the not so perfect Voulez-Vous, ABBA returned, stronger than ever, with Super Trouper. There is nothing out of place here and the songs are beautiful. The Winner Takes It All is their masterpiece, while Happy New Year, Our Last Summer and Lay All Your Love On Me are almost as good. The album is nostalgic and the songs are instantly familiar, some sound like hymns. The emotional beauty of The Winner Takes It All might make you cry but those are welcome tears. This is what life is about.

The brilliant culmination of a decade in music

Super Trouper is to Abba what Sergeant Pepper was to the Beatles ... the pinnacle of a terrific group's career. This was the first album entirely produced in their Polar music studio and the unity shows ... there isn't a misstep in any song and lyrically, they no longer sounded like they weren't sure what they were singing about. "Happy New Year" & "Andante Andante" are wonderful stand-outs.

Wonderfully Crafted to a Fault

The fact that ABBA returned to the craft of ARRIVAL on their seventh album, SUPER TROUPER, probably does not have anything to do with the creative stumble that was VOULEZ-VOUS. Over the course of the ABBA years, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson have usually found their songwriting influences in the hottest hits of the time. That observation may sound too glib, though, since Bjorn and Benny were always wise enough to interpret their influences in a European style. And in SUPER TROUPER, Bjorn and Benny probably found most of the inspiration for their songs in the new wave style- most of the songs on this album contain productions that recall the quirkiness of new wave, only here, they've been sanded down so that this is still essentially middle-of-the-road pop in the veins of ARRIVAL, albeit with the increased use of synthesizers.



Even though SUPER TROUPER may not sound as fresh as that album, primarily because ABBA is noticeably focusing on craft here, it still has a set of songs that rivals that of ARRIVAL. Like ARRIVAL, SUPER TROUPER does not have any weak tracks, and its best songs- the uplifting title track, the tearjerking "The Winner Takes It All" (ABBA's second best song of their career, for the record), the effervescent "On and On and On"- rank among the best songs of their time. If portions of SUPER TROUPER seem shallow despite their strong craft, that's because when examined in depth, some of the songs are a little shallow. For instance, the slowly seductive "Andante, Andante" is perhaps a little too sweet to work as a genuine slow song (even though it is more alluring than the previous seduction attempt from VOULEZ-VOUS, the awful "Kisses of Fire"). The lyrics of "Happy New Year" are a little too aimless for the song to work as an effective meditation. And although "Lay All Your Love on Me" is an irresistibly danceable song, it's hampered by its silly lyrics (example: "And I'm possessive, it isn't nice/you've heard me saying that smoking was my only vice").



A step down from ARRIVAL, yes, but despite these flaws, SUPER TROUPER still shows ABBA at a near-peak of their craft, and it shows why the group was one of the more consistent hitmakers of their time. Still, it's hard not to think that SUPER TROUPER sounds like the beginning of the end for ABBA, not just because of their increased focus on craft and trends of the moment, but also because the album ends with "The Way Old Friends Do." Styled in the veins of "Auld Lang Syne," it sounds like a clear anticipation of the group's demise, even if the song is really good.