ABBA: The Album [Remastered 2005] CD Track Listing

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ABBA The Album [Remastered 2005] (1977)
The Complete Studio Recordings - Disc 05 of 11 : The Album\n2005 Polar Music International\nComplete Studio Recordings Box Released November 7, 2005 \n\nOriginally Released February 1978\nRemastered Edition Released March 16, 1999\nDigiPak Edition With Bonus Tracks Released October 16, 2001\n\nExclusive import limited edition digipak is remastered, has extensive liner notes and lyrics, and includes one bonus song, 'Thank You For The Music'(Doris Day Version)'. 10 tracks in all.\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: ABBA's fifth album continued its phenomenal international success, featuring the U.K. #1s "The Name of the Game" and "Take a Chance on Me, " and achieving ABBA's highest ever showing in the U.S. LP charts: it reached the Top 20 and sold a million copies in six months, despite being one of their more uneven releases. The Album was unusually progressive by the standards of this group, opening with the decidedly dramatic, six-minute long synthesizer-dominated "Eagle" (almost an art-rock track), before giving way to the hit "Take A Chance On Me." Even the latter, with it luminous acapella opening, was rather bold in its exploiting of the group's established strengths. Despite it hit status, "The Name of the Game" was never as strong or interesting a cut as "Take A Chance On Me, " and there are better tracks surrounding it, including "Move On, " which has a better beat and more impressive harmonizing (although the introduction seems, unintentionally, almost a parody of that Les Crane spoken-word hit of the early 1970's, "Child of the Universe"), and "Hole In Your Soul" (which is a rare guitar showcase for Lasse Wellander's lead electric playing). "Girl With The Golden Hair, " billed as "three scenes from a mini-musical, " shows ABBA move into the realm of Broadway-style material, courtesy of Andersson and Ulvaeus's aspirations to compose in that direction--"Thank You For The Music" became a popular stage number, but is rather flat as a studio recording--"I Wonder" is rather dullish, and "I'm A Marionette" seems like an attempt (only partly successful) to recast the vague influence of Kurt Weill in a hard rock mode. They would fare somewhat better in their theatrical ambitions Andersson and Ulvaeus with Chess, some six years later. [The 1999 PolyGram remastering (part of "The ABBA Remasters" series) does bring out the multi-layered keyboard, guitar, and vocal parts throughout the album far better than either the original Atlantic LP or the earlier CD versions.] -- Bruce Eder & William Ruhlmann\n\nAmazon.com essential recording Editorial Reviews\nWithout a doubt, 1978's The Album is the Swedish pop demigods' finest moment. (Forgive them the film.) From the opening stanzas of the visionary "Eagle" (a "Born Free" for the late '70s) to the pure joyous rush of "Take a Chance on Me" (has a cappella ever sounded so irresistible?) to the drop-dead perfect chorus on "The Name of the Game," not a heartstring is left untouched. The melodies are matchless, the production virtually defining the era. The final three tracks, subtitled "Three Scenes from a Mini-Musical"--the celebratory and often copied "Thank You for the Music," "I Wonder," and the self-deprecating "I'm a Marionette"--merely confirmed what ABBA's fans knew all along: this was pure showtime and Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha, and Frida were masters of the form. --Everett True \n\nCD Now Review\nAbba Turns Down a Billion Dollars to Reunite \nThough Abba was, briefly, as big as the Beatles, history today recalls the Swedish phenomenon as little more than a hit machine, which made albums because it could, not because there were any good reasons to. Sifting through the bulk of the group's catalog doesn't dent that diagnosis too much. But then you hit 1977's The Album, and all bets are suddenly off. \n\nCatching the group with photographic accuracy just as it made that seamless transition from gorgeous pop to Wonder Bread disco, The Album reveals Abba as something more than the incessant jukebox of memory; something more, too, than simply a child of the '70s, given new life by the gods of "Born (or Bjorn) Again Kitsch." \n\nThe maddeningly insistent "Take a Chance on Me" is the album's killer hit, with "Name of the Game" a deceptively sultry second. But the opening "Eagle" sets a stage of such unremitting lushness that nothing which follows falls flat. Effortlessly, the Swedish quartet swings from the (surely autobiographical) divorce drama of "One Man, One Woman," to the supremely buoyant "Hole in Your Soul." The crowning moment though is the grandiosely titled "The Girl With the Golden Hair -- 3 Scenes From a Mini-Musical." \n\nComprised of the hit "Thank You for the Music," the lilting "I Wonder," and the Queen-esque ambition of "I'm a Marionette," what could, in other hands, have seemed an unbearable conceit (three scenes from a mini-musical indeed) becomes an absolute triumph. And repeated plays of the entire album only enhances the sensation \n\nSome Abba albums may not be as good as you remember them, but The Album is even better. -- Dave Thompson\n\nCD Connection Review\nNot quite the soundtrack to the Swedish foursome's film debut, ABBA: The Movie (directed by respected Swedish filmmaker Lasse Hallestrom), THE ALBUM combines several songs from the movie, including the deliriously bouncy hit "Take A Chance On Me" and the dramatic "The Name of the Game," with three songs from Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Anderson's never-completed musical The Girl with the Golden Hair. \n\nThese three songs are among the band's most intriguing, with "Thank You for the Music" serving as the band's unofficial theme song and "I Wonder (Departure)" one of their most affecting ballads. It's the near-violent, bitterly ironic "I'm A Marionette" that's the wild card. Easily the angriest song ABBA ever recorded, "I'm A Marionette" sounds in retrospect like a portent of the band's rancorous end less than four years later. Curiosities and all, THE ALBUM may be ABBA's creative highpoint.
This data cd contains 11 tracks and runs 48min 49sec.
Freedb: 940b6f0b

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