As Backwards as the B in ABBA

/ Gary Hilson

ABBA Greatest Hits Vol. 2 There are a few musicians and bands I keep coming back to as the years go on, and ABBA is always one of them.

ABBA is the first “grown up” musical act I was allowed to listen to as a kid (I’m not yet 40), and I actually discovered the super group in a rather backwards fashion. ABBA Greatest Hits Vol. 2 was the first vinyl I owned that wasn’t a children’s album, and by then ABBA’s penultimate studio album, Super Trouper, had been released. Together with Voulez Vous, released in 1979, these three records formed my view of what ABBA was, and without the Internet, it took me a while to  work back and understand the history and evolution of the Swedish pop quartet, which was close to dissolving by the time I’d become a fan.

The ABBA sound had in fact morphed quite a bit over the course of 10 years, so when I did discover the group’s early albums I had to reconcile the differences between ABBA’s first album in 1973, Ring Ring, and its final studio album in 1981, The Visitors. ABBA Greatest Hits Vol. 2 was the beginning of the last third of ABBA’s prolific run, showcasing singles from previous albums including Arrival, The Album and Voulez Vous (which for a while I thought had come out after Greatest Hits Vol. 2).

You can’t actually buy a copy of ABBA Greatest Hits Vol. 2 anymore. I still have a copy of it on vinyl somewhere in my parents’ basement alongside Sesame Street Fever and some Raffi records. I don’t recall ever replacing it with a cassette, as I did with other albums. It was released on CD, but the Polydor label deleted it from its catalog in favor of ABBA Gold in the early 90s.

ABBA Greatest Hits Vol. 2 included 14 songs from four previous albums:

  • “Rock Me” from the group’s third and eponymous 1975 album ABBA;
  • “Knowing Me, Knowing You”, “Dancing Queen” and “Money, Money, Money” from 1976’s Arrival;
  • “Eagle”, “I Wonder (Departure)”, “The Name of the Game”, “Thank You for the Music” from 1977’s The Album;
  • “Angeleyes”, “Does Your Mother Know”, and “Chiquitita” from 1979’s Voulez Vous;
  • “Summer Night City” and “Gimme Gimme Gimme” were both standalone releases from 1978 and 1979, respectively, with the latter having recently been sampled in a Madonna single.

But while ABBA Greatest Hits Vol. 2 is a showcase of ABBA’s most well-known work, the included songs are not particularly my favorite, although I have always loved “Knowing Me, Knowing You”, “Eagle” and “Angeleyes”. As a kid, I loved the light and fun “Does Your Mother Know”, but as an adult I now have a deeper appreciation for the melody and lovely lyrics of “Chiquitita”.

This compilation album marks a turning point for ABBA as a band as Super Trouper has a markedly different sound than the previous studio album, Voulez Vous, a sound that would continue with The Visitors. For me personally, it’s the beginning of my love with adult contemporary music.

Next: A Beginner’s Guide to Warping LPs and The Transition to Tape