ABBA - Gold - World's Greatest Albums (DVD)

...(¸.•´ : (¸.•´ : (´¸.•*´¯`*• ABBA GOLD, more than a compilation, the disk that gives a reason to exist to a collection of CDs.

('Listen to some music, maybe just talking, get to know you better…')

Now Madonna's releasing its "Hung up" on the radios, sampled from the mythical "Gimme, gimme, gimme", I think it's high time to rehabilitate ABBA and to eventually admit the visionary ...
...is, without any possible doubt, ABBA Gold.

Nineteen titles, listen to the music…

(Can you hear the drums Fernando ?')

Oh yes, I really think Fernando can the drums, or the guy must be perfectly deaf otherwise ! ABBA's songs are always extremely well fitting with ABBA's world : they are songs of pureness, shineness, sparkleness, they glide, glow and slide with happy and kitch echoes, with a vivid and energic ... more

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,.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ : (¸.•´ : (´¸.•*´¯`*• ABBA, more than just a philosophy, a true way of life :

('I don't know how, but I suddenly lose control, there's a fire within my soul…)

At times, you wish you could run away from the pressure of society, you wish you can fly, you wish you can touch the sky. You burn to explode your chains. You long for the good old days when life spread itself under a sweet rainfall of strass and sparks of gold, when the future made its possibilities multiply upon the silver faces of a ball on the ceiling. So, sometimes, when you feel lost into urban decay, prisoner of the grey of the city and the cold of the winter, a crazy thought merge at the very bottom of your mind, the thought a blond peruke, a white leather miniskirt and an electric blue jerkin would be perfect and just enough to change everything.

Alas, the sole remainings we have nowadays of those ancient times of happiness are some old disks and a few overworn tapes. But high technology is a true luck in life, for the definite solution to our problem has been created for more than fifteen years now : a black cover with golden writings on it, and the four magic letters with their legendary mirror effect. ABBA. More than a compilation : a bar. You just have to open the little box of plastic to release in the air some smell of patchouli, to have the walls covered with some kind of geomatric wallpaper with vivid colours… You're back in the spirit of the seventies.

.*´¨ )
,.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ : (¸.•´ : (´¸.•*´¯`*• ABBA GOLD, more than a compilation, the disk that gives a reason to exist to a collection of CDs.

('Listen to some music, maybe just talking, get to know you better…')

Now Madonna's releasing its "Hung up" on the radios, sampled from the mythical "Gimme, gimme, gimme", I think it's high time to rehabilitate ABBA and to eventually admit the visionary dimension of their music, texts, and sense of the show. Thus, let me take you for a journey side by side with the fantastic four, that's to say Agnetha, Björn, Benny, and Anni-Frid (whose initials, put together, give us the sesame, ABBA). But ABBA's discography being as long as one of Agnetha's lashes, a clever thing could be to pick directly into one of the ten compilations existing rather than into one of the (only) eight albums of the band. And the most complete of the ABBA's compilation is, without any possible doubt, ABBA Gold.

Nineteen titles, listen to the music…

(Can you hear the drums Fernando ?')

Oh yes, I really think Fernando can the drums, or the guy must be perfectly deaf otherwise ! ABBA's songs are always extremely well fitting with ABBA's world : they are songs of pureness, shineness, sparkleness, they glide, glow and slide with happy and kitch echoes, with a vivid and energic rhythm in them. Drums, aerial voices, light choirs, all that leading to a music simply positive and fresh. And if some would argue those songs are mawkish, I'd answer they're however known by everybody.

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'Dancing queen'…
You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life…

Go out, dance, have fun… The very symbols of ABBA's universe withing a song. And you just move your little bottom on the dancefloor, and you don't mind if you're a good dancer or not for when you're moving on a song by ABBA, you always look good. Because you're embodying joy and good-humour.

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'Knowing me, knowing you'…
Walking through an empty house, tears in my eyes… Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye…

The song could have been a sad song, or at least a melancholic one. But the rhythmic is too stressed, too energic, and Agnetha's voice seems too glad and gay in the mike. So, for French people who do not specially mind or understand the lyrics, it's easy to believe the subject is light and fun. But indeed we're talking of the end of a love story ! Little bit ironic, don't you think ? Whatever, I'm fond of the song, in spite of the meaning somehow abused : it's too fun to try to sing the different choirs making ghostly "haaaahaaaa" all along the song or to copy the supposedly sensual voice of Anni-Frid coming over Agnetha's one around the end.

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'Take a chance on me'
If you're all alone when the pretty birds have flown, honey I'm still free, take a chance on me…

All my greetings come to Björn who could have had his tongue totally twisted repeating endlessly "take a chance, take a chance, take a chance" all song long. And more and more quickly. During that time, the girls are testing different pitches of voice : soft, sensual, clear or dark. That title is also one of my favourite for it's pure joy to sing out of my lungs the "so much than I wanna do, when I dream I'm alone with you"… It's incredibly high, it's incredibly shrill, and thus incredibly brilliant.

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'Mamma mia'
I don't know how but I suddenly lose control, there's a fire within my soul. Just one look and I can hear a bell ring… One more look and I forget everything…

I'm fond of the two-times rhytm at the beginning, very clear, very high (all is always high in ABBA's songs, they don't seem to have discovered low tones). And the kind of xylophone effect, as if Björn was playing with his kids' toys, it's fantastic !

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'Super Trouper'
Tonight the super trouper beams are gonna blind me but I won't feel blue, like I always do, cause somewhere in the crowd there's you…

Here we are. MY favourite song. The rest of the time, I don't mind about the lyrics for it seems you do not listen to ABBA to be overwehlmed by the depth of some metaphors. But here in that song you can find some kind of subtle mise en abyme, it's asthonishing ! We are told the story of a sad woman who sings in a band, who has a lot of success but who awfully misses her lover. She could only feel happy when the guy is in the crowd of people in front of the scene. First, it's beautiful. Secondly, think : what is Agnetha but, what a coincidence, a singer who meets a great success but also have to face loneliness. Add to that a try at symbolizing things, with the idea you could always find yourself alone within a deep crowd, no matter if you are a famous singer or an asshole, simply being alone because you're not with the one, the only one, is always very hard. And if you think one should not put his neurons at work reading a review upon ABBA, just remember the super chorus : "su-peu-peur, trou-peu-peur"…

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'The winner takes it all'
But tell me does she kiss like I used to kiss you ? Does it feel the same when she calls your name?

Sad song, sad lyrics… The group had never realised something like that could have destroyed their career, completely. They've been within an ace of the disaster ! To tell you, there's not the shadow of any single funny choir to sing along. We're dealing with the end of a love affair, the departure of the boy, the whining of the girl… It's total despair !

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'Money, money, money'
In my dreams I have a plan, if I got me a wealthy man, I wouldn't have to work at all, I'd fool around and have a ball...

Pink Floyd also sang upon Money. But ABBA got the style, definitely. Sure it's higher in tone, sure it could be said to be musically poorer. But, ABBA's "tututututum" are obviously more plainly part of the legend of the music than Pink Floyd's poor sounds of cash registers ! Alas, those considerations being made, I do not really know what to think of the deep meaning, of the very message of the song. For Agnetha clearly acknowledges she just want to find her a rich man. Nothing more. So, has she just caught the very sense of life or is she swimming within sin and bad ideas ? Those inside thoughts only last a few seconds, for I rapidly remember I'm listening to ABBA and I come back shaking my head and waving my arms, switching the brain off.

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'Gimme ! Gimme ! Gimme !'
Gimme, gimme, gimme, a man after midnight, I want somebody help me chase these shadows away.

Men, money. Lust, lust, lust ! Those Swedish were definitely great obsessives ! I'm shoked ! Luckily, the music is still light, fresh and energic, with lots of drums, of flutes and clear instruments of all kind (yes, I don't exactly identified all of them, so I try to remain mysterious).

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'Waterloo'
Oh yeah, and now it seems my only chance is giving up the fight… And how could I ever refuse, I feel like I win when I loooooooooose…

To conclude, I wanted to talk about the ultimate ABBA's song. Not the best one, but at least the one necessary to any karaoke to deserve the name. And thus, the one which helps my own local singer fame to merge. For, with that ABBA's song, it's the hot stuff. The original footage let us discover the suits of the two girls, and it's nothing but pure dream : sparkles, glitterings, vivid colours of blue, gold and silver, brushing you can't fancy without having seen them, smiles wither than withe and greater than great… And that three times movement of the bottom, very serious and thus so sensual. Makes me forget the very poor lyrics based on sad puns upon Waterloo, the idea of war, who losts, blabla, who wins, blabla, and so on.

 

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