Emily: My mom absolutely hates ABBA. She was a teenager in the '70s, and I'm pretty sure she yelled at her radio to turn off Dancing Queen every time a pop station played it - which in 1976 was approximately every other song. ABBA comes up on the radio significantly less often now, but I'm sure she'll do the same thing. Even when the '90s neo-ABBA pop group A*Teens came along to Radio Disney with covers of Dancing Queen and Mamma Mia and equally sugary pop confections like Upside Down, she would turn the songs off immediately unless I protested. Yes, despite my mom's hatred, I liked A*Teens as a kid. Now, does that translate to liking ABBA now? Not quite. Arrival is brainless pop music meant to be danced to in 3-minute intervals, not savored as a full-length album. I'll take the shimmery Euro-disco fun that is Dancing Queen once in a while, but I didn't really need a half hour of it.
Favorite Tracks: Dancing Queen; Money, Money, Money; Dum Dum Diddle
Zack: I’m not sure I could turn the volume low enough
on my iPod and still be able to hear enough that I could, in all good faith,
write a review. I spent my morning walk to school nervously glancing over my
shoulders every six seconds to make sure no one knew I was listening to ABBA.
Hopefully everyone just thought I was being followed or was an escaped convict
instead of what would have truly elicited judgment form my peers. I mean, it’s
ABBA. Even if this albums sold several trillion copies (all numbers
approximate), it still made a music journalist write “By reducing their
already vapid lyrics to utter irrelevance, lead singers Anni-Frid Lyngstad and
Agnetha Fältskog are liberated to matter on in their shrill voices without
regard to emotion or expression,” Reread that quote. And know that,
even if you like this album (which I’m already 100% positive Emily will), that
statement is completely and obviously true. The songs are designed to be as
shallow, repetitive, and uncomfortably upbeat as possible. I’m almost a little
ashamed to admit that I’m kind of impressed by it. I have a longstanding hatred
for The Black Eyed Peas for doing the same thing, but here it kind of feels at
least a little sincere, as opposed to a concerted effort to make music for
commercials and bar mitzvah royalty checks. I may not have liked this album. I
may be moments away from scrubbing it out of my iTunes with digital bleach. But
I respect that ABBA made the exact album they wanted to make in as unabashed a
fashion as they could.
Favorite Tracks: Dancing Queen; Money, Money, Money; Why Did
it Have to Be Me?
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