As a first review I shall present you the first album of the legendary Swedish pop group Abba. Being a great fan of Abba's music, it's a pleasure for me to listen once again their entire discography. Indeed, I have planned to do the reviews about the remaining 7 albums once I find needed time.
As a matter of fact, the first two reviews will be the direct translations from my Finnish language blog. But since the overviews were already comprehensive enough, I decided not to do major changes to the text.
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Released: March 26, 1973
Producer(s) : Benny Andersson ja Björn Ulvaeus
Track listing:
- Ring Ring
- Another Town, Another Train
- Disillusion
- People Need Love
- I Saw It In The Mirror
- Nina, Pretty Ballerina
- Love Isn't Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough)
- Me And Bobby And Bobby's Brother
- He Is Your Brother
- She's My Kind Of Girl
- I Am Just A Girl
- Rock'n Roll Band
The background
It's been over 35 years since the launch of Abba's debut album. During that time the legendary band has broken apart and its members have started to live their own life - every one of them in their on way. The popularity of Abba's music has gone through uphills and downhills. Occasionally their products have been a hot thing in the field of music charts but, on the other hand, there've been moments when the band has been totally out of fashion.
Right now Abba is again a big name. Mamma Mia broadway musical has been a huge success all voer the worlds, and it's even been adapted into a movie. Abba boom is once again here, for a moment. So it's about time to dig up old Abba Gold tape and CD collections and put the Stereo to play some Dancing Queen.
Abba's first album takes place before the time of Waterloo, before the worldwide success. The band was only recently formed, but the popularity in Sweden had risen to staggering level. At the time the ideas of broaden the marketing and changing the singing language from Sweidsh to English were taken with high consideration. As a result, Abba released the album Ring Ring including 12 tracks, the song with the similar name Ring Ring being the most popular hit of them. Nonetheless, the album wasn't a chart-topper outside the Scandinavian, and the band had to wait its notable success for another year...
But to the subject. Let's looks inside the casing.
The music genre can be regarded as Pop of its time, albeit the important role of rock music can be detected from the tracks, and on the other hand the style of songs vary a lot.
Basically, the music is somewhat light and simplified compared to band's later production, the unique "abba-sound" is mostly missing. Furthermore, Björn's quite significant role as a singer differs from the 80's. Of course some may find his singing voice great, but to my mind Abba did the right choice by leaving the singing for Aghnetha and Anni-Frid in the following albums.
From all this it's clearly noticable that Abba was only searching their room in the music business and therefore various kinds of musical experiments were seen worthwhile.
Each song may get from 1 up to 5 stars, indicating how good the song is. The more stars the better song. Half stars are accepted too.
Ring Ring: Catchy guitar riffs start the first song of the album. The same riff can be heard as loop in the background, keeping the song in form. The singing parts belong to women singers, in which especially Agnetha's voice is heard loudly. There's a great part before the chorus; The music stops and with the comp of drums only the words can be heard. The lyrics are very easy in the refrain; Regardless of the nationality or language everyone can sing-along "ring ring". Excellent song and certain first hit.
****
Another Town, Another Train: Prelude with a flutemelody, followed by Brörn's delicate singingpart. Others join in the chorus. Light summer-like tune, the chorus of which could be rememberable. Otherwise perhaps too simple and tedious track.
**
Disillusion: It's unlikely many considering themselves Abba fans are familiar with this song. It's a light rock track sung by Agnertha. The melody is utterly dull, and, surprise surprise, disillusion is repeated during the chorus. The song right. It is a disappointment.
*
People Need Love: This track reached the 3rd place in Swedish Tio i Topp charts. Rhytmic ballad which has the same melody repeating over and over again. Yet, in the end it get higher in the higher scale. Interestingly, the sing parts are switching between the men and women until they all sings together in the chorus. Better than average.
***
I Saw It In The Mirror: Extremely slow ballad where Björn has a role as a soloist. Quite bald and too simple melody, which gets instantly forgotten. A slightly different moment in the mid-part, but not memorable though.
*
Nina, Pretty Ballerina: The first beats have been replaced with the sound of a steam train. That an original way to start a song. Besides that some audience noise - cheering the ballerina - has been used as the sound effects in this track. Energetic and upbeat tune accompanied with catchy chorus and striking lyrics are the concepts of good song. One of the best track of the album.
****
Love Isn't Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough) : Started by country guitar and followed by Björn and the girls. The track is both rhytmic and cheerful and melody simple. Can be listened multiple times. Interesting addition is a strong 'bong' sound before the title lyrics. Noteworhy song.
**½
Me And Bobby And Bobby's Brother : Very rarely heard track(just like most of the track in the album), but luckily not Disillusion sort of lackluster song. The rhytmic and catchy chorus makes it listenable. It's not as fancy as Mamma Mia but still surprisingly lively song.
***
He Is Your Brother : If one is getting sick of Ring Ring, this might even be the greatest song of the album. Very catchy and distinctive, somehow hillbilly type of rock ballad. Björn sings again with girls, but this time his deep male voice suits for this hard ballad. The part in which Agnetha and Björn screams in turns makes the song quite original.
****
She's My Kind Of Girl : A real Abba speciality: A duet by Björn and Benny without the girls (other male voices are heard in the background too). Guitar and hi-hat are the prime instruments. The song itself is nothing special, but can't say it'd be boring. Melody is cool and this can be a nice, different experience for regular Abba listener.
**½
I Am Just A Girl : When you heard this song for the first time, it may take a while until you realize it's Abba. I belive they're testing different music styles again. This time it's a ballad with a whispered lyrics. During the interlude the normal voices are back, but they do not resemble Anni-Frid or Agnetha but totally other people. The song itself is rather dull, but due to its uniqueness you may have to listen it a couple of times in oder to believe the same band has done Money Money Money or Winner Takes It All. The unintentional joke track of the album.
**
Rock'n Roll Band : As can be judged from the name, this is not a pop but rock song. A guitar is the main element here. Some true work for Björn who both plays and sings in this track, which, frankly, is fairly boring and you probably don't remeber the melody as soon as the song has ended.
*½
Final thoughts
The big hits are still in the future and, thus, the debut album gives quite contradictory impression. It can be noticed that, as an expreriment, the band has put together a misc range of their songs. No single musical pattern is visible in the first album. That's why there are only five to six proper songs, implying half of the tracks are junk. Obviously a true Abba fan will listen every other week those lamer songs too ;) But still, Ring Ring does not provide a musical experience similar to later Abba albums; Rather than that it's "the first album of a mediocore European Pop Group". But as a part of the band's history the album, despite its weaknesses, has an important role.
**½
___________________
Please note that I didn't give a lot weight to the lyrics which, of course, are nearly as important as the melody. But since analyzing them would require intensive, linguistic, poetic and allusion-realizing approach I'm afraid I can't do it. Translating the lyrics in Finnish would be troublesome work enough. Therefore I've decided to concentrate on the music only. For example, let's imagine that each song would be an instrumental version. A song with awesome lyrics might not be that great anymore? But, a song with a good melody and rhytm holds its popularity.
It's been over 35 years since the launch of Abba's debut album. During that time the legendary band has broken apart and its members have started to live their own life - every one of them in their on way. The popularity of Abba's music has gone through uphills and downhills. Occasionally their products have been a hot thing in the field of music charts but, on the other hand, there've been moments when the band has been totally out of fashion.
Right now Abba is again a big name. Mamma Mia broadway musical has been a huge success all voer the worlds, and it's even been adapted into a movie. Abba boom is once again here, for a moment. So it's about time to dig up old Abba Gold tape and CD collections and put the Stereo to play some Dancing Queen.
Abba's first album takes place before the time of Waterloo, before the worldwide success. The band was only recently formed, but the popularity in Sweden had risen to staggering level. At the time the ideas of broaden the marketing and changing the singing language from Sweidsh to English were taken with high consideration. As a result, Abba released the album Ring Ring including 12 tracks, the song with the similar name Ring Ring being the most popular hit of them. Nonetheless, the album wasn't a chart-topper outside the Scandinavian, and the band had to wait its notable success for another year...
But to the subject. Let's looks inside the casing.
The music genre can be regarded as Pop of its time, albeit the important role of rock music can be detected from the tracks, and on the other hand the style of songs vary a lot.
Basically, the music is somewhat light and simplified compared to band's later production, the unique "abba-sound" is mostly missing. Furthermore, Björn's quite significant role as a singer differs from the 80's. Of course some may find his singing voice great, but to my mind Abba did the right choice by leaving the singing for Aghnetha and Anni-Frid in the following albums.
From all this it's clearly noticable that Abba was only searching their room in the music business and therefore various kinds of musical experiments were seen worthwhile.
Each song may get from 1 up to 5 stars, indicating how good the song is. The more stars the better song. Half stars are accepted too.
Ring Ring: Catchy guitar riffs start the first song of the album. The same riff can be heard as loop in the background, keeping the song in form. The singing parts belong to women singers, in which especially Agnetha's voice is heard loudly. There's a great part before the chorus; The music stops and with the comp of drums only the words can be heard. The lyrics are very easy in the refrain; Regardless of the nationality or language everyone can sing-along "ring ring". Excellent song and certain first hit.
****
Another Town, Another Train: Prelude with a flutemelody, followed by Brörn's delicate singingpart. Others join in the chorus. Light summer-like tune, the chorus of which could be rememberable. Otherwise perhaps too simple and tedious track.
**
Disillusion: It's unlikely many considering themselves Abba fans are familiar with this song. It's a light rock track sung by Agnertha. The melody is utterly dull, and, surprise surprise, disillusion is repeated during the chorus. The song right. It is a disappointment.
*
People Need Love: This track reached the 3rd place in Swedish Tio i Topp charts. Rhytmic ballad which has the same melody repeating over and over again. Yet, in the end it get higher in the higher scale. Interestingly, the sing parts are switching between the men and women until they all sings together in the chorus. Better than average.
***
I Saw It In The Mirror: Extremely slow ballad where Björn has a role as a soloist. Quite bald and too simple melody, which gets instantly forgotten. A slightly different moment in the mid-part, but not memorable though.
*
Nina, Pretty Ballerina: The first beats have been replaced with the sound of a steam train. That an original way to start a song. Besides that some audience noise - cheering the ballerina - has been used as the sound effects in this track. Energetic and upbeat tune accompanied with catchy chorus and striking lyrics are the concepts of good song. One of the best track of the album.
****
Love Isn't Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough) : Started by country guitar and followed by Björn and the girls. The track is both rhytmic and cheerful and melody simple. Can be listened multiple times. Interesting addition is a strong 'bong' sound before the title lyrics. Noteworhy song.
**½
Me And Bobby And Bobby's Brother : Very rarely heard track(just like most of the track in the album), but luckily not Disillusion sort of lackluster song. The rhytmic and catchy chorus makes it listenable. It's not as fancy as Mamma Mia but still surprisingly lively song.
***
He Is Your Brother : If one is getting sick of Ring Ring, this might even be the greatest song of the album. Very catchy and distinctive, somehow hillbilly type of rock ballad. Björn sings again with girls, but this time his deep male voice suits for this hard ballad. The part in which Agnetha and Björn screams in turns makes the song quite original.
****
She's My Kind Of Girl : A real Abba speciality: A duet by Björn and Benny without the girls (other male voices are heard in the background too). Guitar and hi-hat are the prime instruments. The song itself is nothing special, but can't say it'd be boring. Melody is cool and this can be a nice, different experience for regular Abba listener.
**½
I Am Just A Girl : When you heard this song for the first time, it may take a while until you realize it's Abba. I belive they're testing different music styles again. This time it's a ballad with a whispered lyrics. During the interlude the normal voices are back, but they do not resemble Anni-Frid or Agnetha but totally other people. The song itself is rather dull, but due to its uniqueness you may have to listen it a couple of times in oder to believe the same band has done Money Money Money or Winner Takes It All. The unintentional joke track of the album.
**
Rock'n Roll Band : As can be judged from the name, this is not a pop but rock song. A guitar is the main element here. Some true work for Björn who both plays and sings in this track, which, frankly, is fairly boring and you probably don't remeber the melody as soon as the song has ended.
*½
Final thoughts
The big hits are still in the future and, thus, the debut album gives quite contradictory impression. It can be noticed that, as an expreriment, the band has put together a misc range of their songs. No single musical pattern is visible in the first album. That's why there are only five to six proper songs, implying half of the tracks are junk. Obviously a true Abba fan will listen every other week those lamer songs too ;) But still, Ring Ring does not provide a musical experience similar to later Abba albums; Rather than that it's "the first album of a mediocore European Pop Group". But as a part of the band's history the album, despite its weaknesses, has an important role.
**½
___________________
Please note that I didn't give a lot weight to the lyrics which, of course, are nearly as important as the melody. But since analyzing them would require intensive, linguistic, poetic and allusion-realizing approach I'm afraid I can't do it. Translating the lyrics in Finnish would be troublesome work enough. Therefore I've decided to concentrate on the music only. For example, let's imagine that each song would be an instrumental version. A song with awesome lyrics might not be that great anymore? But, a song with a good melody and rhytm holds its popularity.
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