The Definitive Collection

Product Description

Definitive Collection ABBA Label: Polydor / Umgd Release Date: 11/6/2001 1 People Need Love - 2:45 2 He Is Your Brother - 3:18 3 Ring Ring - 3:04 4 Love Isn't Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough) - 2:53 5 Waterloo - 2:47 6 Honey, Honey - 2:55 7 So Long - 3:05 8 I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do - 3:16 9 S.O.S. - 3:20 10 Mamma Mia - 3:32 11 Fernando - 4:14 12 Dancing Queen - 3:51 13 Money, Money, Money - 3:05 14 Knowing Me, Knowing You - 4:01 15 The Name of the Game - 4:52 16 Take a Chance on Me - 4:05 17 Eagle - 4:27 18 Summer Night City - 3:35 19 Chiquitita - 5:24 20 Does Your Mother Know - 3:13 Disc 2 1 Voulez-Vous - 5:08 2 Angeleyes - 4:19 3 Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) - 4:50 4 I Have a Dream - 4:42 5 The Winner Takes It All - 4:56 6 Super Trouper - 4:13 7 On and on and On - 3:42 8 Lay All Your Love on Me - 4:34 9 One of Us - 3:56 10 When All Is Said and Done - 3:17 11 Head Over Heels - 3:47 12 The Visitors (Crackin' Up) - 5:46 13 The Day Before You Came - 5:51 14 Under Attack - 3:47 15 Thank You for the Music - 3:51 16 Ring Ring [1974 Remix, Single Version][*][Version] - 3:10 17 Voulez-Vous [Extended Remix, 1979 US Promo][*] - 6:07

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Is there anything that simply screams the 1970s' most indelible pop cultural clichés--the sunny romanticism, perfect vocal hooks, feathered hair, stacked heels, and flared sateen britches--more than the Swedish pop phenomenon Abba? And while many a pundit snootily dismissed them during their prime as some sort of prefabricated aberration, their worldwide popularity peaked somewhere just south of Beatlesmania. Indeed, Abba's music was as finely tooled and crafted as anything to come from a Volvo or IKEA factory--if occasionally more economically potent. This double-disc, 37-track anthology comes neatly on the heels of Mama Mia!, the smash, if unlikely, Broadway show based on the band's hits, and documents every single released by the band's Polar label in their home country as well as key tracks released internationally.

This is the canon from whence the term "Europop" sprang. With a continental sense of vocal neoclassicism, informed by just the right ethnic clichés (and oft wed to the era's insistent 4/4 disco beat) to make songs like "Mama Mia," "Fernando," "Chiquitita," and "Voulez-Vous" work on a global scale, the writing team of Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson and their respective partners in music and life, Agnetha Faltskog and Frida Lyngstad, developed the seamless, wall-of-sound productions contained herein. The Definitive Collection features a rare single remix of "Ring, Ring" and a 1979 promo-only extended mix of "Voulez-Vous" as bonus tracks, as well as a concise, illustrated history of the band and each track. --Jerry McCulley