| The Swedish pop quartet ABBA (1972-1982) specialized in hit singles at a time when full-length albums were considered the measure of an act's artistic worth. Thus, despite 14 appearances on the U.S. Top 40, more than two dozen hits worldwide, the perennially bestselling ABBA Gold, and a vocal sound swirling with echoes of Connie Francis and Petula Clark, ABBA got, and still gets, short critical shrift. Yet, as the recent reissuing of its original eight albums demonstrates, ABBA began moving away from bubblegum as early as The Album (1977), developing by Super Trouper (1980) a maturity of tone, an inventiveness of melody, and a lavishness of production that rivaled anything being done by the likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber. ABBA's crowning achievement was The Visitors (1981). In addition to wistful breakup songs (at which the group had become adept in the wake of its members' unraveling marriages), there was "Slipping Through My Fingers," a masterly and moving handling of a subject that Bob Carlisle would sentimentalize 15 years later in "Butterfly Kisses": a parent's mixed emotions at watching a daughter grow up, up, and away. |
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