'The Visitors' - great ABBA album or best ABBA album?

[placeholder]

The Visitors is my favorite ABBA rec by some distance, but I barely hear anyone talk about it.

I imagine there are a bunch of ABBA fans among you beautiful folks, so I was wondering what you thought of it.

I think Super Trouper is probably the second best, but I love all of 'em!

[Michael in Athens]

"Like an Angel Passing through My Room" is definitely one of their best songs.

[crumbum]

I am ashamed to say it's the one I do not own. I will have to remedy that soon so I can weigh in.

[Matt]

They definitely got better at album-making the longer they went on, but my fave ABBA record will always be WATERLOO. I guess I just prefer upbeat-and-poppy ABBA to atmospheric-and-"mature" ABBA.

My ranking goes like this:

1. WATERLOO
2. ABBA (THE ALBUM)
3. VOULEZ-VOUS/SUPER TROUPER/THE VISITORS
4. ABBA/ARRIVAL
5. RING RING

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

The Visitors is great, but my favorite will always be The Album, mostly for "Eagle" and "I'm a Marionette."

[gravy boat]

Sorry about this.  Tom Waits is to Tom., what Abba is to me.  Agree to disagree, that's why they have horseraces and all that...

[cavorting with nudists]

Alas, I too do not understand revisionist neo-Abbaism.  Everyone with any taste knew they sucked at the time.  What changed?

[Gilly]

I think The Album is great, the rest of the albums are good to mediocre. Arrival probably is my least favorite.

[placeholder]

Alas, I too do not understand revisionist neo-Abbaism.  Everyone with any taste knew they sucked at the time.  What changed?

I understand people being completely put off by ABBA.

I was a little kid when they split up, so I never heard them in their original cultural context.  I actually don't remember hearing them at all until I was a teenager and VH1 would sometimes play "S.O.S." or "Dancing Queen" on 8-Track Flashback.  I think I sort-of heard them in a vacuum.  I also thought they were cornball when I first heard them, but their hits grew on me a lot and I noticed that other musicians I liked (Chris Carter and Elvis Costello come to mind) praised them fairly often, so I felt compelled figure out if there was something I didn't get.  There was!  After I found a cheapo  used copy of Arrival, I was hooked.  Started buying the rest of their stuff.  Those guys were great songwriters!

I have to imagine that I might feel differently if I'd been around when their music was ubiquitous, although I'm certain I'd have still gotten into The Visitors if I'd given it a chance.  Kinda the same way I love Kiss, but can't imagine I'd have been into them if I'd been around during their commercial peak.

OK! Enough ABBA talk from me!

[ChrisRawk]

Speaking of Abba I have to say that I've been hooked hard lately on 'Knowing Me, Knowing You'.  The composition and vocals are just so lush and perfect.  Plus the lyrics are so sad and depressing which I like.  That's weird that that's a check in the plus corner for me, isn't it? 

Where do you guys stand on the movie version of MAMMA MIA?  I haven't seen it.  Is it worth a damn?

[Tom Scharpling]

Alas, I too do not understand revisionist neo-Abbaism.  Everyone with any taste knew they sucked at the time.  What changed?

Who is 'everyone'? The dummies who wrote for Rolling Stone who put down ABBA (and Led Zep and Black Sabbath and more) in favor of the J. Geils Band and Jackson Browne?

The world bought ABBA records. They never stopped buying them. And with some distance from the meatheaded 'death to disco' shit that plagued the late 70s, people who were trained by guys like Scott Muni to hate anything with a beat and without a guitar solo were able to safely admit that they did indeed like ABBA.

They're perfectly crafted pop songs. They're loaded with emotion and drama - something about 'the English as a second language' situation the band faced forced them to write lyrics that are amazingly universal. They are as catchy as anything ever. They're immaculately produced and stunning in their pop range.

I love ABBA without one shred of irony or sarcasm!

Tom.

[dave from knoxville]

Very similar to my love for ELO, even though English was ostensibly Lynne's first language.

[buffcoat]

Very similar to my love for ELO, even though English was ostensibly Lynne's first language.

I thought he only spoke Prog.

[cavorting with nudists]

Well, my experience was a little different--I didn't grow up in the NY area, have never heard Scott Muni, and recognized that "Disco sucks" bit for the racist claptrap it was from the start. But no one will ever convince me that ABBA were disliked because they sounded too Negroid.

"Perfectly crafted"? I dunno--compared to what? "Be My Baby"? "Watching the Detectives"? What's an example of an imperfectly crafted song, as opposed to one that just doesn't work for you? I don't even find the songs that catchy--I owned a copy of Gold for a few years, trying ineffectually to hear what Elvis Costello heard in it, and apart from "Dancing Queen" I couldn't hum any of them for you.

But more than anything, what I dislike is the perfectly vacuous singing, which belongs to the sugary-earnest tradition of Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals, advertising jingles, and Karen Carpenter up through Celine Dion and Susan Whatsername, you know, that dowdy English lady from the TV show. If you can listen to the vocal on "Chiquitita" without throwing up in your mouth, you're a stronger man than me. Yeah, the songs are loaded with emotion alright--all of it completely unconvincing.

Still, love for anything without one shred of irony or sarcasm is a good thing.

[dave from knoxville]

Very similar to my love for ELO, even though English was ostensibly Lynne's first language.

I thought he only spoke Prog.

You consider ELO prog?