Finally last week my copy of the new book ABBA GOLD by Elisabeth Vincentelli arrived.

It's completely different to any ABBA book that we've had before. It's simply an analysis of the ABBA GOLD CD - the development of the CD, the growing renewal of interest in ABBA that was happening around 1992, the songs on the CD (grouped by the albums that they were originally released on), the selection of songs (including some comments on songs that probably shouldn't have been included, and songs that should have), the liner notes (mostly referring to the original Tobler version, for reasons that are explained), the revival that it coincided with and helped make into a global phenomenon (it's sad to say, but really without ABBA GOLD, there's a chance that many of us wouldn't be here today), how it changed the public perception of ABBA. But it's not all "it's a fabulous compilation" blah blah all positive blurg, which would be nauseating - if there's something negative to say (about the packaging, songs, selection, liner notes), it's said!

For those who despair about why a compilation was chosen as "a classic album" instead of one of the studio albums, even that is explained in the introduction.

Several well known names in ABBA circles contributed to the book: Carl Magnus Palm, Jean-Marie Potiez, Mia Segolsson (from Universal Music Sweden), John Tobler. Oh, and me! ;-) All quotes (from individuals or other sources) are footnoted, which makes a change in ABBA writing.

This may be the only ABBA book to use the phrase "cock-sucker" - courtesy of Mr Andy Bell of Erasure!

It's obvious from the book that the writer is an ABBA fan (she says as much in the introduction, but aside from that it's just so obvious from the text). She's also written the reviews for some of the ABBA studio albums on Amazon.com. There's some interesting conclusions drawn, which you may or may not agree with, but they do get you thinking.

As everyone knows, I *hate* ABBA GOLD as a compilation, but I think there's some interesting things in the book that can lead to a re-evaluation of the CD.

Yeah, it's true there's nothing much really "new" in here or anything to "get excited about" (as ABBAMAILer of the Year Paul C has commented), but that's not what the book is about. It's a book about the best known ABBA compilation and the best known songs that have already been dissected to death. And besides, how much "new" information can we really expect? It's not as if there was some secret parallel ABBA universe that one day will be magically revealed to us. Pretty much everything that we will ever know about ABBA is already out there. Unless one of their inner circle comes out and blabs about secret drug taking and wife swapping, but that's not likely to happen. </grumbling>

And yeah, it's true that there's some opinionated comment included (name one non-fiction book that doesn't and you win a prize!), but unlike Tobler's writings or Scott's The Stories Behind Every Song, it's justified within the book.

There's been a couple of negative comments on the official site forum and posted as customer reviews on Amazon (at least one of them from one of the official site complainers), but they seem to have missed the point (what a surprise among ABBA fans). It's not even an "ABBA book" really, it's just one of a series on classic albums. And as it turns out, the "classic" album from ABBA (if only because it's the most well known to the world today - and the biggest selling) is ABBA GOLD.

My recommendation: This is an interesting and different addition to the ABBA bibliography. I think you'll get something out of this book.

http://www.continuumbooks.com/book_details.cgi?bid=12373&aid=&ssid=143D3DK421E3AECCOI1073&name=

 Ian Cole Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Available in the UK and rest of world after May 2004

Perhaps more than any other Greatest Hits compilation, Abba Gold has come to define a band's career on one disk. More than that, its release in 1992 heralded the critical rehabilitation of a group which had, since its demise a decade earlier, become little more than a memory of trashy costumes and cheesy tunes to many people. Here, Elisabeth Vincentelli charts the circumstances surrounding the birth of Abba Gold, looks at the impact it had on the music world, and tells the stories behind some of the greatest pop songs ever recorded.

Excerpt
Pop is the opium of the masses, the sweetener that makes you swallow the status quo-and that comforting attitude is reflected in pop's reliance on tried-and-true song structure, including the obligation to build up to a memorable chorus. The chorus is what sells the song, it's the part that's supposed to become imprinted in your head as it caps a sweet, sweet momentum. Starting a song with the chorus is the equivalent of drawing your gun too early in a shoot-out, of revealing your hand too hastily in a poker game: Once you've given everything you have, where's the pay off? And yet "Dancing Queen" doesn't flag after its flamboyant beginning: The chorus acts as both teaser and pay off. Ironically for a band that was supposed to be a bunch of control freaks with a solution to every technical or musical conundrum, it later surfaced that "Dancing Queen" starts with the chorus because Abba just couldn't figure out how to make it work any other way.