What Are You Listening To?

[CRAZY-HORSE]

ABBA (bjorn, benny, agnetha & frida)  -  "waterloo"  vinyl  1974

from the studio albums vinyl box set...
their second...
interesting to note the album is by ABBA but their names are bracketed after the band name??
still several tracks sung by the guys which really are below par IMO...
two tracks i love, three i dislike and the remainder i like so again, a passable album from the band but the best still seems a long way off at this stage and a score of roughly 1.8 seems appropriate here
I LIKE THIS ALBUM

perennial favourite:

[CRAZY-HORSE]

ABBA  "abba"  vinyl,  1975

from the stuidio albums box set...
i do have the vinyl on original vinyl too...
their third album but first to contain every element of what makes ABBA a great band IMO...
seven singles on here which was almost unheard of back in the day...
a very good collection of songs including the two sung by the guys and the Rick Wakeman inspired instrumental...
album would come in at 2.4 which means...
I LOVE THIS ALBUM

[CRAZY-HORSE]

ABBA  "arrival" vinyl, 1976

from the studio albums vinyl box set...
their fourth studio album...
only one track sung by the guys on this one and yet again, one instrumental...
three huge hits off this album, "money money money", "knowing me knowing you" and "dancing queen"...
my favourite track was not even released as a single...
a decent album but not as good as the previous one and would rank slightly lower at a still respectable 2.3...
I LIKE THIS ALBUM

fave:

[CRAZY-HORSE]

ABBA   "the album" vinyl, 1977

from the studio albums vinyl box set...
their fifth studio album...
another very good collection of songs here...
a more mature sounding album than previous efforts but still iconic ABBA...
my favourite ever song of theres is also on this album...
of the nine tracks i love six and the remainder i really like which would score this album a high 2.7
I LOVE THIS ALBUM

all time favourite track of theirs:

[CRAZY-HORSE]

ABBA   "voulez-vous"  cd/vinyl 1979

their sixth studio album...
look, nothing wrong with the album, in fact theres a lot of great songs but there is a downside...
well only a slight downside, and that is that it sounds too disco in places...
still very good though and album rates a fairly decent 2.3 which means....
I LIKE THIS ALBUM

fave:

[CRAZY-HORSE]

DURAN DURAN  "greatest"  1998

not mine, borrowed from a good friend..
like most people who bought their records back in the day we all pretty much gave up after the third album.
but there is so much more to this band than the synth-pop of their early days.
some decent mature sounding almost alt-rock sounds on here alongside their better known singles which still sound pretty good after all of these years...
almost half of the tracks come from after the so called classic years and they are pretty decent, decent enough for me to want to check out that part of their back catalogue which i missed all those years ago...
I LIKE THIS ALBUM

thought i would go for one of their lesser known singles this time round:

[CRAZY-HORSE]

ABBA  "super trouper" cd/vinyl  1980...

their seventh studio album of nine...
the first album of their i owned back in the day and because of that this one holds a lot of nostalgia and warmth for me...
even so, i can still look objectively at it and this one is my fave of theirs for its eclectic mix of rock, pop, disco, folk and ballads...
love seven of the ten tracks and liking the remaining three which equates to 2.7 if scored properly..
I LOVE THIS ALBUM

love this lyrically dark song with medieval overtones,
often thought to have been inspired by 'the pied piper of Hamelin' story but according to lyricist Bjorn it was actually inspired by Stephen King's "the stand" novel, either way, i love it:

[CRAZY-HORSE]

ABBA  "the visitors" cd/vinyl  1981

their eighth and final album until they went for a 40 year sabbatical (is that the correct word for it??)...
found it extremely mature and solemn for ABBA which is why i always loved this one...
however, on my last two listens including this one i found it extremely underwhelming at best...
for the most part these tracks are more suited to the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber than the ABBA we all know and love...
i can honestly say that there are more songs i do not like on this album than on their previous seven albums combined and to me, they made the split one album too late, that said there are two tracks i love on here ("when all is said and done" and "like an angel passing through my room"), album would rate 1.7 if scored properly.
I LIKE THIS ALBUM

favourite:

[CRAZY-HORSE]

ABBA  "voyage"  cd/vinyl  2021

their nineth studio album...
their first in forty years which came out of the blue with little build up to its release...
a solid album of ballads and a couple of uptempo tunes thrown in...
the tracks do not diminish or embarrass their legacy at all and stand alongside their back catalogue reasonably well...
loving four tracks on here with a couple of blah tunes in the mix but hey, after all these years i forgive them for a mistake or two...
a solid album overall with an excellent cover IMO...
album would rate a respectable 2.2 if i were to score it...
I LIKE THIS ALBUM

fave for me on this listen is the ode to a European garden visitor:

---

so after listening to all nine ABBA studio albums over the last two to three weeks this is how i would rank them in order of my least favourite (which by the way i still like) to what i consider to be their best album:

9:   The Visitors.........(1981)   1.7

8:   Ring Ring.............(1973)   1.7

7:   Waterloo..............(1974)   1.8

6:   Voyage................(2021)....2.2

5:   Arrival.................(1976)....2.3

4:   Voulez Vous.........(1979)...2.4

3:   ABBA..................(1975)...2.4

2:   Super Trouper......(1980)...2.7

1:   ABBA: the album..(1977)...2.7

[CRAZY-HORSE]

BRITNEY SPEARS  "circus"  2008

borrowed from a friend...
Britney's sixth studio album...
had never listened to an album of hers so i was not sure what to expect...
i did however love the lead off single back in the day (womanizer)...
album was actually listenable, in fact i quite enjoyed it for what it is, straight up pop music...
album was slightly longer than i would have liked with a couple of tracks i did not like, the rest was decent though...
I LIKE THIS ALBUM

fave: