Although this album is a compilation of classic singles, you cannot underplay the fact that this essential collection of music defines pop in its purest, innocent and most perfect form, long before 'pop', with its cynical manufactured process, became a dirty word. On one hand there are the songs with infectious and euphoric hooks that would have even the most seasoned and sinister cynic singing along to, alongside songs of such heartfelt depth,heartbreak and darkness that display Abba, not as a formulaic hit machine but as vulnerable human beings with, fears and the normal feelings you acquire through periods of guilt and regret that life throws at us. Just because they never made, (or perhaps never got round to) their 'Sergent Pepper' or their 'Revolver' album doesn't follow that they cannot be credibly mentioned in the same breath as their influences The Beatles or the Beach Boys. It's clearly evident in the quality and sheen of the production on tracks like 'Dancing Queen,', 'Knowing me, knowing you,' and 'Super Trouper' that they were as much pioneers in the studio as they were in their craft for piping out timeless pop music. The closest thing you might get to The Beatles in terms of experimenting with the pop format is 'The Visitors', or especially 'The Day Before You Came', surely their 'Let It Be' moment, laying bare the soul, in a bare arrangement, almost, but not quite, devoid of emotion. In a perfect world, there would only be one religion, the Church of Abba, it wouldn't take the form of any physical structures in which to house the worship as we'd carry it with us, but the best thing about it, would be the hymns.
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