The Definitive Collection

This collection digs deeper than previous hits collections to take you across 37 key cuts by these Euro-Pop kings/queens. That's the 2-CD version; the DVD has every video they shot plus a previously unseen Dancing Queen performance at the Royal Swedish Opera. Hits on both releases: Dancing Queen; Take a Chance on Me; Waterloo; The Winner Takes It All; The Name of the Game; Fernando; SOS; I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do; Knowing Me, Knowing You; Does Your Mother Know; When All Is Said and Done; Mamma Mia; Chiquitita , and more!

Is there anything that simply screams the 1970s' most indelible pop cultural clichés--the sunny romanticism, perfect vocal hooks, feathered hair, stacked heels, and flared sateen britches--more than the Swedish pop phenomenon Abba? And while many a pundit snootily dismissed them during their prime as some sort of prefabricated aberration, their worldwide popularity peaked somewhere just south of Beatlesmania. Indeed, Abba's music was as finely tooled and crafted as anything to come from a Volvo or IKEA factory--if occasionally more economically potent. This double-disc, 37-track anthology comes neatly on the heels of Mama Mia!, the smash, if unlikely, Broadway show based on the band's hits, and documents every single released by the band's Polar label in their home country as well as key tracks released internationally.

This is the canon from whence the term "Europop" sprang. With a continental sense of vocal neoclassicism, informed by just the right ethnic clichés (and oft wed to the era's insistent 4/4 disco beat) to make songs like "Mama Mia," "Fernando," "Chiquitita," and "Voulez-Vous" work on a global scale, the writing team of Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson and their respective partners in music and life, Agnetha Faltskog and Frida Lyngstad, developed the seamless, wall-of-sound productions contained herein. The Definitive Collection features a rare single remix of "Ring, Ring" and a 1979 promo-only extended mix of "Voulez-Vous" as bonus tracks, as well as a concise, illustrated history of the band and each track. --Jerry McCulley