Let’s start with ABBA. First off, great band. And I end up listening to them far more than I might usually (though I’m not exactly sad about it) because their name establishes them at the top of my iTunes library. If I click “Play” without thinking I’m greeted by the first track of “The Best Of (The Millennium Collection)”, Waterloo. While this isn’t what I would consider their most “electronic” track, I think their discography as a whole is really interesting in its varied integration of electronic sounds. The title song of the disk “Super Trouper,” for instance, sounds significantly more synthesized than the song that precedes it in my library (another recording of Waterloo). Or see “Me and I” (from Super Trouper) for the best example of their later, more artificial sound.

Before (Waterloo) - you can even see the orchestra in the seconds before the song begins:



After (Me and I):




I suppose what’s really interesting about this phenomenon is not so much that ABBA experimented with different sounds (after all, what wildly-successful band doesn’t?), but instead that we can almost trace the development of electronic sounds in their music. Waterloo, the first track of the A-Side of the “Waterloo” (1974), was recorded over 6 years prior to “Super Trouper” (1980). This is a band that evolved with the changing music scene, and embraced the new technologies (with great success, Super Trouper made it significantly further up the billboard than did Waterloo).

In any event, the movie “Mama Mia” is a must see (as was the musical, but I have no idea if that’s still around). I don’t know that it’s really a cinematic masterpiece, but it’s good fun…

- james