Super Trouper [Australia Bonus Tracks] [Remaster]

Performer: ABBA
Engineer: Michael B. Tretow
Producer: Benny Andersson; Björn Ulvaeus
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: ABBA: Bjorn Ulvaeus (vocals, acoustic guitar); Benny Anderson (vocals, keyboards, synthesizer); Agnetha Faltskog, Anni Frid Lyngstad (vocals). Additional personnel: Janne Schaffer, Lasse Wellander (guitar); Janne Kling (flute, saxophone); Lars O. Carlsson, Kajtek Wojciechowski (saxophone); Mike Watson, Rutger Gunnarson (bass); Per Lindvall, Ola Brunkert (drums); Ake Sundqvist (percussion). Principally recorded at Polar Music Studios, Stokholm, Sweden in 1980. Includes reissue liner notes by Carl Magnus Palm. Digitally remastered using 24-bit technology by Jon Astley. Personnel: Bj�rn Ulvaeus (vocals, acoustic guitar); Benny Andersson (vocals, keyboards, synthesizer); Agnetha Faltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad (vocals); Lasse Wellander (guitar, acoustic guitar); Janne Schaffer (guitar); Janne Kling (flute, saxophone); Lars Carlsson, Kajtek Wojciechowski (saxophone); Ola Brunkert, Per Lindvall (drums); Ake Sundqvist (percussion). Audio Remasterers: Jon Astley; Michael B. Tretow. Liner Note Author: Carl Magnus Palm. Recording information: Polar Music Studios, Stockholm, Sweden (11/1979-10/1980); Wembley Arena, London, England (11/1979-10/1980). Photographers: Anders Hanser; Lars-Erik Larsson. SUPER TROUPER is ABBA's seventh--and next to last--studio album, and one of their most artistically satisfying. The album's chart-topping singles include the propulsive title track, "Lay All Your Love On Me" and the bittersweet anthem "The Winner Takes It All," which many rank with "Dancing Queen" and "S.O.S." as one of the Swedish foursome's masterpieces. The rest of the album continues the more reflective, adult themes explored by its predecessors, VOULEZ-VOUZ and THE ALBUM. It's difficult to separate the downcast melancholy of songs like "Our Last Summer" and "The Way Old Friends Do"--recorded live at the same performance heard on ABBA LIVE in 1986--from the time period's gossip reports of the breakup of the band's two marriages. Even with such considerations aside, SUPER TROUPER is one of ABBA's finest releases. Commercially, Super Trouper, ABBA's seventh album, was another worldwide blockbuster. "The Winner Takes It All," its lead-off single, released several months in advance of the album in most territories, was a smash; for example, it was the group's 14th consecutive Top Five hit in the U.K. and their eighth number one there. The title track was also a British chart-topper (their last), as was the album, their sixth. "Lay All Your Love on Me" made the U.K. Top Ten, and "On and on and On" was released as a single in some countries, hitting the Top Ten in Australia. (Typically, American success was more modest, though the album went gold, and "The Winner Takes It All" was a number one adult contemporary and Top Ten pop hit.) Musically, Super Trouper found ABBA, always trend-conscious, taking account of the passing of disco and returning to the pop/rock sound typical of their early albums. Only "Lay All Your Love on Me" employed a dance approach. The title song had the kind of martial beat and pop sound more in keeping with the group that had broken through with "Mamma Mia" and "S.O.S.," and "On and on and On" paid homage to one of their chief influences, the Beach Boys, with an arrangement reminiscent of "Do It Again." Lyrically, there was a distinct sense of world weariness and melancholy, from the divorce lamentations of "The Winner Takes It All" to the dissatisfaction with touring expressed in "Super Trouper" and even the nostalgia for a simpler time in "Our Last Summer." For performers on top of the world, the members of ABBA were putting an unusual amount of what sounded like real unhappiness into their pop music. [The 2001 Australian reissue added "Elaine," a non-LP B-side, and "Put On Your White Sombrero," an outtake] ~ William Ruhlmann

Q (9/01, p.126) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Occasionally works wonders...as on the 'The Winner Takes All'..."

Not many pop groups end up on postage stamps, as Abba has in its native Sweden; but then again, few groups become their homeland's most identifiable export. The group's stratospheric success was built on a foundation of buoyant, exquisitely arranged and produced pop music. Although they called it a day in the early 1980s, Abba lives on in the form of popular tribute bands and albums, a Broadway musical, and consistent record sales of their voluminous catalog.

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