Abba .rapidshare

The titles of hits compilations always deal in superlatives: "Greatest," "Best," "Very Best" – but the compilers of this ABBA collection have a special problem justifying the release of yet another such album after the multi-platinum success of 1992's ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits and its 1993 follow-up, More ABBA Gold: More ABBA Hits. (Indeed, the band was never shy about repackaging, issuing a Greatest Hits LP in 1976 as only its third U.S. album, followed by Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 in 1979 and The Singles [The First Ten Years] in 1982.) They have settled on The Definitive Collection and done their best to live up to the name. The 37-track double CD contains "for the first time exclusively collected in one package, each and every single as conceived and released by ABBA and their record company Polar Music between 1972 and 1982," writes annotator Carl Magnus Palm.

ABBA's fifth album was a marked step forward for the group, having evolved out of Europop music into a world-class rock act over their previous two albums, they now proceeded to absorb and assimilate some of the influences around them, particularly the laid-back California sound of Fleetwood Mac (curiously, like ABBA, then a band with two couples at its center), as well as some of the attributes of progressive rock. That they did this without compromising their essential virtues as a pop ensemble makes this album seem even more extraordinary, though at the time nobody bothered to analyze it - The Album was simply an incredibly popular release, yielding two British number one singles in "The Name of the Game" and "Take a Chance on Me" (which made the Top Five in America, their second-best showing after "Dancing Queen")…

Widely considered the Swedish foursome's first classic album - and historically important as the first to use the now-famous mirror-B logo - 1976's Arrival contains three huge hit singles, the dramatic "Money Money Money," the downcast "Knowing Me, Knowing You," and quite possibly the band's finest four minutes, the absolutely perfect pop classic "Dancing Queen," a combination of Spector-ian grandeur, McCartney-esque melody, and the indescribable vocals of Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The rest of ABBA's fourth album is strikingly consistent and accomplished, from the sly, bouncy "When I Kissed the Teacher" to the atmospheric title track, making room in between for the three excellent singles and five other substantial pop tunes. Although three LPs and a greatest-hits compilation preceded it, Arrival is aptly titled, as this album announces the band's move beyond bubblegum.

ABBA's self-titled third album was the one that really broke the group on a worldwide basis. The Eurovision Song Contest winner "Waterloo" had been a major international hit and "Honey, Honey" a more modest one, but ABBA was still an exotic novelty to most of those outside Scandinavia until the release of ABBA in the spring of 1975. "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do," a schmaltzy tribute to the sound of '50s orchestra leader Billy Vaughn, seemed an unlikely first single, and indeed it barely scraped into the Top 40 in the U.K. But in Australia, it topped the charts, causing the Australian record company to pull its own second single, "Mamma Mia," off the album. This far more appealing pop/rock number followed its predecessor into the pole position Down Under and also topped the charts throughout Europe…

Waterloo, Dancing Queen or Voulez-vous. Famous, perhaps even played a bit too frequently. But what about Waterloo as a jazz ballad or Money, Money, Money in swing?