Abba Dancing

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?

ABBA - Swedish pop group, active from 1972 until 1982; though several companies worldwide continued to release their songs after they had disbanded in the December of '82. Sales figures for the group vary widely, with the official estimate at 375 million records worldwide, but this is not an audited figure and is disputed…

In the '70s and early '80s, ABBA was one of the groups that most rock critics loved to hate. How could ABBA's bubblegum Europop be so huge, critics wondered, at a time when challenging visionaries like Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello and Lou Reed were making records? But music doesn't always have to be challenging, daring or provocative - it can simply entertain as long as it's well done - and time has been much kinder to the Swedish outfit than those '70s critics. Long after ABBA's 1983 breakup, their recordings continue to sell - and in the '90s and 2000s, ABBA covers have come from some unlikely places (including metal, industrial rock, techno and darkwave). This intriguing 2004 release finds Swedish trombonist/producer Nils Landgren putting a funk/neo-soul/hip-hop spin on ABBA's songs, which works surprisingly well in an R&B-oriented environment…