Europop

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…

"Barbie Girl" is one of those inexplicable pop culture phenomena - a bouncy, slightly warped Euro-dance song that simultaneously sends up femininity and Barbie dolls. Mattel wasn't too amused, but the public was, making it a huge hit in Europe and America. Like many Europop acts, Aqua isn't capable of delivering another song as insanely catchy as "Barbie Girl," but there's plenty of infectious filler that keeps the album moving along at a nice pace.

The most commercially successful pop group of the 1970s, the origins of the Swedish superstars ABBA dated back to 1966, when keyboardist and vocalist Benny Andersson, a onetime member of the popular beat outfit the Hep Stars, first teamed with guitarist and vocalist Bjorn Ulvaeus, the leader of the folk-rock unit the Hootenanny Singers…

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")…