One artist. Every album. Ten songs.
The Music of ABBA
Over the past little while I've found that my appreciation for music has breadth but not depth; rather, that I know a bit about a lot of music, but not a lot about any particular artist or genre. Wanting to fix that, I decided to focus my listening time on one artist or group at a time, working through their entire discography so that I could say with confidence how I felt about that artist or group. I wasn't quite sure where to start, but picking a band that started with "A" made sense - and I knew enough about Abba to know that I would like a good chunk of their music.
Thankfully, I wasn't disappointed.
Here were the rules that I set for myself. I'd listen to each studio album in chronological order, and narrow down 3 or less top songs from each album. I'd also try to listen to each album twice through, because sometimes you've gotta get a feel for a song before you can really get into it. Sometimes I could tell right away what my top three were, so I'd only listen once. Or sometimes (though not in the case of Abba) I'd despise an album so much I'd refuse to give it a second chance. After listening to each album, I'd pick my ten favourite songs by the artist and then move on. One artist. Every album. Ten songs. Let's take a chance on Abba!
Named by taking the first letters of the first names of each group member, Abba dominated the 1970s and became one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Their massive success led to the 1999 Broadway musical and 2008 feature film Mamma Mia - and even though the group's two married couples had divorced decades before, they released a ninth album in 2021 after 40 years off. Joyful, poppy, and full of 70s energy, it was the easiest thing in the world listening to their music back-to-back. Their later music does trade some of that vibrant head-bobbing fun for more pensive pieces, but all in all I had a great time and have revisited their hits several times since completing the voyage.
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