The Visitors - star ratings

It's five full-fat stars from me.

I've gone 4 stars, it is a fine album sonically different from their earlier work. Due to my liking of 60s music I am one of the few around that likes listening to the Ring Ring album so as a generalisation it is less to my taste. But even with that bias I recognise the quality of it.

The great part about the Visitors is that they experimented and came up with some quite different sounds. Like an Angel is brilliant and one commentator in the past has said that they wished that ABBA had offered more 'stripped down' songs. Slipping Through My Fingers is a beautiful tune and perhaps the band's most wistful, reflecting their ageing (love the music box playing it in the Mamma Mia movie). One of Us has received some acclaim for its bass work.

I think ABBA missed a golden opportunity with WAISAD for a hit breakup song. The boys overengineered this track in some ways drowing out a superb melody. It could have been as big a hit as TWTIA if the recording was stripped down as I think the tune is superior and catchier. Listen to the version performed by Kylie Minogue and Benny, it is brilliant. I am rarely critical of B&B's work but in this case they got it wrong (as they did with the engineering in Voyage).

So for me the Visitors doesn't quite hit the peaks in performance as found in Arrival but there is better consistency and flow compared to some of the other studio albums and some quite different offerings. Like Ring Ring they were experimenting and taking risks but with better recording equipment and a wealth of experience under their belt.

I too like WAISAD but just think a different approach may have been better, but that is just my opinion. Much prefer the tune to TWTIA.

I've never been a huge fan of TWTIA, it comes across as a bit of a musical number, though recognise it as one of their best recordings. Benny has said the lyrics are more powerful than the music which he indicated is fairly simple by his standards. I agree with you on the drumming and stripping down.

I think the big appeal of TWITIA that sold it was the clip where people could directly relate to Agnetha's pain. Yes, if WAISAD was released earlier it would have done better. But I can visualise a slower version with a clip focussing on Frida's emotion, Benny at the pianno, that would have tugged at people's heart strings like TWTIA did.

WAISAD is a beautiful song. I think Kylie was sincere when she said at the end of this some dreams come true, it was clearly a privelage to perform it with Benny:

I don't think that's true, johnny - for TWTIA, there are earlier lyrics called The Story Of My Life and, before that, there were dummy lyrics in French to mark out the vocal melody. I think some of the more maudlin aspects of the final lyric (which Bjorn says came all at once) can be blamed on the bottle of whiskey consumed by Bjorn when he was writing. I'm not the song's biggest fan either, but I'd struggle to deny that there's a lovely melody there. Same with TDBYC, which is probably my favourite track on Benny's piano album. I think it's a gorgeous melody. What both of these songs seem not to have is a chorus. 

Tony, my measure of a pop song is how well it sounds played on the piano and I agrre the basic melody of the TWTIA while simple is nice. The same can be said for WAISAD but I prefer its melody. Both relatively simple songs compared to some the band's other works.


Out of curiosity as a melody played on the piano which would you prefer?

Re: The Winner Takes it All.

I did hear Bjorn say the song's lyrics were quickly written
Perhaps he should have said 'parts' or possibly it was the way the interview was edited.

Both TWTIA and TDBYC sound lyric dominated. That doesn't mean they necessarily came first.