My Current ABBA Top 40

I didn't agonise over the process - no one's going to be holding us to these. I did it quickly, in order to try and throw up natural, felt, 'true' choices rather than balanced, considered, 'curated' choices. I can't shake the feeling that there's a glaring omission, but I haven't yet worked out what it might be.

I've never been that keen on Fernando. Probably Take A Chance On Me ought to be in there; Soldiers and The King Has Lost His Crown shouldn't be ahead of it. (I played The King Has Lost His Crown after doing this and it's not as impressive as I remember it. It's not bad; the contrast between the schadenfreude of the lyrics and their laid-back delivery in the verses is nicely done, but the build into the choruses is strident, and the choruses themselves don't live up to the verses.) Doing this has brought home again how quickly after The Album it becomes slim pickings, in terms of personal favourites.

I've had an entirely unscientific go at a Top 40. The closer to the top, the more reliable the ranking. As I went through the list, songs got placed on the basis of what I fancy listening to right now. So it could - and will! - change quite soon. I can't remember my previous "chart" but, apart from the Top 5, I think there has been a fair bit of fluctuation. Apologies for the accidental slaughter of any sacred cows. 


1. The Visitors

2. The Day Before You Came

3. Like An Angel Passing Through My Room

4. If It Wasn’t For The Nights

5. When All Is Said And Done

6. Lay All Your Love On Me

7. Knowing Me, Knowing You

8. I Still Have Faith In You

9. The Name Of The Game

10. Angeleyes

11. Don’t Shut Me Down

12. Ode To Freedom

13. No Doubt About It

14. Summer Night City

15. One Man, One Woman

16. Elaine

17. Should I Laugh Or Cry?

18. I’m A Marionette

19. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

20. Me And I

21. Hey, Hey, Helen

22. Take A Chance On Me

23. The King Has Lost His Crown

24. I Can Be That Woman

25. Gonna Sing You My Lovesong

26. Lovers

27. Lovelight

28. The Winner Takes It All

29. I’ve Been Waiting For You

30. Head Over Heels

31. Dancing Queen

32. Voulez-Vous

33. One Of Us

34. Our Last Summer

35. My Love, My Life

36. Super Trouper

37. When I Kissed The Teacher

38. Dance

39. SOS

40. Ring Ring

It looks like The Visitors is my unshakeable favourite album. I'm still playing Voyage but I notice that my favourites are shifting around. Both WYDWM and JAN have dipped quite a bit in my affections. I surprised myself with the DSMD placing - I thought it might be higher. Maybe I've overplayed it. I'm not sure where Voyage will end up in my affections, ultimately. 

I really do like TWTIA but I think, like Dancing Queen, it suffers from being overplayed a bit. SOS is a song I've always admired without really loving, if that makes any sense. I think it could even be that both songs lay the plaintiveness on just a smidgen too much for my tastes? I don't know. They are where they are. Head Over Heels is an interesting one for me: it used to be much further down in my ranking, but I have rediscovered it.

Looking at my list again, I think there's a bunch that could exit this chart soon enough. Like any chart, I guess.

30. Chiquitita
29. Waterloo
28. My Love, My Life
27. Fernando
26. I Let the Music Speak
25. Money Money Money
24. One of Us
23. No Doubt About It
22. Soldiers
21. As Good as New
20. Ring Ring
19. Kisses of Fire
18. Ode to Freedom
17. Like An Angel Passing Through My Room
16. I’m a Marionette
15. One Man, One Woman
14 The Visitors
13. When All is Said and Done
12. My Mama Said
11. Mamma Mia
10. I Still Have Faith in You
9. Take a Chance on Me
8. Summer Night City
7. Lay All Your Love On Me
6. Eagle
5. Don’t Shut Me Down
4. The Name of the Game
3 Dancing Queen
2. Knowing me Knowing You
1.SOS



The Top 3 set in stone, perhaps top 10. The singles from SOS to Summer Night City are all brilliant. Quite a few tracks from ABBA’s most mature albums, The Album and The Visitors and a few from Voyage - although none from The Visitors make my Top 10. Uptempo “disco” songs SNC and LAYLOM deserved more success at the time. If there’s a curve ball, it probably is My Mama Said - fantastic baseline and jazzy funk feel.

No room in my list for The Winner Takes it All, The Day Before You Came, Super Trouper or Gimme Gimme Gimme. Sorry - not sorry.

Yes my Top 10 "set in stone" since, er, last September with those two Voyage songs 🤣

SNC excluded from a studio album, left off Gold, ignored for both Mamma Mia! films finally getting recognition it deserves by being in the show.

I Wonder is a great melody with a 'proper' orchestral arrangement; and Frida sings it so well.

I think Agnetha was less than keen on SNC too - I seem to remember her describing it as "a bit repetitive." But it's an absolute peach. AND it has ABBA's best ever video. It'd be nice to think that it could get a new lease of life as a single. Yes, yes, I know it's already out there in all its original energetic glory, but I'd argue that both Voyage and the back catalogue could do with this kind of promo. For my money, the restructured WAISAD is the better single choice because it offers something fairly new, but SNC could be rehabilitated this way too. It wouldn't be a remix of the original track (and thus B&B feeling like they were admitting some kind of failure). It would be a new band performance, a box-fresh mix with modern technology to help tackle the gremlins that allegedly blighted the original.

My favourite slow version of WAISAD is by Benny with Viktoria Tolstoy. It was a bonus track on a tribute album. Sublime. I'd love if Benny could have taken this arrangement to Frida in recent times. That tender piano arrangement with Frida's age-weathered voice delivering those lyrics.... it would be a thing of incredible beauty 

I wonder if a forum such as this has much of a future. Bjorn and Benny have said that Voyage is it. Going by their past remarks, it's tempting to think that they don't really mean it and that we'll get something more. But their ages - and ours; and younger fans' continued interest - is against it, I think.

By the way guys, are your current placings of songs still current, even after a few days? And do those placings mean you simply prefer them or think them musically/lyrically/arrangement-wise superior to those not on your list? I ask because, for example, I think I prefer listening to Dum Dum Diddle to Money Money Money,even  though, all round, I regard MMM as a better song on Arrival. It's amazing really how diverse our preferences can be even when it comes to ABBA; for example, my favouite ABBA track, The Visitors, doesn't even make Gary's list!

None taken, Gary 

I think the demise of the forum (I mean the general media entity, not this one specifically) might have slowed a bit. Social media has destroyed many, but now things seem to be shifting again. Facebook has fallen out of favour with many. Instagram has turned itself into an absolute mess and TikTok seems to be so youth-oriented that codgers like me have neither a clue nor an apparent welcome. Twitter occupies some strange space where a battle between good and evil rages alongside cat videos, Russian bots, radicalised soccer moms and K-pop hysteria. Try discussing your personal Top 40 in 128 characters or less. So as long as there remains some impetus to actually get into a chat, these forums might still have a weak pulse. Of course, given my track record with predictions, we could easily be in our local coffee shops this time next week, lecturing innocent bystanders about the merits of Happy Hawaii and why I Am Just A Girl is the most probable cause of conflict in the Middle East.

The Voyage album ignited a decent amount of discussion here but not as big an uptick in new membership as I expected. I think the shows may well grow a new fanbase - certainly a better-focused one than the Mamma Mia franchise created. It might bring a trickle of visitors over time but I wonder if they'd have the patience for some of the nitpicking and "well actually..." that arises from long-term fandom. And I mean that in a positive sense: we sometimes get stuck into the details of a discussion that no civilian or spouse would be expected to tolerate. It's a support group for anoraks like me. 
 

Yeah, I think the quiet periods will be increasingly regular features. The 30th anniversary of Gold may generate a tiny bit of chat. The overdue releases for The Visitors might generate a bit more. After that, I think it'll be stuff like Voyage setlist changes. The lead-up to the 50th anniversary of Eurovision might be interesting. I can't imagine that there won't be some commemorative re-issues and a compilation.

Prior to summer 2021, we did pretty well to find stuff to discuss about a retired group and a decades-old back catalogue.

I'm quite certain that 2024 will be a busy year for ABBA fans. The 40th anniversary of Waterloo back in 2014 was very interesting - Waterloo Deluxe, The Official Photo Book, Live at Wembley Arena, the vinyl singles box, Chess Deluxe... have I forgotten anything? So I can't imagine they would not make the most of the 50th anniversary. But after that? Who knows. Unless Benny and Björn finally relent and give their blessing to releasing something from the vaults now and then, it will be over. I'm sure they will find a way to re-release the whole back catalogue again but how many times yet it can be done?

Apart from Voyage, has there been much to say about ABBA that hasn't been said before on previous forums from years ago? Of course, that's not a reason to stop discussing the group - any more than avoiding talking about the weather with a friend, or refusing to prepare a meal that includes potatoes yet again! But maybe a few who might otherwise post are reluctant to do so for fear of repeating others' views that they may remember reading elsewhere before. It's a difficult one if, like me, you're not into discussing the wrinkles and niceties of yet another release of old tracks, for example. But I really like reading about others' responses to ABBA's songs, positive or not.