1980 marked several major changes in the world. Obviously, it
\nbrought in a new decade, but the old decade took the disco movement
\nwith it, kicking and screaming. (The turning point, some say, had
\nbeen an anti-disco rally at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, where a
\nplanned demolition of disco records turned into a near riot.)<\/p>\n
The changes in the social climate affected groups like Abba, who
\nhad started to seriously slide into a disco mindframe. 1980’s
\nSuper Trouper<\/i> marked a return to the pop sensibilities which
\nhad brought the group their early fame, and it produced for them a
\nmore enjoyable album for the listener. (I’m skipping
\nVoulez-Vous<\/i> at this time – only because I thought we had
\nalready reviewed it. My bad.)<\/p>\n
If people were scared that a musical shift would cause the group
\nto lose their ability to write catchy hits, they had nothing to
\nworry about.
\nSuper Trouper<\/i> kicks off with three of Abba’s hits – two of
\nthem being strong songs themselves. The title track and “The Winner
\nTakes It All” mark a return to form for Abba, and are possibly some
\nof the best songs they came up with in their career. (I wish I
\ncould say the same about “On And On And On,” a song which I’ve just
\nnever been able to appreciate.)<\/p>\n
What is noteworthy about
\nSuper Trouper<\/i> is that the strongest moments on the album,
\nsurprisingly, aren’t found in the hit singles. Tracks like “Me And
\nI,” “Our Last Summer” (an interesting track seeing that the members
\nof Abba were less than two years away from breaking up), “Lay All
\nYour Love On Me” and “The Way Old Friends Do” (which was recorded
\nlive in London) all are evidence that Abba was on a creative high,
\nspinning some of their best work yet.<\/p>\n
The only minor hurdle is still somewhat interesting – “Happy New
\nYear,” a poignant look at leaving the ’70s and wondering what the
\nnext 10 years would bring them. Again, the band’s imminent breakup
\nis haunting as you hear some of the lyrics: “Who can say \/ What
\nwe’ll find \/ What lies waiting \/ Down the line \/ In the end of \/
\nEighty-nine.”<\/p>\n
So what was eventually responsible for the creative rebirth of
\nAbba on
\nSuper Trouper<\/i>? Maybe we’ll never know for sure, but whatever
\nwas happening to the band, internally or externally, they were able
\nto take it and put the best creative spin on it. The result was
\npossibly their best album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5870],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-36993","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-abba","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36993"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36993"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}