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With its higher-than-average share of catchy pop abstractions (minus the usual gloppy, ersatz-Sound of Music ballads), Super Trouper is Abba's most engaging music lesson since Arrival. The title tune – which boasts airy harmonies, a goose-stepping beat and images of angelic übermenschen pining in the spotlight for their long-distance lovers–evokes a tinselly fantasy of Europop Über Alles. "The Winner Takes It All," with its "O Solo Mio" declamatory style, amusingly compares puppy love to... Read More gambling and contains one priceless couplet: "The judges will decide/The likes of me abide." "On and On and On" is the quartet's punchiest Beach Boys imitation yet. Abba will have a go at anything, if it tickles them. "Me and I" explains schizophrenia to preschoolers. "The Piper" sweetly warns against fascist seducers. "The Way Old Friends Do" is a Europop echo of "Amazing Grace." Ultimately, though, Abba are as expendable as they are exportable. In treating pop music as a computer game, they're Sweden's answer to Space Invaders. (RS 342) STEPHEN HOLDEN |
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