Oh I missed this rate. Interesting to see the results though. Some songs are much lower than I expected actually.

 

Summer Night City is fantastic and I'm convinced they don't sing "walking...". Always have been.

 

Angel Eyes is another favourite. Gorgeous melody!

 

My absolute favourite is still to come though. I'm here for a Lay All Your Love On Me surprise victory!

Isn't it just accepted they say fucking? I mean I've never heard it as anything else. They don't really share the same issues with swearing in Sweden as we do in the UK.

So many amazing tracks :wub: :

Money Money Money is amazing and I am shocked it is that low :o Same with Super Trouper

Our Last Summer, Chiqiquita and The Name Of The Game are very very good

I adore Honey Honey, especially Amanda's version :wub: and does your mother know is amazing

Thank you for the music is nice but one of my least favourite Abba tracks

SOS so low :cry: :cry: Definitely one of their best and an absolute gem, same with mamma mia :wub:

WATERLOO :wub: :wub: :wub: My absolutely favourite Abba song ever and such an amazing classic :wub:

6. The Day Before You Came (34 points, 8 voters)

 

 

I’m very happy to see this least-successful late-career Abba single so high. When it came out, the general reaction was “eh?”, as Abba’s low-key recordings reached the peak of low-key-ness on their final ever recording, and pretty much confirming to the band that diminishing returns meant it was time to call it a day. Lyrically, the influence of Chess was clearly there (as they worked on the project with Tim Rice) and it was largely thought to be “dull”, but I thought it was a beautiful love song, and a song of hope and optimism. The monotonous rhythm, and forlorn vocal from Agnetha, and lack of a big chorus, all suited the subject matter to me - which was to capture the mood of ticking-over in life, nothing happening much, just routine, and not realising that until meeting The One. Too subtle for radio’s liking, and only a greatest hits goodbye package to promote, it sort of came and went very quickly in the charts. To rub it in further, synth-band Blancmange covered it 2 years later and got a higher chart position than Abba - which sort of says people liked the song when they got a chance to hear it. There are alternative versions (presumably still in the vaults) with Agnetha giving it more vocal oomph, which would be interesting to hear, but I regret they gave up at this point, I think they had at least one more album in them, though it would have been very much in this vein judging by the 6 tracks recorded by early 1982. Pity!

I was quite a fan of Blancmange in the early- to mid-eighties. I loved the quirkiness of Living On The Ceiling and the wonderful atmospheric Waves. Therefore, I was rather intrigued when they did a cover of an Abba song. Once I heard it, I thought it was a work of brilliance and it remains one of my favourite cover versions :wub:

 

I hope you don't mind if I use your thread to post a reminder. Perhaps there are even members who don't know this version

 

I was quite a fan of Blancmange in the early- to mid-eighties. I loved the quirkiness of Living On The Ceiling and the wonderful atmospheric Waves. Therefore, I was rather intrigued when they did a cover of an Abba song. Once I heard it, I thought it was a work of brilliance and it remains one of my favourite cover versions :wub:

 

I hope you don't mind if I use your thread to post a reminder. Perhaps there are even members who don't know this version

 

Not at all, I loved Blancmange too, and I'm annoyed I missed them the other month at Southampton's The Brook. Doh! :o

Not at all, I loved Blancmange too, and I'm annoyed I missed them the other month at Southampton's The Brook. Doh! :o

Oh, I missed them too :(

:o Oh I forgot all about One Of Us! Beautiful song

 

Blancmange are great especially Don't Tell Me :wub:

Edited January 29, 201510 yr by fiesta

I've never really enjoyed the Blancmange cover, but then the original is one of my very favourite songs of all time so it probably can't really compete anyway.

5. Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) (38 points, 8 voters)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s the 1979 track that followed Abba’s disco period album Voulez-Vous at 5, keeping up with the dance groove with a centrepiece keyboard instrumental hook borrowed rather heavily by Madonna (Hung Up). Even bearing that in mind, I’m surprised to see this so high in the rating. It’s a terrific dance groove, but not the strongest Abba chorus for me - it’s great, but there are greater - and it wasn’t even on an album proper, more of a bonus Greatest Hits track shortly after. Like every Abba single after Mamma Mia, of course it made my number one, and even inspired a sitcom with the same title (sort of), and maybe the racy lyrics sung by Agnetha suited movie/musical Mamma Mia quite well, and that’s the reason it’s so popular. Answers on a virtual postcard!

4. Dancing Queen (45 points, 6 voters)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shock! One of the greatest pop singles of all-time (as voted for even by rock-loving Rolling Stone magazine!), a song guaranteed to get any massive crowd at any event singing along in unison (I’ve seen it time and again!), and only 6 voters on Buzz Jack! I guess, again, it’s due to over-exposure, which is a major shame, because it’s sheer genius, from that opening piano frill and straight into those glorious harmonies from Agnetha and Frida, that half-shuffle rhythm, them wondrous strings, and most of all the soaring melody which has spine-tingling “oh it’s great to be alive” vibes all over it. This was the moment when Abba conquered the world, even the mighty USA, chart-topping wherever it went, and with justification. By this time Abba had already had 3 number ones in my charts, and I was already a huge fan, but this sent me into ecstasy overdrive from the moment I heard it, I couldn’t stop expressing my love to anyone who stood still long enough next to me (well, almost!), 10 weeks on top of my chart, not to mention another 8 second-time around in 1992 when it hit all over again, and another one during the Mamma Mia musical mania, 19 weeks on top in all, and still a record. My most abiding memory is watching that fab disco video (and it’s not even a disco record by any stretch), and - dare I say it? yes I dare! - the moment when Agnetha and Frida point at the audience, “See That Girl”, I copied in my bedroom shuffling along and singing along at the top of my voice. The amazing thing is, it’s pretty climactic to start with no verse or intro, it’s pure chorus, the melody never lets up, and yes it gets even bigger for the grand finale. My abiding memory is of watching them on Top Of The Pops in the Lake District hotel TV lounge while on a fantastic 6th form geography field trip for a week, with Mr Ross and Mr Pickering our teachers. Loved it. Loved Abba. Phew, and relax....

This is all going very well so far on the whole, generally the better ones have been towards the top.

 

Lay All Your Love On Me is my favourite by a mile so I'm really hoping that wins.

3. Voulez-Vous (47 points, 9 voters)

 

 

 

 

 

Love that guitar at the start, love the moody side of disco uptempo’s pace, the horns, the girls on fire and in harmony, the space they give for the “ah-hah’s”, the tune and the lyrics that sum up what it means to go clubbing, the excitement, the freedom, losing yourself in the rhythms and emotion. I don’t even mind that it just beat out Dancing Queen by 2 points here, and by 3 voters, because it too is sheer genius. Disco can be class, here is the proof m’lud, I rest my case! What’s bizarre is that they (by which I mean Epic UK) put it out as a double-A with Angel Eyes, and that it was the 3rd track off the great album of the same name. It’s the jewel in the crown of crown shining with quite a few precious stones, and a couple of less precious gems. I’ve known lots of folk who adore Angel Eyes more, but I’m not one of them, this is a track I’ve never tired of, it still sounds fresh, and it still gets me going played loud. For the record, this is the only studio recording Abba made outside of Sweden, in Miami with disco group Foxy, in the same studios used by The Bee Gees during their classic disco hey-day, and for me both they and Abba had the class, the melody and the groove a-plenty. Brilliant record.

This is all going very well so far on the whole, generally the better ones have been towards the top.

 

Lay All Your Love On Me is my favourite by a mile so I'm really hoping that wins.

 

5 points separate the top 2, and number 2 is a clear 39 points over Voulez-Vous....

 

Oh the tenseness! :lol:

Either way, just realised that the top two are my favourite two so a rather great outcome. :D

 

2. Lay All Your Love On Me (86 points, 14 voters)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buzz Jacks favourite Abba dance track, and way ahead of the pack, bar one, this Super Trouper album track finally came out a bit belatedly in 1981 in 12-inch form only, which was a commercially bizarre move (as always) from Epic. Having had 2 number singles in 1980, and oodles of fantastic potential singles to release, (such as perennial Russian New Years fave Happy New Year, or the singalong The Way Old Friends Do, or the ballad Our Last Summer, or this one....) they released nothing for months then sabotaged the chances of Lay All Your Love On Me becoming a bigger hit by not releasing it on 7-inch. I didn’t buy it, what was the point, no bonus B sides, no extended mixes, and it was very expensive. OK it became the biggest-selling 12-inch ever for a while but it deserved better than UK number 7 peak. There wasn’t even a video to go with it! Grumbling aside, it too is genius dance, but in a subtler, more synthy insistent way, the melody less climactic and more of an emotional grab in the gut, a spine-tingling mellow sort of dance euphoria, the bpm’s way up, the melody spacious, and the chorus deliberately choral and distorted to give that cavernous feel. A recording ahead of it’s time, and I am still indignant it wasn’t given a fair crack of the chart-topping whip! Pah! Still, at least Erasure took it where it belonged, yay! 14 of you loved it dearly, and so do I, and as the votes came in it kept chopping and changing between two tracks as to who was gonna come out on top, this one, or......?

1. The Winner Takes It All (91 points, 18 voters)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The winner, indeed, takes it all, as this got more points and more voters than any other Abba song. Abba collectively reckon this to be their best song, and it is pretty perfect in every single way. When it came out, I was in the throws of leaving College, courses done, 3 happy years gone by, and most certainly wishing I could stay a student. Instead I was about to head into 4 gruelling years of unemployment, crappy jobs and depression misery, starting almost immediately with mum going into hospital as this topped the charts. So, for me, it also represented the theme of the song: loss (of a happy life).

 

After the disco days of Voulez-Vous no-one was expecting the lead track off the next album to be a blisteringly-heart-breaking song of lost-love. The lyrics were now indisputedly as good as any by English-speaking lyricists, the melody was sophisticated and supported the lyrics brilliantly throughout the song, the verse and chorus blend together as if they belong, with barely a join in evidence, and it ebbs and flows telling the story. By now, Abba’s unhappy divorces were known, and it added poignancy to the songs, in the much the same way as Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was a story of breaking-up. That Bjorn wrote the lyrics for his ex to sing was pathos-added, and Agnetha sang like she meant every word, both of them seeing it as a creative peak. Both deny there were any winners in their divorce, so it’s fiction in that sense, but I always saw it as a sort of ironic title anyway. A worthy winner? I think so. Even Meryl Streep’s emotional go at it in the film was half-decent, though I can’t see anyone having the connection to the song enough to ever rival Agnetha’s version. Watch the video, feel moved, and adore...

Dominic Cooper slays on his version of LAYLOM :heart:

2 of my favourite ABBA songs. Both really came to life in the musical and movie for me! Absolutely outstanding tracks

Dominic Cooper slays on his version of LAYLOM :heart:

:/

Amazing top 2, not really surprising, but fully deserved. The outro of LAYLOM is the stuff (synth) dreams are made of.