The Albums

My daughter and granddaughter are huge ABBA fans and since they missed the group during their reign, I bought this set for them. It contains all of ABBAs albums and has a number of song (great songs) that are never included on their greatest hits albums.

Abba's The Albums collects all eight of the group's studio albums, as well as an additional disc of non-album singles and stray random tracks. It's fantastic. The set comes in a modestly-sized box, so it isn't super bulky like many box sets are. Inside, there's a booklet that lists all the recording and touring dates, along with plenty of pictures and other song information, to present a very basic history of the group. Each disc is in a slim cardboard recreation of what the original record looked like. It's nothing too fancy, just a simple way to present the music. (As of this writing, Amazon includes all the mp3s as part of their auto-rip feature, which I love, because you get all the songs instantly and you don't have to rip them from the discs. Also as of this writing, it costs less to buy the CDs and get the auto-rip mp3s than it does to buy only the mp3s, which is great for me, because I like to have both.)As to the music itself, it's a joy. Abba was of course one of the most commercially successful bands of all time, and they remain well-known and well-liked for their numerous hit singles. But they have a lot of depth and variety in their album tracks, too. From post-60s folk rock to disco to 80s new wave, they explore numerous styles, always with their distinctive production and meticulous attention to detail. The lyrics, too, are often much more interesting and thoughtful than people tend to give Abba credit for.Some people are only going to be interested in Abba's hits, and that's fine - there are plenty of options for them out there. If you want to go deeper, though, I think it's well worth going all the way and getting this entire set. They had an outstanding career, and this is definitely the best way to get it all.

Great

I have long been a casual fan of ABBA's music, having owned their "Gold" compilation of hits for many years. I'm very glad to have taken a much deeper dive with this comprehensive collection of all of their studio albums (except for the brand new one that came out earlier this year), which also includes a full disc of really good bonus tracks including hits like Fernando and Gimme Gimme Gimme, which interestingly do not appear on any of their regular studio albums.If you are already familiar with, and really like their "hits", then I highly recommend picking up this very reasonably priced complete collection, as I'm confident that you will find many more songs to croon and/or bounce to, along with this pop superstar quartet. The quality of the average song on the average album is very high in my opinion, and thus I think it would be easier to make a tiny EP of their misses, so that the rest of their songs could receive their due as "hits".

This was for my wife who is going to see Mamma Mia on 6/16/24. She is a happy lady.

What more can be said? 50 years on and still fantastic. Timeless Masterpieces Album after Album, Hit after Hit. As relevant today as originally released!

I have to differ with some of the negative reviews here. This was a great package and well priced for all of the studio releases by ABBA, as well as a collection of singles and other material that were not included on the albums. I believe the sound quality is excellent, the album sleeves for the individual albums sure seemed nice to me. As another reviewer noted, I like having the albums as made, without the addition of "bonus" cuts, since in my experience these cuts detract from the listening experience which was carefully thought out by the artists at the time of creation. My one quibble, and what keeps this from being five stars for me, is the booklet, which really contains surprisingly litte information, when you get right down to it. The essays for both of the greatest hits packages are much more informative. I know there is a ton of information on the band on the internet, etc., but it seems like the booklet could have had some more incisive commentary than it actually has. The pictures in the booklet are nice, but the info is a little weak. All in all, though, if you are a follower of the band, have the greatest hits but want to find out what the buzz was REALLY all about, I strongly suggest this nicely priced box set.

This collection of CD's has the look and feel of the original LP released, with the same great sound of CD quality. The CD's have the look of an LP, and the tracks are listed as such, nostalgic as this may be, the collection is full of great songs that this awesome group performed.