The Visitors

Although it's not my favorite album, The Visitors is great! Every song is so different, but they're all so lovely! The song, The Visitors is really strange, but it's meant to be, and it's so cool! My favorite bit is the really strong instrumental bit that comes in twice. I guess I like it for its life, but I don't know for sure.:)
Head Over Heels is really great! The music's so clever and some of the lines just make me smile (I would laugh, but I want to hear the music;)). The beginning is very unusual, but it's so interesting, and beautiful in an almost mysterious sort of way. My favorite part of the lyrics is the beginning of the second verse. It's so funny! "Her man is one I admire. He's so courageous, but he's constantly tired. Each time when he speaks his mind, she pats his head and says, 'That's all very fine.'" I tend to end up bursting into giggles at the end of that. And the line, "Pushing through unknown jungles every day" usually gets me laughing too, but not because the words are funny. It's more because, when I first heard it, I couldn't hear the words properly because of the accent, and I was wondering why anyone would want to push through "undoe-jundoes" every day!
When All Is Said And Done is one of my favorite songs. It's sad, but the music is just beautiful! The opening few bars always make me picture brown horses running through hills of wild green grass.:) If you listen to it, though, there is one line with a word in it that might bother some people, but it's meant in a good way, so I think it's fine.;)
I like Soldiers a lot. It's very... well, I just like the way it talks about soldiers. A lot of groups criticize soldiers for fighting wars they have to fight, but ABBA shows the strength and bravery that they have.
One Of Us is a lovely song, but it's very sad, and I've heard it a lot on a badly remastered CD, which kind of ruined it for me. I wish I could enjoy it as much as it's worth. I like it anyway, but I usually find myself waiting for the next song. I guess that may be partly because the next song is I Let The Music Speak, which I really love. It's really haunting. Haunting often bother me for some reason, but this one doesn't. It's just beautifully haunting.:) It's a bit like Agnetha's Då Finns Du Hos Mig (which had Benny on the piano, actually, so maybe that's part of the similarity:)). The harmonies are beautiful, and the tune is just... lovely. My favorite bit is the last bit, that gets slower and slower, and has such interesting words.
Two For The Price Of One is hilarious! It's very clever, and the chorus is just so funny! "If you dream of the girl for you, then call us and get two for the price of one. We're the answer if you feel blue, so call us and get two for the price of one." It probably doesn't make much sense without the context, but if you listen to it, you'll see.:) And I like the last bit, where the man's on the phone to one of the two girls in the advertizement, and she says, "I'm sure that we'll be perfect for each other. And if you doubt, it you'll be certain when you meet my mother." It's just a beautiful ending for him to find out the second girl is an old woman!
I like Slipping Through My Fingers, but it's another very sad song. The beautiful tune and voices and harmonies make up for it, though. It's just so well put together and written.
As for Like An Angel Passing Through My Room, it's very nice, and lovely music, but it's my least favorite on the album. It's quite long, and it's very slow and soft, with hardly any background music, so it's lovely for the first verse or two, but them I get a little tired of it. It's a lovely song, though.:)
I wish I could get the album on record! I have it on a well-remastered CD, but I know if it's that good in that format, then it'll be amazing on record! I found Super Trouper in a local record shop, but I just can't find the Visitors. I'm sure I'll find it eventually.:)

Remastering and Records

When I first got ABBA music, it was on a CD. I really loved it, and listened to it every day. Then I got another set of CDs, and I loved them even more, even though some of the songs were the same. That was how I found out about remastering. I think the first CD I had (ABBA Gold) had a bad remastering job. The set was ABBA - The Albums, and it was a lot better. On ABBA Gold, I realized part of the voices had been lost at extreme high and low notes! A while later, I bought the original, un-remastered '80s CD of ABBA Greatest Hits, and it was even better than the well-remastered set! So, of course, I'm now against remastering itself, especially in ABBA. I feel the music was written in the knowledge that it would be slightly fuzzy, and if you take away the fuzz, it loses part of its original, intended feel. Also, a little fuzz makes wearm and friendly music like theirs all the warmer and homier.:) Anyway, this discovery made me interested in what the music sounded on tapes and records. I had a tape deck, but no record player, so I bought some tapes on Ebay. Now, even through all the crackles of an old, used tape, that music was the best I'd heard it! So, I became a bit of a tape collector. Finally, for my last birthday, I got a hi-fi system with a turntable! I've probably got about 15 records now, although I've managed to get multiples of a few. when I first listened to a record in person, I was amazed! They sound different from anything else, but in such a good way! They're not too different from tapes, but I think I prefer them most of the time. They have a lovely, warm sound, that just lets the music... I don't know... live, I guess. My favorite record is probably ABBA Greatest Hits, although there's a few I haven't listened to yet, because my family says I can't play ABBA a lot while they're around, because it gets stuck in their heads and keeps them up. I don't know why it does, because I've always got songs in my head, and it only bothers me if it's the same song for days, of if I don't like the sang, and it never keeps me up (except maybe the one time I woke up in the middle of the night and suddenly heard Sitting in the Palm Tree, followed by King Kong Song (I think) and What About Livingstone? lol;)). Also, my turntable's needle needs a clean and I keep forgetting it.
I have a fairly big collection of ABBA music, and I think I have every album they ever released, although not all on one format. I also have 2 CDs, one tape, and three (or is it four?) records of Greatest Hits.:P I do  have an explanation for that. You see, I've lost a tape or two and a CD. After the CD broke I bought a new one, but then I discovered tapes. Now that I have a record player, I bought the record in a charity store. Then a friend sent me one, and when I found it again in another store, very cheap  and in great condition, I thought maybe I could sell it (it goes for a few pounds on Ebay). As for how the CD broke, it was very annoying. Greatest Hits was the worst CD I could lose, considering its crazy price. I was listening to it, and it suddenly seemed to die on the second-last track. I opened the CD player, and I realized there was a 'WARNING' sticker inside, that had scratched the disc all the way around. Poor CD.:P The incident I remember best with a tape is Greatest Hits Vol. 2. It was in pretty bad shape, so the fussy little hand-held tape player I got usually tried to chew it up. I just played it with my other player, until that one broke.:P Soon afterwards, I tried the tape in the little player, and it actually seemed okay with it, so I thought I'd take a chance and use it. It was fine... for about 8 seconds. Then, the music slowly turned into an awful moan, with me thinking, That didn't sound right... Oh, no! It's breaking it! and quickly trying to press stop as it drowned itself out. It didn't want to stop, though. It was too busy scrunching the tape violently back and forth, which absolutely horrified me because when you're wearing headphones, you really hear what's happening to the tape. Finally, I managed to turn it off. It didn't seem to want to open, though! I gave it a good pull and the top finally came up, pulling a huge lot of tape with it, leading from a little metal bar in the machine. I examined it, and realized it was completely wound round the bar! I ran off to my dad, and he told me to pull it out. HOW do I pull it out?!  I thought.  I gave it a gentle tug, and it seemed to work. Unfortunately, it ripped the tape in the end. I tried to pretend I didn't see it, but really, I know it's broken. I wanted to play it to make sure, but, even though that was over a year ago, I'm too scared.:P

The Swedish Songs:)

Have you heard any of ABBA's Swedish songs? I really love them, and I think, maybe, they're even better than most of the English ones. I don't know why they're so nice. Maybe it's because they were more relaxed singing in their own language, or maybe I just like the sound of Swedish. That's probably more likely, because I like Swedish so much, I'm trying to learn it, lol.:)
Agnetha's original Swedish songs are also very good, but they're in a very Swedish and folk-song-ish style, so it takes a while to get used to the different style, but once you are, they're beautiful! Since I know a little Swedish, they probably make more sense to me, too, but then I learnt most af that Swedish after listening to the songs.;) If you want a good starter for them, my favorite is probably 'Då Finns Du Hos Mig', but I think to appreciate it truly, you need to be used to the style of the music (for instance, my dad liked it on Youtube, but when I played him the LP, he said Agnetha sounded 'depressed' or 'moony':P), so I would suggest my two favorites from when I first found the songs, 'Utan Dej Mitt Liv Går Vidare', which is lovely, but fairly simple, although it's from her first album, and 'En Sång Om Sörg Och Glädje', which is just... beautiful. It's just so gentle and smooth!:)

This is the video I usually listen to. It's 'Utan Dej Mitt Liv Går Vidare', 'En Sång Om Sörg Och Glädje', and then another song whose name I can't spell.;) The last one is nice, but not one of the best, in my opinion. I think this is the first one of her videos I ever watched, and I really like it.:)

I think this is the 'Då Finns Du Hos Mig' video I usually watch. It's a beautiful song, as long as you can understand it. It does sound a little sad, but the lyrics are actually about 'when-all-these-amazing-things happen, "I know you are with me then" (the title).' It was when I explained that, my dad said she must be moony.:P I hope you can understand how I like the song.:)
My favorite of the Swedish ABBA songs is probably Hovas Vittne, which they wrote for their manager, Stig Anderson's 50th birthday. It's very lively, and quite... cute, I guess. It's got a lot in it about things he liked and stuff, apparently (I heard this from someone on Youtube, but not anywhere else), so it's one of those songs that makes you feel like you know the band more (a bit like 'I Am An A'), which is fun, and nice. It was never properly released, but only given to guest at his party. I also like  the Swedish version of 'Ring Ring', which was the first Swedish ABBA song I ever listened to (not counting Agnetha's Swedish SOS on Youtube when I was 9, because that was the first day I heard ABBA, and I didn't really understand). It's very nice, and the lyrics (translated) are different from the English ones, although I don't know what they are. I just know they're different.:)

This one's 'Hovas Vittne'. I'm sorry there's no pictures, but it's the one I've seen before, and I know some people can't watch videos that aren't checked for bad photos and stuff, so since I can't watch Youtube videos on my computer, I decided to use this one. (By the way, if Google won't translate the word 'ed' {I think that's the word - it comes before 'bagage i Rom och Gudrun i Amsterdam'} it's a typo.:) It's meant to be 'med', which is 'with'.) I've never watched the Swedish 'Ring Ring' on youtube, so I won't put a video on here.:)
I hope the videos worked, and if you like them, there's tons more you can find on Youtube, and, if you're lucky on record, too. You can find most of them on CD, but I don't like remastered music (especially ABBA), so I buy records, now that I have a turntable, and I bought tapes before that. Most of the songs are only on CD or record, though. I hope you enjoy these songs!:)