I *l* t I vd t ,!# Åräf i. l{n tht\d DELUDED Äbba: Gimme Gimme Gimme, just the singles please. ABBA (S.O.S., Knowing Me KnowingYou); shiny, symphonic Thank You for The Music Eurodrsco like Summer Night City, Take A Chance On Me i jlil'. j" .|' and Gimmel Grmme! Gimme! (ÄManÄfter Midnight); Äfter out-selling Volvo at one point in the I970s, it's hard to plus, in a class of its own, The Name Of The Game, which believe Äbba are now reduced to cashing rn on Steve stunned Elvis Costello and the writers of the New Wave Coogan's BBC2 series Knowing Me, KnowingYou With with its intricate vocal sighs and sheer adult bravura. Älan Partridge. Bjorn Ulvaeus's foreword in the booklet But for every nugget that Äbba's comphcated boudoir confirms that, actually, this four-CD box set was pipelined arrangements inspired, they begat eight songs like the some time ago, not by Abba Central but by Poiydor, who, turgid I Wonder (Departure); for every Mamma Mia, a having purchased the back catalogue, decided that now is pointless Happy Hawaii; for every snowy masterpiece like a good time to have Äbba documented fully and finally. Knowrng Me, aJeff Wayne-like Eagle. This fast becomes a Many good people deluded themselves that that skipping exercise, and when Does Your Mother Know particular purpose had been sewed by Äbba Gold: sounds stupendous you know you're being sold dross. Greatest Hiti in 1992, but that is to underestimate the The last CD is a case in point. Startlng with the Mexican expanse of this project. Here, simply, is too much Äbba. fiasco Put On Your Vtrhite Sombrero, it proceeds via a Far too much. Thank You For The Music has 66 tracks if laughable medley of Pick Ä Bale Of Cotton/On Top Of Old you'll recall, they had between eight and nine brilliant Smokey and a version of Ring Ring rn three different songs with the fourth disc entirely given over to rare and European languages, to something called Abba Undeleted, unreleased material, which is an education in itself. which turns out to be a 24-minute collage, edited like a Fausl The masterpieces are all here. But so are aibum tracks album, of Äbba speaking Swedish and demo-ing rubbish nobody liked and B-sides nobody iistened to. Between country songs, a fair few of them sung by Ulveaus. 1973 and '8 I , Ulvaeus and Benny Ändersson travelled Äs Thank You For The Music expensively proves, Äbba through four maqical songrurrriting-and-production stages are a single-CD greatest hits band par excellence, and - early Spectorite gold-dust with infinite pianos only the kitsch-drunkwould claim otherwise.* * (Waterloo, Ring Ring); truly classic break-up ballads.