The band’s sixth album, released in 1979, coincided with seismic shifts in both their personal and professional lives. Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus were setting the wheels of divorce in motion, though any Rumours-style songs addressing marital collapse wouldn’t come until the following year’s Super Trouper.
More significantly, Abba found their dominance under threat from disco, and they rallied by giving the glitter ball a few spins of their own – a move compounded by the intitially non-album singles Gimme Gimme Gimme and Summer Night City among this reissue’s bonus tracks. The title song was recorded at the same Miami studio favoured by The Bee Gees, but the dance-oriented numbers feel awkward and unnatural.
Elsewhere, it’s back to cosy singalongs such as I Have A Dream and Chiquitita, the group’s crowd-pleasing Eurovision template seemingly never far from their minds, though the jailbait pop-rock of Does Your Mother Know, with lead vocal by Björn, still raises eyebrows today.
