ABBA
"The Visitors" (Vinyl)

In honor of the concert I will play this weekend paying tribute to the music of ABBA, I pulled the one ABBA record I have off the shelf. I have always thought there to be a marked difference between ABBA and their contemporaries, but more on that in a moment...

This record marks a couple of important musical technological milestones. It was one of the first albums to recorded and mixed in an all-digital environment. It was also the very first album to have its release on CD (as well as Vinyl and cassette.) The year was 1982.

This was ABBA's last album, and its a departure from the disco pop that the group had become famous for, but truthfully I rather like it. There's a basic level of intelligence that ABBA possessed in constructing and writing their music that made it less insipid than many of their counterparts during the 1970's.