The Visitors - ABBA

"The Visitors" was originally released in 1981 & featured 9 tracks by Abba 01) The Visitors From the moment this tracks starts you can tell it's completely different from anything on the previous album "Super Trouper" or indeed any other Abba album. It's not a happy song, dealing as it does with the situation facing political dissidents in the USSR & I don't think anyone would ever claim it to be a commercial song in any sense of the word. It's a song that you'll either love or hate. I'm firmly in the former camp as I think it's brilliant ~ one of my favourite tracks on the album. 02) Head Over Heels The ...  Read the complete review

I have been a fan of Abba since the 1970s. I remember taping the charts when Super Trouper was at number one. I had to hold a microphone in front of the radio and tell my parents to keep quiet. My Mum rarely managed it and many songs were ruined by her talking at the wrong time! Around 1980, I used to go round my friends’ houses and have them over mine for Abba and Blondie nights, where we’d play our LPs, singing and dancing along to them. I had the Blondie albums and my friend Joanne had the Abba ones. I didn’t start buying Abba albums until I was an adult and the remastered version of The Visitors is one I bought a few months ago. This album was ...  Read the complete review

'The Visitors' was ABBA's final studio album and upon your first listen it is apparent that they have 'grown-up', both musically and emotionally. The 'Super Touper' album had its moments of maturity and lyrics of a personal nature and ' The Visitors' is a logical follow on from that. There are no jolly but meaningless songs on here, every track actually means something either from their experiences or from the world as a whole, unlike some of their earlier efforts (The insane 'Dum Dum Diddle' from the Arrival album springs to mind!) The title track 'The Visitors' is the story of Soviet dissidents, ...  Read the complete review