Elisabeth Vincentelli
Audiobook read by Christina Moore

Starting a song with the chorus is the equivalent of drawing your gun too early in a shoot-out, of revealing your hand too hastily in a poker game: Once you’ve given everything you have, where’s the pay off? And yet “Dancing Queen” doesn’t flag after its flamboyant beginning: The chorus acts as both teaser and pay off. Ironically for a band that was supposed to be a bunch of control freaks with a solution to every technical or musical conundrum, it later surfaced that “Dancing Queen” starts with the chorus because Abba just couldn’t figure out how to make it work any other way.

Perhaps more than any other Greatest Hits compilation, Abba Gold has come to define a band’s career in one disc. More than that, its release in 1992 heralded the critical rehabilitation of a group which had, since its demise a decade earlier, become little more than a memory of trashy costumes and cheesy tunes to many people. Here, Elisabeth Vincentelli charts the circumstances surrounding the birth of Abba Gold, looks at the impact it had on the music world, and tells the stories behind some of the greatest pop songs ever recorded.

Published:

First published USA 15 March 2004, UK 1 May 2004

Audiobook published 6 April 2009
Pre-loaded audioplayer released 1 August 2011

See also:

33⅓ Greatest Hits, Volume 1

ABBA Gold

エリザベス・ヴィンセンテリ

石本哲子

Elisabeth Vincentelli

Translated by Tetsuko Ishimoto

Published:

First published Japan 27 December 2012

ABBA Gold

Elisabeth Vincentelli
Audiobook read by Stephanie Nemeth Parker

Starting a song with the chorus is the equivalent of drawing your gun too early in a shoot-out, of revealing your hand too hastily in a poker game: Once you’ve given everything you have, where’s the pay off? And yet “Dancing Queen” doesn’t flag after its flamboyant beginning: The chorus acts as both teaser and pay off. Ironically for a band that was supposed to be a bunch of control freaks with a solution to every technical or musical conundrum, it later surfaced that “Dancing Queen” starts with the chorus because Abba just couldn’t figure out how to make it work any other way.

Perhaps more than any other Greatest Hits compilation, Abba Gold has come to define a band’s career on one disk. More than that, its release in 1992 heralded the critical rehabilitation of a group which had, since its demise a decade earlier, become little more than a memory of trashy costumes and cheesy tunes to many people. Here, Elisabeth Vincentelli charts the circumstances surrounding the birth of Abba Gold, looks at the impact it had on the music world, and tells the stories behind some of the greatest pop songs ever recorded.

Released:

Audiobook published 13 May 2025