James from London
International Treasure
"However, it’s now 2021 and ABBA’s Christmas song isn’t very much at all like their New Year song. It’s called Little Things. It’s Christmas from a grandparent’s perspective ... perhaps inevitably, a chorus of children appear to bring the whole thing to a close. For some listeners, the sugar and corn quotient might be a bit much. But then I ask myself what the reaction would be if this had come from the pen of Paddy McAloon or Jimmy Webb. Is there anything more corny going on in here than you’d find in, say, The Christmas Song by Mel Tormé and Robert Wells? That’s the irony of appraising ABBA in 2021. The darkness that critics used to ignore in their music back in their heyday is now what everyone looks for in order to demonstrate just how much more was going on in ABBA’s music than, say, that of The Dooleys or The Nolans."
"ABBA Voyage can be whatever you want it to be. But for me, it’s a record in which I get to watch the group which acted as a Greek chorus of my childhood years enjoying each other in the third act of their life. They didn’t have to leave the curtains open so we could see what happened when they all got together again. But not only did they do that; they put it on a record. And really, there are no words to quite convey just how grateful I am for that."