Even the most dedicated of ABBA fans will accept that the best of the group comes from their compilations. Nobody is sticking Arrival on and bracing themselves for euphoria when Dum Dum Diddle comes on. No, you can cast that aside with the same half-hearted shrug the band probably gave it when it came to assembling a break between My Love, My Life, and Knowing Me, Knowing You. The latter is more synonymous with comedy character Alan Partridge than the band now, but then much of Arrival is also linked with the Mamma Mia films than the band itself. Some of those covers have more streams than the originals, and rightly so. Pierce Brosnan does not, unfortunately, feature on Arrival. What does appear is the band’s most consistent work as an outfit up to this point, their best album project in a run of experiences which were held together solely by the singles, those hit songs listeners have come to know because of how frequently they’re played.
You have four big hits here, after all. Dancing Queen is arguably the defining ABBA song. For it to feature here, well-placed after the nice and upbeat When I Kissed the Teacher, is a nice touch. Dancing Queen is outstanding but it’s not an album opener. There needs to be a bit of a build, a little patience before hearing it. When I Kissed the Teacher is an ABBA song that shouldn’t quite work, it’s a very plain and a little obnoxious, and that’s without mentioning the picture it paints. But there’s a playfulness in the writing, the use of geometry as the subject, that some will get a kick out of beyond the strong instrumental style. ABBA had, at this point, carved out their style nicely, and those headed into their albums were hardly going to put up with a song like Tropical Loveland, as featured on their preceding, self-titled album.
Arrival has a sharper sound because ABBA are cutting out those more cringe-inducing tracks. Nothing but the hits for much of Arrival. They truly had arrived, not in popularity, but to a sound which suited the lighter touch the group possessed, and still possesses. There’s an ease of access to ABBA which has not diminished in the decades after the release of Arrival. Where Arrival is ABBA’s most consistent album, it’s still half a record short of quality songs. If you packaged this with the songs worth returning to from the first three albums, you’d still come up short. But ABBA were never, really, about the albums, they were hitmakers and making a record was necessary. There’s no link from song to song, no overarching want from Arrival other than to entertain, and ABBA are successful in this.
What they gain in that replay value, they lose in depth. Dum Dum Diddle remains a vapid piece of work, while Tiger may be one of the worst ABBA songs around. Very light with the B-side, but ABBA were hardly going to settle for an EP, were they? Arrival is the best of their work but falls well short of expectation, especially given how well-stocked on hits it is. It’s the album tracks once again, those songs people would have to go out of their way to listen to, rather than being bombarded in the pub by their frequently queued position on the Touch Tunes system overtaken by a stag party, that let ABBA down. There’s plenty to enjoy about Arrival, though all of the bits worth listening to are lost within the first twenty minutes. After that, it’s a bit like dead air on the radio. Unacceptable, but interesting.
