Josefin Nilsson – Shapes CD

This is the very last "pop" album to date written totally by Benny Andersson & Bjorn Ulvaeus of ABBA. The albums collection of songs though originally released in 1993 has, like their work with Abba stood the test of time.The ten tracks featured are sung by Josefin Nilsson who has an unusual and powerful voice and handles the compositions sensitively. As with most Benny & Bjorn collections this album offers a wide variety of pop styles and is a great follow up from their work with Gemini. The singles from the album included the beautiful "Heaven & Hell" with its power ballad quality and the full on pop of "High Hopes And Heartaches". The bouncy "Surprise Surprise" is a real treat in itself. The ballads are of course excellent, "The Film I'd Like To See" is a real drama while "When I Watch You In Your Sleep" is mellow."Midnight Dancer" is obvioulsy a dance track while "Leave It To Love" is full of swing."Now You See Him Now You Don't" has one of those clever Bjorn Ulvaeus Lyrics and very unusual backing vocals,"We Won't Be Going Anywhere" has the qualities of the earlier Abba hits and "Where The Whales Have Ceased To Sing" is simply awesome,with its own rock guitar solo. Interestingly many of the original Abba musicians play on this album,Per Lindvall,Rutger Gunnarsson,Lasse Wellander and of course Benny Andersson. Sadly this album wasn't the smash hit it should have been but, in hindsight, it is the closest thing to knowing what Abba would have sounded like in the '90's. Although the album is officially deleted and quiet difficult to get hold of as it was released on Benny's own LABEL "Mono Music" for anyone interested in Abba or the Andersson & Ulvaeus comopsitions it is simply essential listening, and imagining what Agnetha and Frida's voices would have added to these songs which really deserve their places in Benny and Bjorn's songbook.

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