Record Collectors 40 Best Abba Tracks - Mamma Mia

In the recent issue of Record Collector which included a run down of the 40 best Abba tracks this is what they had to say about the groups single “Mamma Mia”….

3. Mamma Mia (Epic S EPC 3790, 7”, UK, 1975) £2

Few ABBA songs capture the casually playful deployment of pop nous quite as well as the song which formally ushered in ABBA’s imperial period of pop dominance. Mamma Mia was ABBA’s first chart-topper since Waterloo, a peak that five of their next six single releases would also reach. Its importance in their evolution is affirmed by Benny, who described the song as “the first eureka moment”. 

Nothing in Mamma Mia is left to chance. At every turn, every component is made to justify its presence in the song. In Benny’s words, “all the instruments contribute something that deviates from the melody line. Listen to the marimbas, listen to the guitars. 

They’re playing their own lines.” Mamma Mia was also the song in which ABBA realised that the elusive quality of catchiness sometimes comes with knowing what to remove. 

Perhaps Mamma Mia’s one moment of indisputable genius comes with the decision to withhold the drums from the first chorus, as good an example of the power of delayed gratification as you could hope to find in a pop song. For proof of that claim, all you need to do is wait until the full band come in on the final chorus at two and a half minutes and bear witness to your own emotional response.