05/10/2025
The records that shaped me. Each week (ok, I got impatient here and posted 2 today), I’m sharing one record that changed the way I hear music — not just as a DJ, but as a listener. The sounds that stopped me in my tracks, rewired my taste, or opened something I didn’t know was there.
Record Reflections #2 — ABBA: Arrival (1976)
Some albums feel like they’ve always been there — part of the furniture, the wallpaper, the rhythm of home life. For me, ABBA’s Arrival was one of those. It sat in my parents’ record stack for as long as I can remember: that glossy cover, the helicopter, and the four of them — Benny, Björn, Agnetha, and Anni-Frid — looking impossibly poised and unmistakably seventies. I was born in 1975, so I don’t remember it landing, but it was ever-present in our house — an artefact from an age of sideburns, cigarette smoke, and shag-pile optimism.
But Arrival didn’t truly hit my radar until 1983. I was eight, and my dad had just traded in our worn-out Morris Marina for something that felt like a spaceship — a brand-new Rosso Red VW Scirocco 1.8 GTI. Its secret weapon wasn’t the car’s speed, but the Blaupunkt radio cassette deck gleaming from the dashboard. Dad had clearly planned this moment. As we picked up the car, he pulled an ABBA Arrival cassette from his shirt pocket with quiet ceremony.
For reasons only he knew, he started on Side B. The opening chords of Money, Money, Money hit like a revelation — the richness, the rhythm, the way those harmonies seemed to bounce off the car’s new interior. By the time Knowing Me, Knowing You faded and the tape clicked to Side A, I was transfixed. Then came When I Kissed the Teacher — playful, joyful, alive — and just as the last notes faded, Dancing Queen arrived. It was the sound of sunlight itself.
That journey home wasn’t just a car ride; it was an awakening. Somewhere between my dad’s grin, the hum of the engine, and those immaculate Swedish harmonies, something clicked. For the first time, I understood that music wasn’t just background noise — it could shape mood, memory, and connection.
Over the years, that same cassette played on every long drive — holidays to the seaside, trips to the Dales, lazy Sunday outings. It became the soundtrack to growing up, the glue of countless “me and him” moments with Dad. Arrival taught me that music shared is twice as sweet — and that sometimes, a car can hold as much love as the people inside it. I cried when we sold the red Scirocco.
Listening to Arrival now, it’s easy to forget how sophisticated it was. Released in 1976, it captured ABBA at their creative peak — melodic, meticulous, and fearless in their pursuit of pop perfection. From the wistful introspection of My Love, My Life to the joyful innocence of When I Kissed the Teacher and the cinematic drama of Knowing Me, Knowing You, it’s an album that wears its heart in perfect four-part harmony.
And that closing title track — the wordless Arrival — still gives me goosebumps. It feels like a homecoming: serene, expansive, and strangely spiritual.
When I play it today — often on vinyl, sometimes just for the ritual of it — I’m back in that red Scirocco. The sun’s low, the road’s clear, and the future feels wide open.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-sVB91NTa4A
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🎧 Record Reflections #2: ABBA – Arrival (1976)
