Line #113 Music/TheVisitors


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/abba_the_visitors_cd_500x500.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''[[SanitySlippageSong I have been waiting for these visitors...]]'']]
3
4	''The Visitors'' is Music/{{ABBA}}'s eighth and penultimate studio album, released on November 30, 1981. It's notable for being the first popular music album to be pressed onto a Platform/CompactDisc with the intention of a commercial release on the format.[[note]]It wasn't the first CD outright though (that being a test pressing of a recording of Richard Strauss' ''An Alpine Symphony'') nor was it the first CD of any kind manufactured for commercial release (that being a recording of Music/FryderykChopin's piano waltzes). It wasn't the first CD released either, that being a batch of fifty albums from CBS-owned artists, with ''52nd Street'' by Music/BillyJoel frequently being considered ''the'' first CD to be released due to it being the earliest-indexed title in this batch.[[/note]]
5
6	The year previous, the two couples (Benny and Frida, Bjorn and Agnetha) had divorced, putting strain on their musical partnership. Tired of working together, recording sessions were cold and distant. Frustration over having to use a 32-track digital recording rather than their old one led to a delay, only making things worse. The tensions show themselves in the music. Indeed, it is their darkest and most serious work, filled with songs of failed relationships and paranoia, along with a heavy electronic influence. Gloom hangs over the album, reflected by the cover, where all four members are positioned at opposite sides of a dark room, all studiously ignoring each other.
7
8	Upon its release, it reached the top spot in quite a few European album charts, but its singles did not fare nearly as well, only topping the charts in four countries ("One of Us" hit #1 in Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands; "Head Over Heels" also topped the latter), shocking at the time compared to their previous releases. The band dissolved in 1983, and wouldn't reunite until 2016; until the release of ''Music/{{Voyage\|2021}}'' in 2021, ''The Visitors'' spent decades holding the distinction of being ABBA's final album.
9
10	----
11	!!Tracklist
12
13	[[AC: Side One]]
14	# "The Visitors" (5:47)
15	# "Head Over Heels" (3:49)
16	# "When All Is Said And Done" (3:19)
17	# "Soldiers" (4:41)
18
19	[[AC: Side Two]]
20	# "I Let The Music Speak" (5:21)
21	# "One Of Us" (3:57)
22	# "Two For The Price Of One" (3:38)
23	# "Slipping Through My Fingers" (3:54)
24	# "Like An Angel Passing Through My Room" (3:40)
25
26	[[AC: 2001 CD re-release bonus tracks]]
27	# "Should I Laugh Or Cry"
28	# "The Day Before You Came"
29	# "Cassandra"
30	# "Under Attack"
31
32	[[AC: 2012 Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks]]
33	# "Should I Laugh or Cry"
34	# "I Am the City"
35	# "You Owe Me One"
36	# "Cassandra"
37	# "Under Attack"
38	# "The Day Before You Came"
39	# "From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel"
40
41	----
42	!!Tropes Included
43
44	* AGodAmI: "I Am The City".
45	--> ''I'm the street you walk, the language you talk''\
46	''I am the city…''
47	* AlphaBitch / LovableAlphaBitch: The protagonist of "Head Over Heels" may be one or the other, but the song's narrator seems unsure which.
48	* AmbiguousEnding: "The Day Before You Came" says nothing about what happens when the "You" arrives. The gloomy music and dispassionate delivery may suggest that whoever or whatever the "you" is, its arrival didn't make the narrator's life any better in the long-term. WordOfGod says "you" is a boyfriend who abandoned the narrator, leaving her to return to the old life she now realises was empty of meaning.
49	* AntiLoveSong: The voice in "Should I Laugh Or Cry" is frustrated with how pathetic she finds her husband.
50	* BreakupSong: "When All is Said and Done" is a bittersweet one. The narrator is glad the relationship is over, but she's not unhappy she had it.
51	* CassandraTruth: "Cassandra" is the Cassandra myth from the perspective of someone who sympathizes with her.
52	* CreatorCameo: In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL2_PZwKDPg "Head Over Heels" video]], Frida bumps into director Lasse Hallstrom (the guy in the puffy blue coat).
53	* DayInTheLife: "The Day Before You Came". The entire song is a listing of events in a typical day of the narrator.
54	* DeadAllAlong: Some think the protagonist of "The Day Before You Came" is this.
55	* DoomedByCanon:
56	-->''Pity Cassandra, that no one believed you''\
57	''But then again you were lost from the start…''
58	* FlashbackFail: The narrator of "The Day Before You Came" went through the day in question on autopilot, to the extent that she doesn't actually have any clear memory of it. She just knows that she didn't deviate from her normal routine to any great degree and so prefaces almost every "memory" with "I must have..." or words to that effect.
59
60	* GriefSong: "Slipping Through My Fingers".
61	--> ''The feeling that I'm losing her forever''\
62	''And without really entering her world…''
63	* [[HenpeckedHusband Henpecked Boyfriend]]: Oddly enough, Björn played this to Frida in the "Head Over Heels" video. He reluctantly follows Frida around on her shopping trip and is forced to carry her bags.
64	* LemonyNarrator: Agnetha in "Head Over Heels".
65	-->''I have a very good friend\
66	The kind of girl who likes to follow a trend\
67	She has a personal style\
68	Some people love it others tend to go wild''
69
70	-->''Her man is one I admire\
71	He's so courageous but he's constantly tired\
72	Each time that he speaks his mind\
73	She pats his head and says,\
74	"That's all very fine\
75	Exert that will of your own\
76	When we're alone\
77	Now we better hurry."''
78	* LyricalDissonance: Granted, this is ABBA's signature trope.
79	** "I Let The Music Speak" is about the voice's love of and connection with music, but it sounds bored.
80	** Averted with "One Of Us". The tone is as sad as the lyrics.
81	** "Two For The Price Of One" cheerfully narrates the life of a depressed man whose life has no meaning. It ends in a wedding march after he meets the younger one of the prostitutes, but it's uncertain which one he married or if it was both.
82	** "Slipping Through My Fingers" again averts this by both being and sounding sad.
83	** "Should I Laugh Or Cry" relates the voice's despair and frustration over her pathetic and verbally abusive husband in a upbeat tone.
84	** "The Day Before You Came" and its video sound and look very sinister, but the lyrics themselves (supposedly) describe a woman's mundane life before she met her lover, and implies that she now leads a more interesting life. That said, the song offers no description of what happens AFTER she meets him. WordOfGod says the lover broke up with her, forcing her to return to her old life.
85	** "Under Attack", a song about how scary it is to be paranoid or kidnapped or both, is again surprisingly upbeat. Surprising if you are new to ABBA, at least.
86	** "You Owe Me One" has incredibly silly, upbeat music, and yet features some of the darkest lyrics ever in the band's music, indicating being hopelessly doomed in a relationship.
87	--->Now there's a shadow falling over our faces\
88	doubt forever in our hearts\
89	And in a while we'll start to pick up the traces\
90	we won't find the missing parts
91	*** And in the second verse
92	--->Something unwanted has entered our existence\
93	I think it's better to do it from a distance
94	* MailOrderBride: In "Two For the Price of One", where the man finds their ad among the relationship ads.
95	* MoodDissonance: The expression "an angel passes through the room" refers to an awkward silence. However, though the lyrics of "Like An Angel Passes Through My Room" are about reminiscing alone by the fireplace, [[LiteralMinded the music makes it sound like it refers to an actual religious experience]].
96	* MoodWhiplash:
97	** "Two for the Price of One", a humorous ShaggyDogStory about mail-order brides, sits right in between "One of Us", a BreakupSong, and "Slipping Through My Fingers", a song about the narrator missing out her daughter's childhood.
98	** "Head Over Heels", the other humorous song in the album, is in between "The Visitors", a song about a political dissident fearing that they're about to be arrested by the SecretPolice, and "When All Is Said and Done", another BreakupSong.
99	* OneWomanWail: Performed by Frida at the end of "The Day Before You Came".
100	* ThePowerOfFriendship: "When All Is Said And Done".
101	* ProductionForeshadowing: If you hadn't already figured out that Benny and Bjorn had ambitions toward musical theatre, "I Let the Music Speak" makes it clear, as it sounds like it could have been lifted directly from a Broadway cast album. The more subtle but better known "The Day Before You Came" is also frequently noted as a precursor to the pair's work on ''Theatre/{{Chess}}''.
102	* RidingIntoTheSunset: A variation with the final shot of the group in their very last video "Under Attack" has them walking away from camera in a dark warehouse outside into the bright daylight.
103	* SanitySlippageSong:
104	** "The Visitors": The narrator is paranoid people are coming after her, [[UnreliableNarrator but maybe she's just insane]]. She even {{Lampshade\|Hanging}}s this fact:
105	---> ''Now I hear them moving''\
106	''Muffled noises coming through the door''\
107	''I feel I'm crackin' up''
108	** "You Owe Me One" has the narrator losing their mind frantically due to depression over a failing relationship, a fact captured by its upbeat as opposed to sad music for the lyrics. They hint that they'll have a breakdown if they don't go on holiday to the Bahamas to "get a break from their petty little dramas".
109	** "Under Attack" may also be a anxiety-induced hallucination.
110	* SecretPolice: Who are probably ringing the doorbell in "The Visitors", since none of her friends would be so stupidly impatient and she is apparently in hiding.
111	* SeriesFauxnale: For decades, ''The Visitors'' stood as ABBA's last album thanks to the band's dissolution in 1983; their reunion in 2016, and the creation of 2021's ''Music/{{Voyage\|2021}}'', ultimately did away with that.
112	* ShoutOut:
113	** In "The Day Before You Came", the narrator says, "There's not, I think, a single episode of ''Series/{{Dallas}}'' that I didn't see." In the ''Film/MammaMiaHereWeGoAgain'' soundtrack, this is changed to [[Series/HouseOfCardsUK House of Cards]].
114	** Then she reads some book that, at her best guess, was written by Marilyn French. In the ''Film/MammaMiaHereWeGoAgain'' soundtrack, this is changed to Creator/MargaretAtwood.
115	* StalkerWithACrush: "Under Attack" is about being stalked and being in a constant state of fear because of it.
116	* ThisIsNoTimeToPanic: The song "The Visitors" is about a dissident having a panic attack when she believes the SecretPolice are ringing her doorbell.
117	* ThreeWaySex / TwinThreesomeFantasy: "Two For The Price Of One". Done as a ShaggyDogStory ending with the revelation that [[spoiler:they're not twins, they're mother and daughter]].
118	* UnreliableNarrator:
119	** The female protagonist of "The Day Before You Came" starts practically every description of her day with the phrase "I must have..." (For example, "I must have read the evening paper then" or "I must have lit my seventh cigarette at half past two"), indicating she ''thinks'' she did the event, but she's not quite sure.
120	** It's entirely possible that no one is coming after the narrator of "The Visitors" and she's just insane.
121	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: "The Day Before You Came" deals in part with songwriter Björn Ulvaeus's divorce from the singer, Agneta Fältskog.
122	* WarIsHell: For civilians, and not just soldiers, in "Soldiers".
123	* WhamLine: "Two For The Price Of One":
124	---> ''She said, "I'm sure we must be perfect for each other''\

Context Music / TheVisitors