ABBA - The Album

Label: Polar
Genre: Pop
Year: 1977
Recommended by: Blair Sherry

ABBA is a band that dominated and dictated the Pop music scene of the 1970s. This is their fifth studio album. You wonder why they would name their fifth release The Album. That's a silly question, because they released ABBA: The Movie at the same time.

Get your branding and marketing straight people. ABBA is a pop group that makes sugary sweet pop music that goes in clean and is easily digestible. It's ABBA and it's better than Mamma Mia.

Meatloaf - Bat Out of Hell

Label: Cleveland International/ Epic
Year: 1977
Genre: Hard Rock
Recommending Person: Rose Sherry

For an extremely popular album there is a lot of varied elements. There are ballads, operatic elements, hard rock, and some very folk like story elements through out the record. "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" is probably the most well song from Meatloaf's second album, but I enjoy "Two out of Three Ain't Bad" more even though it sounds like an Elton John song. 

Meat Loaf was originally famous from the musical Hair, which led to his unsuccessful debut album, that led to him going back to perform in Hair and later to audition for More Than You Deserve where he first met Jim Steinman. 

While Meatloaf is a great performer, he never wrote anything that became popular. Many Baby Boomers complain that no one currently writes their own songs, it's probably been about the same percentage as their have always been, but some of the biggest acts in their hay day had song writers. It's a silly argument, just say you like the music or you don't. Whoever wrote it is inconsequential to how good the song is. Johnny Cash didn't write "Hurt" or "Personal Jesus" on American IV that caused a late renaissance, it doesn't detract from Johnny Cash at all. 

Fun Fact: Ellen Foley, the female lead from the Duet on "Paradise" appeared in Night Court as Billie Young. That fact is fun.