Decca 011439
Executive producers: Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus
Track listing: Honey, Honey [Amanda Seyfried, Ashley Lilley &Rachel McDowall] / Money, Money, Money [Meryl Streep, Julie Walters & Christine Baranski] / Mamma Mia [Streep] / Dancing Queen [Streep, Walters & Baranski] / Our Last Summer [Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard, Seyfried & Streep] / Lay All Your Love on Me [Dominic Cooper & Seyfried] / Super Trooper [Streep, Walters & Baranski] / Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) [Seyfried, Lilley & McDowall] The Name of the Game [Seyfried & Skarsgard] / Voulez-Vous [The Cast, Philip Michael, Baranski, Walters & Skarsgard] / SOS [Brosnan & Streep] / Does Your Mother Know [Baranski & Michael] / Slipping Through My Fingers [Streep & Seyfried] / The Winner Takes All [Streep] / When All Is Said and Done [Brosnan & Streep] / Take a Chance on Me [Walters & Skarsgard] / I Have a Dream [Seyfried] / Thank You for the Music [Seyfried]
August 23, 2008
1 week
The Swedish quartet known as ABBA was one of the most successful international pop acts of the ‘70s, yet that success didn’t translate onto the American album chart. Despite the fact ABBA scored a Number One single in 1977 with “Dancing Queen” and logged three other top 10 entries on the singles chart, its peak on the Pop Albums chart was at number 14 in 1978 with its fifth effort known as The Album. So when the Mamma Mia! soundtrack — an album packed with 18 ABBA songs — topped The Billboard 200 three decades after the group’s prime, it had to give the members of ABBA a certain sense of satisfaction.
ABBA, named from the acronym formed from the first letters of each of the group member’s first names, consisted of Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. Initially, “Mamma Mia” was the name of a 1976 hit by the group that peaked at number 32 on the Billboard singles chart, but the title would prove to have a much more lasting impact.
Although ABBA officially called it quits in 1982, Andersson and Ulvaeus continued to work together on a number of projects, including the musical Chess with songwriter Tim Rice in 1983. While working on that production, the pair met Judy Craymer, who was serving as executive producer. It was Craymer who had the idea to create a musical using the songs of ABBA in the storyline. Andersson and Ulvaeus weren’t too enthused by the prospect, but Craymer wouldn’t let it die. Fourteen years later, she hired playwright Catherine Johnson to write the musical that would be known as Mamma Mia! Phyllida Lloyd signed on to direct in 1998. A year later, the show opened on London’s West End and soon productions were launched in New York on Broadway and 10 other cities.
As is often the case with successful musicals, Hollywood came calling. Playtone, the production company run by actor Tom Hanks and producer Gary Goetzman, pacted with Craymer, Andersson and Ulvaus to bring a film version of Mamma Mia! to the big screen. Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan were cast as the leads and this time, Andersson and Ulvaeus were heavily involved, serving as executive producers of the film and the soundtrack album. Andersson recruited several musicians featured on ABBA’s original recordings, including bassist Rutger Gunnarsson, guitarist Lasse Wellander, drummer Per Lindvall, and Andersson himself on keyboards, to record the instrumental backing tracks. With a crack team in place, the recording was a snap. “I had counted on recording everything in three weeks – it took five days,” Andersson says. He was also impressed by the vocal prowess of the cast, which also included Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Julie Walters and Christine Baranski. “They were primarily chosen for their qualities as actors,” Andersson says, “but if they hadn’t been able to sing they wouldn’t have got the parts.”
When the film and its soundtrack debuted in July 2008, it faced stiff competition at the box office and on the album chart, offering little competition for the record-breaking The Dark Knight at theaters and titles by the likes of Lil Wayne, Coldplay, and Beck on The Billboard 200. Yet while sales of those albums dwindled in subsequent weeks, Mamma Mia! held fast. Finally, it its fifth week on the chart, Mamma Mia! leapt over Sugarland’s Love on the Inside and Miley Cyrus’s Breakout to take the Number One spot with sales of 130,000 copies. The ABBA revival couldn’t be contained on just one chart. The same week that Mamma Mia! topped the Billboard 200, it also held the top spot on the Top Internet Albums and Top Soundtracks lists, while the original cast recording of the stage musical continued its three-week run at the summit of the Top Cast Albums, and the group’s greatest hits collection, Gold, hit Number One on the Top Pop Catalog albums chart.
Week of August 23, 2008
THE TOP FIVE
1. Momma Mia!, Soundtrack
2. Breakout, Miley Cyrus
3. Love on the Inside, Sugarland
4. Rock N Roll Jesus, Kid Rock
5. Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne