This month I’m featuring my top 20 albums of the past decade, to celebrate 10 years of This Must Be Pop! Click here to see all the Decade of Pop posts so far.
Now here’s an album that doesn’t sound like it was released in the past decade. Most people would easily be convinced that it’s an old lost classic from the 1970s. If your life’s wish is to hear a new album from ABBA, just listen to Expressions and imagine it’s the Swedish super troupers. Because of the retro sound, the album was mainly popular with indie music fans and marketed as such, but it should rightfully have been a big mainstream hit. Why tracks like Light of Love and Explorers of the Heart didn’t appear on any major TV advert soundtracks is quite beyond me. The songs are uplifting, majestic, and timeless.
Unfortunately, Expressions was the first and last album by Music Go Music. It seems they got their pop urges out of their system, as the married couple at the heart of the group subsequently returned to more alternative sounds under their other band name Bodies of Water. The Music Go Music website now just redirects to Universal’s UK page, suggesting they were dropped. Again, I blame the mainstream music world for not embracing them! But on a more positive note, this great album was made, and good work shouldn’t be wasted, so go and give it a try if you’re not already a fan.