My Colouring Book

You will remember Agnetha Fältskog as the pretty one from ABBA who went off to live on an island on her own for 17 years. Before she was a Dancing Queen, Fältskog was a successful songwriter in her own right, and My Colouring Book is Fältskog’s excursion back into public life. The album is a collection of 13 covers of the ’60s girl-group classics that meant so much to her. So ardent is she to evoke that ’60s ambiance, she hired a full orchestra, and the sleeve photo shows her looking for all the world like (a young) Dusty Springfield. Indeed, the first track is Springfield’s ‘My Colouring Book’– there the comparison ends though. Fältskog takes some very poppy, lighthearted songs down some bleak and interesting roads. Her interpretation of some rather well-worn tunes is sincerely poignant, her voice is soulful and melancholic, and at times quite eerie with her rendering of ‘What Now My Love’ which is particularly heartfelt. More upbeat tracks like Jackie De Shannon’s ‘When You Walk In The Room’ lean a little towards saccharine, but the Shangri-La’s ‘Past Present And Future’ alone is worth buying the album for, an intensely personal and raw treatment. An impressive return.