Price: $12.82

When Mamma Mia came out in the cinema my mother suggested we take Isabelle to see it - beautiful dresses, catchy tunes, should be right up her street, says she. The first 5 minutes were pretty dreadful, but then the film turned out to be actually rather decent and the music … well, I hated Abba for years on account of them being kitsch icons, but as a child I loved them. “Fernando” was my first-ever favourite song, “ABBA Greatest Hits Vol. 2″ was the first record I ever owned, I was kinda fixated on Agnetha, and I even joined the Abba fan club (sadly I’ve lost the stuff they sent me, including a list of the favourite foods of each band member). And the film reminded me why I used to like them so much - each song is just bursting with melody, and it’s not just the choruses, pretty much every line of every verse is hugely singable, and a lot of the melodies are pretty sophisticated too.

Isabelle liked the film, but wasn’t really overwhelmed by it, I suspect the plot was probably a bit involved for a 3 year old. She mentioned the music now and again though, so at Christmas Niamh bought her this CD. It went on on Christmas morning and was an instant hit - for the next few days I had to fight if I wanted to listen to anything else, and this is the CD that finally displaced my friend Kieran’s band Delorentos as her favourite music ever. We’ve spent hours in the sitting room dancing to it and hours singing the songs in the car, with Niamh astounding everyone by knowing all the lyrics. Nowadays “Here Comes the 123s” rivals it on Isabelle’s favourites list, but it’s still one of the most-played CDs in the house.