Honey Honey not released in UK - Wrong decision?

  In every Country where both the ABBA & Sweet Dreams 'Honey Honey' were released, the ABBA original was the bigger Hit.

  The Country where ABBA's original was the biggest Hit was Germany. It was No.2 for 5 Weeks there and it spent 18 Weeks 
  in the Top 10. That is longer than any other ABBA Hit, except the 22 Top 10 Weeks of 'Fernando'.  The Sweet Dreams version
  got no higher than No.42 there.

  In the USA, 'Honey Honey' was not one of ABBA's biggest Hits, but it did reach the Top 30 - No.27. The Sweet Dreams Cover
  was a No.68 Hit there. Both versions were in the Hot 100 for several Weeks.

  I'm pretty sure that 'Honey Honey' would have reached the UK Top 10 for ABBA, had Epic Records released it. It was Epic's
  idea to release a Remixed 'Ring Ring' instread, after it had flopped in October 1973. They assured ABBA that 'Ring Ring'
  was the right follow-up to 'Waterloo'. Then 'Ring Ring' stalled at No.32 and 'Honey Honey', by Sweet Dreams, reached the
  No.10 Position. (That was in the 'Official' BMRB Chart. It reached No.9 in New Musical Express, and No.6 in Melody Maker).

  However, of all the ABBA Covers over the Years, I like the Sweet Dreams version of 'Honey Honey' best. I think that they 
  did an excellent job on it. (The backing Music has Reggae 'elements' in it. A sort of Caribbean 'feel' to it).

  
 

I’m not sure ABBA would have had a hit with anything directly after Waterloo. It took well over a year before they had a big hit again, and it is worth noting that Ring Ring was a bigger hit than So Long or I Do.

I’d say the “problem” was ABBA themselves, or their Eurovision image in the UK. Similarly, in 1982 I don’t think anything could have been a hit for them. Take Blancmange - they weren’t that big but they managed to take The Day Before You Came ten places higher than ABBA did. That some rubbish novelty act like Sweet Dreams managed to make a hit of Honey Honey is testament to Björn and Benny’s songwriting ability.

Indeed, rather than wondering what ABBA would have managed with it, we could flip the coin and wonder if So Long or I Do could have been bigger hits for other acts, once the then-toxic ABBA/Eurovision association was removed.

I'm probably in a minority here but I've never been that keen on Waterloo, although I get why it set ABBA on the road to fame and success. I sometimes like Ring Ring if I'm in the right mood. Honey Honey has a sort of nostalgic quality to me; it's not brilliant but I'm kinda fond of it anyway.

I really think ABBA only really hit their stride with SOS. Now, THAT'S what you call a classic. You can keep your I Do x5 and even So Long (basically Waterloo part 2). I mean, I like them alright but they're not earth-shattering. SOS is sensational.

Life is full of ifs buts and maybes.. and now there’s nothing we can do about it and as they say hindsight is a wonderful thing..
That all said it’s fun thinking of what could’ve been...

Im with Josef in not really liking Waterloo , it’s ok and did the job in starting them off, I wouldn’t switch the radio off if you know what I mean..

Ring Ring, surprisingly one of my early favourites and suffered from Eurovision follow up single, in reality and being realistic  should have made the top 20.

So Long,  Waterloo  theme , can never really understand why it was released... I like the rockier later sounds but not this one.

Honey Honey.. Truly a missed opportunity, in getting their next top 10, it should’ve been released, as proved by the German charts which  both countries are similar in chart action. The fact that the track is still played on radio occasionally these days says something..you never hear Soldiers, Hole In Your Soul  etc .. 

Then again there have been so many missed singles.. Eagle , WAISAD are two classic examples...

Hi, I can remember dancing to " Honey Honey " with my sister when she bought a copy of " ABBA Greatest Hits " I actually prefer " Honey Honey " to " Ring Ring ". The only song I don't like on the Greatest Hits album is " So Long ". It doesn't float my boat. " Waterloo " brings back memories of ABBA's victorious triumph at Eurovision in 1974 so it has a place in my heart. Although I must confess, even I thought ABBA at the time would disappear into obscurity after " Ring Ring ", and " I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do " failed to make any impact in the UK charts. How wrong was I when " SOS " steered them into instant stardom and global success.

This thread touches on a fascinating part of ABBA's UK career for me - the follow-up to "Waterloo" and how it could have been handled differently...

At the time, I knew "Ring Ring" from the UK edition of the "Waterloo" album but was disappointed when Benny announced in a UK newspaper interview that it would be the follow-up to "Waterloo" - I felt that the album featured better songs. But then when it surfaced in a re-worked form, I embraced it as a single. I suspect that they released this 'new' version for two reasons: (a) Despite its previous failure in the UK, "Ring Ring" had already proved itself in being a minor international hit, (b) this heavier version of "Ring Ring" was a more fitting follow-up to the Rocky "Waterloo" than the much lighter "Honey Honey", so provided better continuity. As we know, "Ring Ring" turned into only a minor hit in the UK (No. 32). I understand that ABBA were due to perform it on the BBC's Top Of The Pops, but the show was cancelled due to a technicians' strike - if the show had gone ahead, this exposure may well have nudged the record into the Top 30, which was the publicised chart at the time (later being extended to a Top 40 in 1978), but I doubt that it would have risen to the heights of "Waterloo" or even the Sweet Dreams version of "Honey Honey". While I'm still on "Ring Ring", I'll mentioned its B-side, "Rock'n'Roll Band". Although I don't mind this song, I think it was short-sighted (even lazy) of Epic to re-use this original B-side of the record and not a track from the "Waterloo" album so that they could promote the album on the label with "Taken from the album Waterloo"- not even the A-side label said "Original version featured on the album Waterloo".

To be honest, "Honey Honey" wouldn't have been my choice as the follow-up to "Waterloo" but I do now believe that it would have bettered the chart performance of "Ring Ring" and even the Sweet Dreams cover version, particularly if the latter had not been released. If both versions of "Honey Honey" had been released, both might have suffered as the sales were split. I suppose a question is would the Sweet Dreams version have been released in the UK if ABBA had released the song as their own single. Would ABBA have given permission (did they need to?) for Sweet Dreams to record and release the song?

I love the "Waterloo" album and the standout tracks for me (apart from the title-track) included "Hasta Manana" and "Dance (While The Music Still Goes On)". Back in the day, I probably would have liked "Hasta Manana" as the follow-up to "Waterloo". With hindsight, this would also have been perceived as a light-weight follow-up, although I believe its strong melody and breezy arrangement would have carried it through to become a significant Summer hit of 1974. I still regard this song as a missed opportunity. And following that, I would possibly have release "Dance" as the next single, another highly melodic song with a hint of the ABBA sound.

Of course, after "Ring Ring" they turned to "So Long" to re-visit the "Waterloo" formula. This perhaps wouldn't have been necessary if they had followed "Waterloo" with a more typical track from the "Waterloo" album. As much as I loved "So Long", I probably would have put "I've Been Waiting For You" on the A-side and then by-passed "I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do" altogether as a single in the UK.

I think what ABBA really wanted after "Waterloo" was another big hit in the UK, which they regarded as a leading and influential country in Popular music. With two versions of "Honey Honey" out at the same time, they may have got the same (or perhaps a little more) in the way of writing royalties, but the two versions would have competed and shared the sales, probably both peaking at chart positions somewhat lower than the No. 10 achieved by Sweet Dreams. Thinking about it now, if they were aware of the plans for the Sweet Dreams single and couldn't do anything about it, this would have been a good reason not to release "Honey Honey" in the UK, as they did in most of the rest of the world.

I think ABBA initially fared much better than a typical Eurovision winning act, which was a good omen for the future - a No 1 single, a No 28 album and a No 32 follow-up single. I've always thought that "Honey Honey" would have been a bigger hit than "Ring Ring", given the success of the Sweet Dreams version and the fact that ABBA's name was fresh in the minds of the British public. Sweet Dreams were completely unknown, fabricated for this release I believe, although the singer Polly Brown was already well-known.

I think I can partly explain how Sweet Dreams got hold of 'Honey Honey'. When Stig prepared to release the 'Waterloo' album in the UK, he wanted to provide the publishing rights to companies who had supplied him with good British hits that he'd been able to 'convert' to Scandinavian successes.

From memory, I think he gave 4 of the 12 tracks to John Spalding at Bocu Music, and then divided up the others into pairs and gave them to other companies to whom he felt some loyalty. Each company got the rights for 10 years, I think.

I can't remember who got 'Honey Honey', but it wasn't Bocu. If anyone has an original LP from the UK, it will be on the label. Whoever it was, though, had an off-shoot record label, Bradleys, and it was that label that picked up the song and created the Sweet Dreams version out of it.

Stig forged a good and close personal relationship with John Spalding - by all accounts, a great, kind man - and so, for the 'ABBA' LP and subsequently, the UK publishing rights went to Bocu exclusively. And John was brought into the Polar 'fold'.

I hadn't thought before as to why the UK edition of the "Waterloo" album featured so many publishers (in Sweden, all the songs were assigned to Union Songs AB). "Honey Honey" was given to ATV Music in the UK.

Alan - yes, that is entirely possible.

This thread has brought up some nice thoughts about John Spalding for me, and it is a bit sad that many fans will only remember him for being pushed into a cake on the US Tour!

I like your choice of B-sides, although at the time (as a child) I wanted "Suzy-Hang-Around" as a B-side I always thought "Watch Out" was a pretty lousy B-side to "Waterloo", although it is in keeping with the Rock theme of the A-side. Still, it didn't really advertise what ABBA were about. As you say, people did listen to B-sides, or at least give them a go. To maintain the Rock theme, I might have chosen "King Kong Song" instead, which is more commercial and more fun.

This thread prompted me to create these labels for Honey Honey and Hasta Manana as the B-Side. I tried to keep it as accurate as possible. I should’ve made the song titles spacing longer. Imagine picking this single up in a record shop.