“A” and Wrap Your Arms Around Me anniversaries

We’re coming up to two anniversaries. The 40th anniversary of Wrap Your Arms Around Me (31 May) and the 10th of “A” (10 May).

Wrap Your… was her first English language solo album. As it was released so long ago and I’ve known it for most of my life, I still have some affection for it. At the time I don’t think I was aware that Agnetha had been a songwriter in her earlier solo career, so the fact she only wrote one song on this album wasn’t too much of a disappointment. Like Frida’s album, it wasn’t ABBA, but they were the next best things for me at the time.

“A” was an exciting release at the time. Only a mere nine years on from her previous album but these were all new songs. I liked it a lot that year but it quickly faded, to the point where I haven’t listened to it for years. This week I’ve become re-acquainted with it and was surprised by how much I’d completely forgotten! Its main fault is the lack of sincerity on it. Agnetha sings it but these aren’t really her songs. Only the last one, I Keep Them On The Floor Beside My Bed, has Agnetha all over it. We can assume she wrote the music and had a strong idea of what she wanted to say in the lyrics (even if she may not have written the latter).

Both albums were more exciting in terms of the promotion Agnetha did for them. 1983 was the first time we’d seen Agnetha alone, the attention was all on her and she couldn’t let the others talk more in English interviews. A particular favourite is the Breakfast Time interview (Friday 13 May 1983) that’s on YouTube. I remember this well, my mum kindly recording it for us (after I’d gone to school and my brother to work) on my brother’s new Video2000 he’d bought a couple of months before.

It was a relaxed interview, she seemed quite comfortable. Memorable for Nick Ross getting a bit over-excited and Mike Smith joking that they’d sent Nick off for a cold shower! Also Russell Grant doing her stars and stating the obvious. And later in the year, the memorable Late Late Breakfast Show appearance where she fell three feet backstage (off screen) and cut her elbow. Again, she seemed very relaxed here, even after that accident (probably helped that she clearly fancied Noel Edmonds and he her).

The “A” promotion was very unexpected. At one point you could barely turn on the TV without an interview with her being on. The same questions and the same answers, but she was everywhere (which is why her promotion for Voyage - just one Swedish radio interview - was quite disappointing).

It seems unlikely that Agnetha will ever release another solo album. Five Swedish albums, five English ones and two novelty ones with each of her children is quite an impressive run though, even though it’s overshadowed by her work with ABBA.

Yes I have played both albums in the last week and I do like both of them. I still think The Heat Is On should have been a bigger hit in the UK it was such a summer record. And A I love all the songs but the one I like the most is Bubble. I just get lost in her voice.

I would love to see a Deluxe Edition of 'Wrap Your Arms Around Me' released on CD in the same style as the 2015 release of Frida's album 'Something's Going On'.

I dunno. From a strictly sales POV, I understand that ABBA will always be the bigger draw. And extra material/HD visuals are usually the key selling points. I know that CD is a dwindling format. But Agnetha, being part of ABBA, still has a fanbase that seems to prefer CD as a format - and, if it were to emulate the SGO box, it'd include a vinyl single.

The SGO box was a real treat and very nicely handled, in spite of the fact that the only extra audio was the 7" edits of IKTSGO and HWS (I think they should have included the 7" edit of TTTS and, given that they were officially commissioned, the fab new remixes should have been included - even on a separate disc). The DVD had a polished up documentary and a couple of clips I hadn't seen before. The vinyl single with a new flipside and a new sleeve was a nice addition.

Have Agnetha's fans really grown so demanding that they'd refuse to buy a limited edition set of WYAAM? I kinda doubt it. Sure, mimicking the tracklist of the 2005 release means there's no new audio, but the DVD would have the TV special. Wasn't there also a short making-of-the-album programme too? Throw in a signed album cover print, a nice booklet and maybe the extended mix of THIO on a 33rpm 7" single (with literally any other track on the album on the other side. It could even be coloured vinyl in a new sleeve. The Frida set was snapped up quickly and I'm certain Agnetha's fans would be just as quick off the mark.

I was lucky enough to get the RSD reissue of "Frida" on vinyl and I'm glad to see that it's available as a digital release. The 67-72 compilation is a terrific set. If it's to be reissued, I think I'd prefer to see it come out as it was originally designed. The Frida album needs a standalone CD reissue with some bonus tracks - ideally tracks like The Long And Winding Road. Djupa Andetag is overdue some love too - a vinyl edition at least is called for.

I understand that the cooperation of the three labels complicates things, but I'd have thought that ABBA themselves would have regained enough clout to call some shots. I'd hate for re-releases to be long-fingered until some undignified posthumous cash-grabbing opportunity finally presents itself.

There doesn’t seem to be much love for Stay. When the album was released, that song was probably my least favourite but it grew on me a lot. I love the double vocals in the chorus, with her speaking voice and her usual singing above it (I generally like songs like that anyway - for instance, I’ve always liked Erasure‘s “The Hardest Part” for that reason).

I fed the spoken part from the title track into a translator app and it’s come up with this: 😂

Take me in your arms
Hug me
Do ar den - just do
I want to be with you
We fornicate together
We were so mad
The nights are so cold
I want to be with you
Miss you anyway
I want to be with you
Hug me
Love me, love me

Translated from:

Tag mig I din famn
Hall om mig
Do ar den - bara do
Jag vill vara hos dig
Vi hor tillsammans
Vi var sa nara
Natterna ar sa kalla
Jag vill vara hos dig
Saknar dig hur som helst
Jag vill vara hos dig
Hall om mig
Alska mig, alska mig

I suggested the album as a contender for a CD reissue to the Music On CD label some time ago. They replied that they're aware of the interest and that they're working on acquiring the rights. However, the reissues they release are usually very simple and don't include interesting bonus tracks (if any).

They have done reissues of Agnetha's Swedish solo albums recently and though it's nice that the records are finally available separately, they are nothing very special - simple two-page booklets and no bonus tracks.

I don’t think that is the problem. Over the last 30 years, there have been three main Agnetha compilations (My Love, My Life in 1996, That’s Me in 1998 and My Very Best in 2008) and all three companies collaborated for each of them. Of the three, it’s Warner that is less interested in doing anything on its own but it supplied tracks to those three compilations (two of which were released by Sony and the other by Universal).

The real issue is the lack of interest in either the CD or DVD format by record companies. A DVD could have been released for My Very Best but the fact it wasn’t suggests the boat has long since sailed.

I got the Sjung Denna Sång compilation from the Music on CD series, because it had eight tracks that can’t easily be found on CD elsewhere (other than the De Första Åren set from 2004 that I didn’t get).

40 years ago today, Agnetha appeared on the BBC’s Breakfast Time. As I previously mentioned, they’re quite relaxed interviews. They don’t seem rehearsed (though probably were).

Aside from the “cold shower” comment, it’s amusing when Nick Ross makes a seemingly flippant comment about buying a tanker of oil (this after going completely overboard on her looks). And her facial expression when asked by Mike Smith about her “prettiest rear” says it all (clearly there was no way the BBC were going to say “sexiest bottom” at that or any other time of day).

And it’s such a contrast to the prematurely-aged Agnetha that we got in mid-1980 to early 1982. I liked the more natural hair colour she had in 1983. Suddenly she looked much more her age (or younger). Someone really should have had a word with both Agnetha and Frida in 1980/81/82 and asked, “what the hell do you think you look like?”. Sorry. Though that question should have gone to Björn and Benny as well, neither of them ever looked that great and the visual focus was much less on them.

Over 40 years, that Breakfast Time interview remained in memory, even if I didn’t see it for decades. I like what she’s wearing, I like her hair and make-up. Probably the best she had ever looked to that point. For the first time it didn’t matter that she didn’t have That Hair (the 1970s long bleached hair forever associated with most people’s image of ABBA). This was a new Agnetha.

She looked stunning in that all too brief TOTP's episode. I loved her whole image around the WYAAM period, way more than EOAW era.