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Post by foreverfan on Apr 25, 2022 9:23:28 GMT
I guess it happens to most artists... the unreleased tracks...
How many years have we been harping on about JLT.. 40 !!! and are any closer to getting it.....no
I really don’t want to be in my 80s or even worse on my death bed, thinking about those 2 tracks lol .. release soon or never mention again... but then the genies already out of the bottle....
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Post by foreverfan on Apr 25, 2022 9:26:20 GMT
Bjorns 77th Birthday today.. congratulations...
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Post by gary on Apr 25, 2022 9:58:02 GMT
I don't mind the Christmas theme of Little Things, it's the lyrics, Frida's twee voice on the song and that choir. Completely agree. There’s nothing wrong with a good Christmas song. Unfortunately, Little Things isn’t one. Does anyone else think Little Things sounds like a Frida lead vocal? I know it’s not, but it certainly sounds like it. They’re doing a good job of those new lyric videos, aren’t they? All three so far are well worth viewing. |
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Post by bennybjorn on Apr 25, 2022 10:50:58 GMT
Little Things re-entered the Physical Charts two weeks ago and climbs bwck into Top 10 this week. It hasn't been in Top 10 since Christmas. I don't know why it has re-entered, probably reduced price. This is my fear about the two unfinished sobgs. They are even worse than Little Things. ABBA have said no pressure with them recording Voyage. If they didn't like it, it would never have been released. Like the two unfinished songs then? For me the only problem with Little Things is the drippy, cliched lyrics. The music isn't amazing but it's pleasant enough. The quality of Benny's music was consistently impressive on Voyage and I expect it would still be in these two extra songs. I can't see that Bjorn could write equally bad (or worse) lyrics on any non-Christmas theme, so I can't see that the songs would be worse than Little Things but it's obviously not an impossibility. |
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Post by gamleman on Apr 25, 2022 11:43:30 GMT
For me the only problem with Little Things is the drippy, cliched lyrics. The music isn't amazing but it's pleasant enough. The quality of Benny's music was consistently impressive on Voyage and I expect it would still be in these two extra songs. I can't see that Bjorn could write equally bad (or worse) lyrics on any non-Christmas theme, so I can't see that the songs would be worse than Little Things but it's obviously not an impossibility. The lyrics of one of the songs may be a problem if the rumoured title of "Hit By A Train" is true. It sounds more like a Roxette song, only Per's rather crass lyrics referred to being hit by a truck (Jefferson got hit by a westbound truck, I guess that didn't make him look like a million bucks) - I think the truck featured in another Roxette song too. |
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Post by jj on Apr 25, 2022 11:45:05 GMT
The song I like least on Voyage is "No Doubt About It". It's too 1982 (similar to I Am The City in the sense that it seems to me like ABBA in completely-devoid-of-ideas mode), too "grasping at straws". It would have been ok as a B-side to TWTIA, maybe instead of Elaine. And I'm sure I'm the only fan who prefers Little Things a smidgin more.
My top ten Voyage songs:
1. DSMD =2. JAN =2. OTF 4. ISHFIY
5. WYDWM =6. ICBTW =6.BB
8. KAEOD
9. LT
10. NDAI
If the two unreleased songs are of the quality of NDAI, I really hope they never get released.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2022 12:13:29 GMT
I guess it happens to most artists... the unreleased tracks... How many years have we been harping on about JLT.. 40 !!! and are any closer to getting it.....no I really don’t want to be in my 80s or even worse on my death bed, thinking about those 2 tracks lol .. release soon or never mention again... but then the genies already out of the bottle.... Yeah, you would have thought with fan obsession over JLT for 40 years Benny would not have mentioned 2 unfinished songs. By unfinished it looks like they are for vocals/lyrics as it seems Benny has to 'rescue' them to make them releasable. From what I have seen on fans ranking their songs from The Voyage in this site and elsewhere... 1. Don't Shut Me Down is the firm favourite with almost everyone. 2. I Still Have Faith in You is consistantly liked by fans 3. Bumblebee for most is not highly ranked 4. Little Things is by far the most unpopular song. 5. When You Danced With Me is a 'middling' song on the rankings 6. The other 5 songs Just a Notion, I Can Be That Woman, Keep an Eye on Dan, No Doubt About it and Ode to Freedom are very 'marmite'. Fans love them or hate them. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2022 16:45:32 GMT
I thought I would post my " Voyage " top ten favourite songs. In reverse order,
10. " Little Things "
9. " Just A Notion "
8. " No Doubt About It "
7. " Keep An Eye On Dan "
6. " Bumblebee "
5. " When You Danced With Me "
4. " Ode To Freedom "
3. " I Can Be That Woman "
2. " I Still Have Faith In You "
1. " Don't Shut Me Down "
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2022 16:51:14 GMT
Gary, " Little Things " features joint vocals from Agnetha and Frida.
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Post by Michal on Apr 25, 2022 17:32:44 GMT
The lyrics of one of the songs may be a problem if the rumoured title of "Hit By A Train" is true. It sounds more like a Roxette song, only Per's rather crass lyrics referred to being hit by a truck (Jefferson got hit by a westbound truck, I guess that didn't make him look like a million bucks) - I think the truck featured in another Roxette song too. You're right and the truck featured in another song on the same album - Centre Of The Heart: "I want you so bad. I'm pushing my luck. It feels like being hit by a truck" And I guess Per thinks it was terribly clever  |
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Post by gamleman on Apr 25, 2022 17:51:01 GMT
The lyrics of one of the songs may be a problem if the rumoured title of "Hit By A Train" is true. It sounds more like a Roxette song, only Per's rather crass lyrics referred to being hit by a truck (Jefferson got hit by a westbound truck, I guess that didn't make him look like a million bucks) - I think the truck featured in another Roxette song too. You're right and the truck featured in another song on the same album - Centre Of The Heart: "I want you so bad. I'm pushing my luck. It feels like being hit by a truck" And I guess Per thinks it was terribly clever  Yes, I thought the other appearance of the truck was on the "Room Service" album but couldn't recall which song, as I haven't listened to the album in years. I was thinking "Jefferson" was on the "Have A Nice Day" album but now realise I was confusing it with "Cooper" (another odd name). Those lyrics are so bad that they're almost painful - very cringe-worthy anyway. I think his lyrics were worse on those later Roxette albums. He also seemed to move towards very Americanised lyrics as well as his accent. It's funny that Marie wasn't so confident in her spoken English, yet she was a natural when singing in English - I can't think of a single occurrence of an accent in her singing that suggested that she was Swedish or a non-native speaker. I think Agnetha and Frida did pretty well singing in English too but there were numerous slip-ups. |
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Post by Michal on Apr 25, 2022 19:16:25 GMT
It's funny that Marie wasn't so confident in her spoken English, yet she was a natural when singing in English - I can't think of a single occurrence of an accent in her singing that suggested that she was Swedish or a non-native speaker. I cannot judge, as I'm not a native speaker, but there is at least one mispronounciation from Marie in Never Is A Long Time - "softly angels BOW and cry in the stillness of the night". As for Per, I would actually say that not only his lyrics got worse with passing years but his songwriting in general. While in ABBA's case we could see them evolve from the early ditties to the complex and mature songs on the last albums (and then on to the musicals), I have a feeling that Per was at his creative peak during the late eighties and first half of the nineties and from then on it was all downhill. Room Service is especially bad... and I must admit that I bought their last three albums only out of loyalty. |
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Post by bennybjorn on Apr 25, 2022 19:42:15 GMT
Wouldn't call Wham's 'Last Christmas' twee at all. Quite the opposite, really. It's all about having your heart broken.
Little Things is just full of trite/twee imagery - children unwrapping their presents, the joy of Santa etc.
As I said before, the music's OK and maybe the song would actually appeal to children.
But all in all, a real shame that Abba missed their chance (a chance few of us ever believed they would ever even have) of writing a classic, perennial Christmas song.
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Post by bennybjorn on Apr 25, 2022 19:45:26 GMT
Agree with most of that, Johnny, but do people actually hate Keep an Eye on Dan or Ode to Freedom? I know people were worried about KAEOD when they heard the title fearing that it would be a comedy song, but once it came out I thought most were pleasantly surprised. And Ode to Freedom - some seem to find it a bit slight (not me!) or underwhelming but I've not heard anyone say that they hate it? I guess it happens to most artists... the unreleased tracks... How many years have we been harping on about JLT.. 40 !!! and are any closer to getting it.....no I really don’t want to be in my 80s or even worse on my death bed, thinking about those 2 tracks lol .. release soon or never mention again... but then the genies already out of the bottle.... Yeah, you would have thought with fan obsession over JLT for 40 years Benny would not have mentioned 2 unfinished songs. By unfinished it looks like they are for vocals/lyrics as it seems Benny has to 'rescue' them to make them releasable. From what I have seen on fans ranking their songs from The Voyage in this site and elsewhere... 1. Don't Shut Me Down is the firm favourite with almost everyone. 2. I Still Have Faith in You is consistantly liked by fans 3. Bumblebee for most is not highly ranked 4. Little Things is by far the most unpopular song. 5. When You Danced With Me is a 'middling' song on the rankings 6. The other 5 songs Just a Notion, I Can Be That Woman, Keep an Eye on Dan, No Doubt About it and Ode to Freedom are very 'marmite'. Fans love them or hate them. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2022 19:54:36 GMT
Ok. Hate is a strong word.
But clearly some songs eg Ode To Freedom, Dan, No Doubt About It provoke different reactions and appear near top or near bottom on people's rankings.
Don't Shut Me Down usually top.
Little Things usuallly bottom.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2022 19:56:23 GMT
Gary, " Little Things " features joint vocals from Agnetha and Frida. I can only hear Frida though. |
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Post by clumsylikeaclown on Apr 25, 2022 21:34:19 GMT
Yeah I only heard Frida's voice to start with too but it's definitely both Frida and Agnetha singing in unison. I think with the key it's written in Frida' voice comes through stronger.
On the one hand I'd also comfortably rank Little Things as the weakest track. On the other hand, I like every song in Voyage. It's impossible to listen to LT and not feel happy inside.
My own ranking from best to worst would be:
1 - Don't Shut Me Down
2 - I Still Have Faith In You
3 - No Doubt About It
4 - When You Danced With Me
5 - Just A Notion
6 - Bumblebee
7 - I Can Be That Woman
8 - Ode To Freedom
9 - Keep An Eye On Dan
10 - Little Things
The top 2 songs I consider ABBA Gold quality, the next three 'still excellent', the two after that 'very solid' and the last three 'good but not as good as most of their catalog'.
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Post by gary on Apr 26, 2022 8:20:20 GMT
Yes, I can hear Agnetha on Little Things but Frida is dominant, with Agnetha’s contribution sounding more like a backing vocal. It has often been the other way around in the past.
I find it quite possible to listen to Little Things and not feel happy! 😂 It really is one of ABBA’s worst, both lyrically and musically.
Am I right in my impression that Keep An Eye On Dan is not quite as highly thought of as it was when Voyage first came out? That chorus is really quite pedestrian. On the other hand, I Can Be That Woman seems to have grown in popularity (rightly so, IMO).
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Post by richard on Apr 26, 2022 8:53:23 GMT
In the midrange, even if Frida and Agnetha were actually singing in unison, I get the no doubt false impression that it's Frida double-tracked. Higher up, I often get the impression that it's soley Agnetha, and that's probably equally mistaken. I've always been fascinated as to how their voices were deployed in ABBA, and maybe it wasn't always as might be assumed. Anyone interested might want to check this thread from a while back on this forum that focuses on this topic: abbachat.com/thread/1125/abba-vocals |
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Post by gamleman on Apr 26, 2022 9:56:50 GMT
It's funny that Marie wasn't so confident in her spoken English, yet she was a natural when singing in English - I can't think of a single occurrence of an accent in her singing that suggested that she was Swedish or a non-native speaker. I cannot judge, as I'm not a native speaker, but there is at least one mispronounciation from Marie in Never Is A Long Time - "softly angels BOW and cry in the stillness of the night". As for Per, I would actually say that not only his lyrics got worse with passing years but his songwriting in general. While in ABBA's case we could see them evolve from the early ditties to the complex and mature songs on the last albums (and then on to the musicals), I have a feeling that Per was at his creative peak during the late eighties and first half of the nineties and from then on it was all downhill. Room Service is especially bad... and I must admit that I bought their last three albums only out of loyalty. Yes, I can hear that, although I thought she was saying 'fall' not 'bow', so it didn't register as odd or accent-like. It's not dissimilar to Frida's mistake with 'coward' in "I Wonder" - I'm not sure how Bjorn let that through. I know that Marie had some English lessons between "Look Sharp" and "Joyride" to help her with her spoken English. I'm wondering whether Agnetha and Frida had English lessons in the early days of ABBA, as in the videos I've seen of Frida singing in English in her solo days, her English was actually quite ropey. Regarding the "Voyage" tracks, ICBTW and KAEOD were initially among my favourites but they haven't endured with me, as they are simply too dark - they tell stories that I don't care to hear time and time again, especially ICBTW, although I still acknowledge its quality. I think Bjorn took a step too far on the dark side with that one. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2022 12:00:29 GMT
In terms of accents, Agnetha had the better accent for singing but Frida's spoken English is better. Benny sounds American.
I Can Be That Woman is a bit heavy. Not a song you put on repeat.
Keep an Eye on Dan does have a pedestrian sounding chorus. The music is good but let down by the disinterested vocals and odd lyrical tumble.
Agnetha only is at her best on Don't Shut Me Down - the best track on the album.
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Post by gamleman on Apr 26, 2022 12:52:30 GMT
I agree with you Johnny about their English. I've always thought that Agnetha is more accurate in her English but she lacks confidence in her spoken English and so is hesitant, while Frida is more confident and fluent and doesn't seem to worry about making mistakes. Benny does have an American aspect to his accent while Bjorn is more British/English.
The verses in KAEOD are definitely better than the chorus, which is quite simple and I think has a musical theatre influence. I also find NDAI quite musical theatre in the chorus. I think Agnetha's performance on ICBTW is excellent - it's just the lyrics that trouble me.
I get the impresson that DSMD is quite widely accepted as the best track on the album. It amazes me that some people still struggle with OTF, but we all have different tastes.
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Post by HOMETIME on Apr 26, 2022 14:13:42 GMT
The issue of singers' accents is interesting to me. A lot of "foreign" artists seem to work hard on affecting a mild American accent when they record in English. The "otherness" of ABBA's accents sounds very smoothed out in the ABBA recordings but the girls' natural accents seem a little stronger on their solo releases. Frida's accent is definitely stronger.
Personally, I prefer to hear an artist's natural accent. It feels more authentic. An entirely personal preference, of course. One of my all-time favourite singers is Eddi Reader, whose gorgeous Scottish accent is such an important element of how she sings. Another of my favourite artists is Alison Moyet. When she was with Yazoo and on her first couple of solo albums, her accent was almost American. In the 90s, (especially on her Essex album) her accent was very English. Almost exaggerated, at times. She has reined it back in for her more recent albums, where her Englishness is evident but not a feature - if that makes sense. Dolly Parton's accent is front and centre. Ditto Céline Dion. Adele has a weird mix of English and bluesy American that, for me, seems affected. It seems odd that we'd expect Swedish artists to sound unSwedish - surely it's part of their identity?
As for the mistakes along the way - tHyme, tchampagne, longevity, yewelled, and the charming pronunciation of the B in 'doubt' in TDBYC - I believe the buck stops with the lyricist and producers. If a singer sings a wrong note, they record another take. The same should apply with mispronunciations, IMO.
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Post by gamleman on Apr 26, 2022 15:01:57 GMT
I think you're right HOMETIME that 'foreign' artists these days tend to try to sound American - you only have to watch the Eurovision Song Contest to appreciate that - although this also was true of British artists in the 70s. I reckon that B&B worked hard in the early years of ABBA not to have their accents show through in their music - after all, they were trying to conquer the international Pop market which was dominated by American and British acts, with the UK being an important market to them, so they didn't want to sound Swedish. I don't think that we expected them to sound unSwedish, but the Swedes were well-known for their accurate English - that is, we expected high linguistic standards from them. In practice, I think the music hid their accents to a certain extent, especially in harmonies. Perhaps they got less fussy once they were well-established worldwide and they certainly weren't too concerned about pronunciation on "Voyage".
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Post by lamont on Apr 26, 2022 18:30:00 GMT
Dimension pronunciation in As Good As New bit suspect too! It’s odd, I think ABBA do pretty well, but my Aunt was an English teacher and found all sorts of wee idiosyncrasies in their lyrics that she thought were so Swedish, was lost on me though!
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Post by clumsylikeaclown on Apr 26, 2022 18:43:31 GMT
The 'thyme' example is interesting - I googled it and it turns out that pronouncing it with a 'th' sound rather than a 't' sound is also considered acceptable.
Keep An Eye On Dan is an odd one. It would sit at home well as an album track on The Visitors in many ways. And I give them credit for the unorthodox lyrical theme and the solid vocals that take advantage of Agnetha and Frida's new vocal range very well. But most things that this song does well, I feel like Don't Shut Me Down does much better. And the chorus is rather so-so until near the end.
I Can Be That Woman makes me cry an embarrassing amount sometimes. Ironically despite Frida barely singing on it at all, her backing vocal line 'I can be that woman' is nothing short of magical - my favourite part of the production.
I wouldn't class Voyage as one of ABBA's best albums - in fact, the only albums I'd rank it over are Ring Ring and Waterloo. But I'm impressed by how remarkably consistent the quality of songs on it are. There are no 'Man in the Middle', 'Dum Dum Diddle', or 'Two For The Price of One' tracks on it!
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Post by gary on Apr 26, 2022 21:51:50 GMT
Dimension pronunciation in As Good As New bit suspect too! It’s odd, I think ABBA do pretty well, but my Aunt was an English teacher and found all sorts of wee idiosyncrasies in their lyrics that she thought were so Swedish, was lost on me though! ‘Tough’ in As Good As New must be one of the worst! |
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Post by tagaytay on Apr 27, 2022 2:27:01 GMT
‘Tough’ in As Good As New must be one of the worst! In Eagle i hear "Christians" instead of questions but even so many of their other mispronunciations i didnt care about and same with the grammatical errors (since many years... among the most well-known). i wonder if these errors were only bothersome to the general public of UK and USA and Australia? the rest of the nonEnglish native speaking world probably have their own mispronunciations and grammatical idiosyncracies anyway and so dont really pay too much attention to ABBA's errors. when i hear Agnetha and Frida talking in interviews I am amazed how they could pronounce English words as well as they did when singing |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2022 7:33:40 GMT
I wouldn't class Voyage as one of ABBA's best albums - in fact, the only albums I'd rank it over are Ring Ring and Waterloo. But I'm impressed by how remarkably consistent the quality of songs on it are. There are no 'Man in the Middle', 'Dum Dum Diddle', or 'Two For The Price of One' tracks on it! After almost 6 months and without the novelty of a new album, I rank it mid-way on their studio albums. 1. The Album 2. The Visitors 3. Voulez Vous 4. Arrival 5. VOYAGE 6. Super Trouper 7. Abba 8. Waterloo 9. Ring Ring |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2022 7:39:04 GMT
Mis-pronunciations
Autumn Shill not Chill in When All is Said and Done sticks out for me.
I haven't noticed as many as some on here!
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