ABBA Voyage: General Discussion 2022 Jan - Apr

I agree. Think when they sang in higher register Agnetha’s voice was more prominent, I recall Gary Barlow saying that “Agnetha was the voice of ABBA, that’s it, that’s the sound.”
While that quote annoyed me somewhat, I get it now, though as the aforementioned Money Money Money and Fernando, I would also add The Visitors here, where Frida is at forefront. On Voyage that sound has Frida’s tone more prominent, but I love it when they go from one to another: in the line “we do have it in us!” I suddenly heard Agnetha’s beautiful tone beaming through! And at the end of No Doubt About It, it mixes Frida lines and Agnetha lines with the former’s “no doubt about it!” To Agnetha’s “this isn’t where it ends!”
When I anticipated the new album and friends would ask me if I was looking forward to it, and I just said I wanted to hear Frida & Agnetha sing together again. My dream came true! Voyage is certainly that, a Voyage, a Journey, a new discovery.

Pronunciation and Accents.

I think maybe those unhappy with this discussion might be non-native English speakers and feel us native English speakers are 'having a go' or mocking. This is not the case. We are all ABBA fans.

I pointed out differences in Agnetha's and Frida's singing English vs spoken English. There is nothing new about this. Even Adele who is English sounds very different singing to her natural North London accent.

I only noticed a couple of mispronuciations in ABBA songs (from Frida who is actually more fluent than Agnetha in spoken English). Some people noticed more.

And yes, they are going to have Swedish accents - however fluent they are.

It is also a fair point that perhaps a pronuciation error should have been picked up before release.

There are 3 components to speaking English - fluency, accuracy and pronunciation. I feel Agnetha is more focussed on pronunciation and this holds back fluency. Whereas Frida is more fluency driven and more prone to make mistakes.

Benny and Bjorn have mastered all parts as I have no doubt they have had much more exposure and experience of spoken English. Even there, Benny's English is more American and perhaps Bjorn's has a bit more British - but with American influences too

This Thread, My Opinion.


The following are fine, in my opinion.

1. A General ABBA thread (note ABBA and not just Free For All). In which any ABBA-related topic discussed.

2. Separate threads for different topics about ABBA. This reverts to being about Voyage and people can post other topics elsewhere. This is my preferred option but option 1 is ok.


What I think is not on is this:

3. This thread a General ABBA thread but people saying "you can't talk about this ABBA topic, or that ABBA topic". This is where we are now. If you don't like a topic, then scroll past.

I believe my comments to be fair.

Although I don't like how this thread has become a grab-bag for everything vaguely ABBA-related, I do think this forum ought to be rigorously streamlined.

Here's a couple of ideas:

An "ABBA General Discussion" thread - ABBA random thoughts, if you will. This thread would go in the 'ÀBBA The Group' section. News, hairstyles, thoughts on their personalities, etc, A plethora of the ad-hoc and miscellaneous; pretty freewheeling stuff related to ABBA.

More or less, keep discussion of their music to - guess what? - 'ABBA The Music'. Here would go a couple of threads: "Voyage - the album"; and "Voyage - the show".

I'm by no means suggesting tight, unwavering adherence to these categories, just a bit more neatness, imo.

I've tried in the past to post things in the appropriate thread only to find someone posting the same thing in this thread a day later. I wasn't upset or anything, I've probably done it myself on occasion. I would happily contribute to whatever thread, anything to keep things running smoothly. I did think it might entail a lot of work for our moderator but there doesn't seem to be any problems here in the main so if everyone is happy to make new threads,  Eurovision or whatever, if I have something to say, I'll seek it out. It's not exactly difficult if you check 'most recent' posts (that's what I always do).

Going back to Voyage, I do have a hope that WIKTT and Angeleyes are included. The former gives me more joy than even Dancing Queen and Angeleyes is perfection- it's SO good. Whenever I hear it I wonder how any fan could think Just Like That is as good as this? It's truly marvellous. I genuinely believe some fans don't appreciate what we already have. Over-familiarity,  I guess.

I'm thinking the Agnetha/Frida voice thing will run to eternity. I think it's barmy. They're incredibly compatible, almost impossible to distinguish when singing together and yet so different! Therein lies the magic. They are both uniquely talented and we are lucky to have them. I could shout it from the rooftops- "BOTH were essential to the ABBA sound!" and while it's fine to have a favourite, it's so silly to pitch one against the other- not to mention pointless and disrespectful. Such a waste of energy. 

And on that note, I'll get off my high horse. 

Further to Voyage the concert, I'm absolutely TERRIFIED that I'm going to make a tit of myself. I'm so worried emotion will get the better of me. It's no exaggeration to say that ABBA'S music has always meant so much to me and continues to do so. I just hope I can keep it together. I know it sounds dramatic but it's a very real fear. I'll be surrounded by other fans, I will have suspended my disbelief, it will be a dream come true in many ways. I just don't want to be crying like a fool, even if they're happy tears.

Skipping discussions can work as long as you come here often (every day). As it is, there's sometimes just too much going on in this "general" thread and personally I must admit that I often refrain from commenting on something that was said three or four pages of back, because I feel the discussion has moved on since then. But I would gladly add something if it was a thread of its own. Also new members have chance of continuing with old topics they're interested in. And it's definitely easier to avoid threads you're not interested in than skipping posts in the general thread.

Good example is the ranking of ABBA's albums - people keep posting it here now and then, while there is a similar thread: abbachat.com/thread/1456/top-albums. If everybody did it in a separate thread, it would be easy to find each other's rankings and compare them. When they're buried under hundreds of posts here, nobody will ever be able to see them again.

My understanding is that the CD is an unofficial reissue of this: www.discogs.com/release/6596574-ABBA-In-Concert-221 - so a Wembley recording and from the same night as the Live at Wembley CD.

Maybe some of the board could be thinned down? Lots of boards, sub boards etc, it’s difficult to navigate (for me anyway) especially looking for new discussions etc. I love this place though, good to read ABBA fans’ opinions.

Maybe a number of us would opt for a much more streamlined ABBAChat forum - a clearer, cleaner, more readily navigable site?

Although I don't really like how this particular thread has developed, it does indicate how topics can be subsumed into a larger thread. This chunking is the key, I think, to eliminating so many subcategories.

I think the structure of the site could go something like this:

1. ABBA The Group: General Discussion, Photos ...
2. ABBA The Music, including the Voyage album and show; covers ...
3. NON-ABBA/All Other: other artists, random thoughts ...
4. Administrative

These might be the the four categories, eliminating specific mention of subcategories for this, that and the other. If the above doesn't appeal, any other ideas? Or just keep it as it is?

If a redoing of the forum was met with general approval, presumably Alan would contact admin, Roxanne, to see if she agreed?

Yes, I admit, I didn't take that into account: feasibility. So, so much for that!   

Watching Bobby's brother video on the song list for Voyage he said one of the songs the could be sung is The Visitors. How great would it be to hear that live it was not a song on my list so it was a shock, but I would love to hear it live.

It is a fair point… I’d love to redesign it a bit and streamline it. However, I don’t think I have the permissions to. When I first became moderator I did have a look at what I could do. I wanted to create a board specifically for Voyage topics but couldn’t. The boards that are there now were all created in 2014 by Roxanne in anticipation that they would be needed. Some of them have barely been used (the ones for each album, for instance).

I’ll have a look sometime. If it’s an admin-only function, I can ask Roxanne.

Any preferences? We definitely need something for Voyage. If it was in keeping with other albums, there would be a board for the album and another for the shows (in the Tours board). However, as Voyage has happened/is happening in the real-time of this forum and not something historical, might be better to have one Voyage board with everything (album and shows) in it? What does everyone think?

Wow, Alan, that looks like a lot of work. Pour yourself a stiff drink: you've earned it.

Excellent, Alan! Great piece of work.