ABBA Voyage: General Discussion 2021 Sept - Dec

I was wondering if other fans of other artists are so critical of their idols. Don't hear many people complaining about Ed or the dreadful moan a song Adele. JAN is fun uplifting , Easy on me socks the life out of me. The video is good but the song and vocals just drain me. Apparently about her divorce and wanting to tell her son why.....eh...why don't you just sit him down and tell him ? Most parents would. Not bore everyone else with the details. I made the mistake of buying 21 because it was supposed to be great. Listened to it once. Never again. Learned my lesson. Just don't get her popularity and who would slap that on after a hard day at work. I did like the Bond song she did though. Think she needs a pal to discuss her feelings. At least Abba give us a bit of everything.

As a member of three other fandoms I would say yes (at least I am). But it depends, of course. The word 'fan' has a connotation of some crazyness to me (like the one who worships every step the idol makes) and I can't find an English word for a sensible person who is able to analyse and call things by their proper names. Admirer? Meh.
Completely agree on Adele.

Actually, if Benny and Bjorn had heard the Womble group's song, they would have immediately known who the Wombles had borrowed their musical style from.  That sound was definitely straight out of 50s and 60s dancebands.  It could be heard in hundreds of songs already.  It was not a creation of the Wombles and Benny would probably laugh in your face if you asked if he had been influenced by the Wombles' music.  The origins of that honky-tonk piano are much older than 1974 and the Wombles didn't invent it.

^^ johnny, jj has made a point about it despite that fallacy. I would add that Benny and Bjorn through Stikkan might have heard some R&B influenced songs early on in their career IIRC and that Sweden early on had a jazz or R&B scene which may factor into their absorption into the honky-tonk stuff, despite their downplaying in recent interviews where Bjorn denies being influenced by jazz (either the whole genre or Bacharach as a shorthand in Variety's article) And just because you've heard the similarities does not mean it is so, as that is your perception: I could say that I Still Have Faith in You was like some unreleased Lion King soundtrack because it sounds triumphal or something - that is entirely my perception which B&B or whoever was involved has yet to say; it could be coincidental, as they have neither confirmed or denied being influenced by Mike Batt (I mean, they did appear on Eurovision, but that was kinda it, so too short of a timeline to tell)

Benny at least would've been well acquainted with that stuff independently of any input from Stig. He was peddling R&B tropes with the Hep Stars a good while before ABBA formed.

This is the first version I've ever heard and I still like it most of all complete versions. Of course, the officially released chorus stands above everything but it's sadly just the chorus.

Me too. I don't get it. JAN is maybe not the best ABBA record ever released but to let it overshadow the joy of the new ABBA album that we didn't dare to even hope for few years ago is overreacting a great deal.

I really wouldn't worry about what these newspapers say. The Telegraph will spurn no opportunity to give anything from the EU a dig in the ribs, be it the German economy or a Swedish pop band. And the UK tabloids are just comics, driven by short-term opportunities for eye-catching 'big and bold' headlines. Crazy of them to 'go early' with their verdict, before the album's even been released. But that's the business they're in - what they write today will be conveniently forgotten tomorrow, even by them.

Bottom line - ABBA fans (and ABBA themselves) know the reality and that's more than enough for me. To misquote from 'Chess', "Whether you are pro or anti, we could not care less..."

My oh my... "I'm fired up, don't shut me down" to all those chart figures and scribblers)) 

Investigative journalism is dead otherwise they would have commented they got to number one with physical sales and may be even have explained the different ways the charts operate now. Lazy journalism.The record companies must take some responsibility for the killing of the singles charts and making them meaningless. They have taken away choice. An ageing population who cannot buy cd singles unless they jump through hoops. They are missing out on a lot of revenue from cd singles if they were readily available. I know I the past I bought more and sometimes on impulse .Now I stream. The best measure of popularity was when people parted with money to buy the product.

Yes, no such thing as bad publicity.

It gives a reminder of Voyage coming out on Friday. This may prompt even more people to buy the album.

I read Benny + Bjorn are to give an interview on CBS this morning - that should help with American sales.

Back in the 1970s, the Singles chart contained music for all generations. You would see people of all ages buying singles in shops and I dare say a good proportion of the population was familiar with the song that was at No 1. Nearly everybody knew ABBA's biggest hits. And I don't think this was only because you could go into a shop to buy a physical single - it was also because singles and music in general got more exposure through TV. We had "Top Of The Pops" and similar shows, and music artists would also make guest appearances to promote their new single on variety shows, comedy shows and game shows, examples being ABBA performing "Ring Ring" on the Tommy Cooper Show and "Money Money Money" on the Basil Brush Show (although they used a video). Now all that is gone and I think, to an extent, the TV companies have killed the singles market.

Singles have become much more the realm of young people than they ever were, and seemingly mainly through streaming. I suppose young people have always preferred music by their own generation or the generation above, and the Singles chart these days really spells this out. Yet young people today have a much richer variety of music from the older generations to appreciate than we ever did - in the 70s, we really only had the 50s and 60s eras of Pop, which sounded all the more dated because the recordings were much more primitive, while today many 70s/80s/90s recordings actually sound better than modern ones (due to the 'loudness wars' for one thing). I also think music has become 'atmosphere' or background activity rather than something to be listened to with our full attention - I wonder how many people now sit down and listen to music in their livings rooms, as I do. The whole way we 'consume' music has changed - not only the way we buy it but also the way we listen to it. In a sense, it doesn't have such a centre stage in our lives any longer and I think this is reflected in many people not wanting to pay for it.

I'm sounding very old, I know, but you'd think journalists who compare the chart performances of ABBA's new singles with their old singles would realise how things are different now.

Just indulging in a ‘what if’ scenario….

Once the Voyage campaign is over, I would love them to release a Greatest Hits vol. 3 collecting all singles that didn’t make it onto vol 1 and vol 2 plus the new singles.

That would get around messing with Gold.