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Post by Alan on Mar 24, 2023 11:49:32 GMT
Overall am not impressed. It sounds quite unsophisticated - and really childish. There was no indication on this album of the greatness ABBA would create. I often wonder what I’d think of ABBA’s albums if I’d first heard them much later. As it was, I heard most of ABBA’s output (aside from a few early b-sides that weren’t released in the UK) between the ages of 6 and 11 (late 1977 to late 1982). With Ring Ring I would have been 8 or 9 (though the four Greatest Hits tracks were two years earlier), and at that age I pretty much liked anything I heard. My brother’s musical tastes were a very strong influence in our household so anything he liked I tended to like too. I therefore find it hard to criticise Ring Ring. I know most people don’t like I Saw It In The Mirror, but I see the merits even in that. I like Frida and Agnetha‘s vocals. They come in and steal it, and I generally like the tracks where they do that, despite not being the leads (Two For The Price of One is another example, and another song I like). I like the imagery of Me and Bobby and Bobby’s Brother. That’s a fun track. Perhaps my least favourite is People Need Love, but that might be over-familiarity. |
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Post by Alan on Mar 24, 2023 12:46:11 GMT
I’ve gone through my ABBA Magazine collection (or rather, my late brother’s) and found the Ring Ring album offer. Issue 23, April 1980 (so probably available in March). £6.15 is quite reasonable for the time. Albums probably cost around £4 then, but there’s postage and packing included. I wish my brother had kept this album. He threw most of his collection away about 10 years ago. This one is harder to get as there was no UK issue. The various reissues now are based on the 1973 release rather than the 1976 reissue (admittedly there’s very little difference aside from the date and the generic inner sleeve). For such a significant offer, it seems to be quietly tucked away under a Polar discography. Later album offers by the Magazine (Björn and Benny’s Lycka, Frida’s Ensam - which my brother also ordered, Agnetha’s Tio År Med and Michael Tretow’s Caramba) each got more space. This was probably where I first heard of the titles of Santa Rosa and Åh, Vilka Tider. The former I wouldn’t actually hear until 1994, and the latter not until 2006. This puts my album chronology of first hearing as Arrival, The Album, Greatest Hits, ABBA, Waterloo, Voulez-Vous, Ring Ring, Super Trouper, The Visitors.   |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2023 14:03:26 GMT
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Post by ed on Mar 24, 2023 14:06:44 GMT
I love collecting all things ABBA. Although I haven't a physical copy of " Ring Ring " either CD, vinyl or cassette in my belonging. There are a couple of good songs on there. I cannot believe " Ring Ring " is fifty years old. Where has the time gone to ? We must be getting older or is the world spinning on its axis too quickly ? A milestone !
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Post by Alan on Mar 24, 2023 14:17:46 GMT
Wasn't Sue from the Fan Club the Sue mentioned in Hole in Your Soul - or is that a myth I believed? Never heard that one before! I doubt they’d have ever met Sue. Maybe at some function in the UK. I think I did once read who Sue in Hole in Your Soul was (and Sam, Annie and Jerry), but I can’t remember now. |
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Post by Alan on Mar 24, 2023 14:26:45 GMT
This does make me wonder just how widely the album was available in the UK. Obviously it’s an import and therefore not an official UK release, but perhaps it was available in many HMV stores at the time. For some reason we used WHSmith or Boots for record purchases, and were in no danger of seeing it there!
I do remember that ABBA Magazine offer well. Although I was in the fan club, I don’t remember receiving much from them.* We joined in 1979 and maybe didn’t renew our memberships. Thankfully the Magazine publicised the offer. It was just so exciting learning of an ABBA album we never knew existed. So Waterloo wasn’t the first album! Probably took a month or so for it to arrive, and I don’t think we’d ever ordered an album through mail order before, so it was a relief when it arrived undamaged with all these “new” ABBA songs on.
* Edit. Oh. Johnny’s link has “By providing four stamped addressed envelopes to the club each year members were entitled to receive quarterly newsletters containing group updates, messages from the individual group members and the chance to purchase exclusive club merchandise such as scarves, T shirts, silver jewellery, badges, photographs and posters. Members were also privileged to have the opportunity of purchasing 1979 World Tour tickets through the club for two nights at Wembley Arena prior to tickets going on general release.”
Oops. We never sent the stamped addressed envelopes, so that explains why we never received anything else after the welcome packs!
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Post by richard on Mar 24, 2023 14:36:06 GMT
I haven't listened to the Ring Ring album for a long time.
But I do remember first listening to it in about 94 or 95 when I bought the box set of ABBA albums. Apart from the title track - which I still like a lot - I didn't think much of the songs, and I still don't really. I feel there are some nice melodic ideas here and there, but it's all in the arrangements - not so good, imo - and the yet-to-be-realised potential of Agnetha and Frida's vocals. And I really dislike I Am Just A Girl: the cringeworthy title for a start, and those simpering vocals.
I guess there are quite a few of us here who regard the Waterloo album as a big improvement, and I'm one of them
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Post by welshboy on Mar 24, 2023 14:45:16 GMT
Thank you for posting. All my mags are packed way . Wow that takes me back waiting for the album to be delivered not knowing if it would get to me playable. Happy times.
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Post by gary on Mar 24, 2023 15:02:37 GMT
Richard, yes, I Am Just A Girl is the worst thing in the ABBA catalogue, though it has some new competition in Little Things!
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Post by Alan on Mar 24, 2023 15:05:17 GMT
And I really dislike I Am Just A Girl: the cringeworthy title for a start, and those simpering vocals. Yes. The song is really about someone with very low self-esteem, but the gender issue is unnecessarily placed on it so that it comes across as though it’s being a girl/woman that’s the problem. There’s also a hint that Björn, as the lyric writer, doesn’t think much of women in general. Some awkward interpretations from their early lyrics. Suzy-Hang-Around I also have an issue with. It seems to suggest the behaviour of the boys is perfectly acceptable and that it’s Suzy that’s the problem. One of the boys’ mother is the voice of reason but they just laugh it off and take no notice. Vile. |
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Post by Alan on Mar 24, 2023 15:38:42 GMT
You’re right. That was a bit snowflake of me. I’m way too old for that!
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Post by Michel on Mar 24, 2023 18:09:07 GMT
Here in the Netherlands, instead of Greatest Hits we got The Best Of ABBA compilation which excluded He Is Your Brother and Another Town, Another Train. Following the enormous success of The Best Of ABBA, a double LP was quickly released called The Very Best Of ABBA, which added Love Isn't Easy to make a total of four songs from Ring Ring. Also, almost the entire Waterloo and ABBA albums were included on that double LP (the only exclusions being Watch Out, King Kong Song and Man In The Middle).
The Best Of ABBA was the first ABBA album I got from my parents in 1976 when I was 7 years old. I guess I got The Very Best Of ABBA sometime in 1977. I don't think I knew there was an album called Ring Ring at that time.
I presume it was in 1978 that I found an import copy of the UK Greatest Hits album in the record shop. That's when I first heard He Is Your Brother and Another Town, Another Train. It's hard to imagine these days when everything you want to listen to is just a click away, but back then if you wanted to hear any of these songs you really had to hunt down the records they were on.
Then sometime in 1979, the LP Honey, Honey appeared in the shops (a low profile release without any announcement or promotion) and that was basically the Ring Ring album repackaged and rearranged. The album had a different running order and Ring Ring (Swedish version) and I Saw It In The Mirror were replaced by Honey, Honey and She's My Kind Of Girl.
So then I Saw It In The Mirror was the only song left that I hadn't heard. I don't remember exactly where I heard that one for the first time. Perhaps when I got the Polar CD of Ring Ring in 1988 or The Collection Vol. 2 CD from the UK. (I sold that compilation CD later on.)
I've listened to the album a few times lately and I must say I quite enjoyed it! It definitely has its charms.
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Post by Alan on Mar 24, 2023 18:41:10 GMT
So that’s five albums you had to buy to get all of the tracks then, Michel? That’s some commitment and hard work! As you hint at, it’s not really appreciated by “the younger generation” just how difficult it was to get hold of music that wasn’t readily available. If you heard an old track you liked on the radio, you’d have to know what it was called, but even then it was some effort to track down the record it appeared on. Even with Ring Ring in the bag thanks to the fan club, the three early b-sides were still hard to find until the 1990s. Whilst it’s good that it’s much easier now, I personally think it’s made us appreciate music much less. Don’t like that song after 10 seconds? No problem, didn’t pay for it so onto something else… |
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Post by AdamDawson2003 on Mar 24, 2023 19:09:13 GMT
I am just delighted that Ring Ring which is my favourite ABBA album is getting the Half Speed Master treatement I will buy this and I wasn't bothered by the other Half Speed editions I will buy The Visitors half speed master when its released later this year
Many people seem very surprised that Ring Ring is my favourite ABBA album I don't get why they are surprised I love it.
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Post by Michel on Mar 24, 2023 21:32:41 GMT
Whilst it’s good that it’s much easier now, I personally think it’s made us appreciate music much less. Don’t like that song after 10 seconds? No problem, didn’t pay for it so onto something else… Oh yes, I definitely feel the same way. The fact that certain tracks were not easily obtainable made you appreciate them far more when you finally got hold of them. It felt like a treasure that was finally found. It's the same with videos and TV performances. These days you can watch any ABBA video or TV performance from all over the world on YouTube whenever and wherever you want. Back then, when you wanted to see ABBA, you had to be in front of the TV at a specific time when they were scheduled to appear on a TV show in your country or watch the weekly music programme and hope their latest video would be shown. But when it was, it made it all the more special and memorable. |
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Post by gary on Mar 24, 2023 21:54:52 GMT
AdamDawson2003, I must admit I am surprised that Ring Ring is your favourite ABBA album. Tell us why you like it more than the others.
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Post by Alan on Mar 24, 2023 22:48:30 GMT
The Ring Ring video (filmed on the same 1974 day as that for Waterloo) has been remastered in HD, up to 4K.
(This video originally used the 1974 remix, so they’ve obviously changed it. Disappointing that they’re re-writing history).
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Post by AdamDawson2003 on Mar 25, 2023 9:18:40 GMT
AdamDawson2003 , I must admit I am surprised that Ring Ring is your favourite ABBA album. Tell us why you like it more than the others. I just love the songs on the Ring Ring album my favourites are 'Nina Pretty Ballerina', 'Me And Bobby And Bobby's Brother', 'Love Isn't Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough)', 'Another Train, Another Train', Disillusion' & 'Ring Ring' its such a wonderful album I love the front cover and I was thrilled with the Deluxe version in 2013 it would have been nice to have had 'Ah Vilker Tider' & 'Love Has Its Ways' included its hard to describe why its my favourite ABBA album. I do think 'Voulez Vous' is ABBA's best album purely because of what an incredibly fantastic album it is, ABBA are at the very best by this point and for me the songs are just absolutely amazing. |
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Post by Michal on Mar 25, 2023 9:41:48 GMT
AdamDawson2003 , I must admit I am surprised that Ring Ring is your favourite ABBA album. Tell us why you like it more than the others. I always find it curious, when somebody names Ring Ring as a favourite album. But Adam is not alone, I remember there was at least one more member here (was his nick RubberBallMan), who always had the album high in the list of his favourites. Personally I'm with the majority that it is ABBA's weakest album and altough it's not completely bad and I like most of the tracks more or less, I seldom listen to it. I don't like the title track much, on the other hand I have a soft spot for I Am Just A Girl that most people loath  The highligts of the album for me are Nina, Pretty Ballerina and He Is Your Brother. I've always loved the live version of the latter as performed in ABBA The Movie. However, I'm looking forward to the 50th anniversary releases, even if the half-speed mastering doesn't make much sense in this case I think, as the sound is much less complex that on the later albums, so there's probably not much to enhance. The choice of colours for the singles box set could have been better but I think we should have learned by now that people at Universal seem to recognize just the primary colours  |
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Post by gary on Mar 25, 2023 12:50:59 GMT
Thanks Adam. I certainly understand the appeal of the early songs. I like most of them, and a few I love, such as Ring Ring and Another Town, Another Train. But my favourite albums are the more predictable Arrival and The Album, which are probably my favourite pop (as opposed to rock) albums of all time. I think the Waterloo album is an improvement on Ring Ring, as it contains about five or six songs I love.
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Post by Alan on Mar 25, 2023 14:56:37 GMT
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Post by Alan on Mar 25, 2023 15:38:21 GMT
Going back to the different renditions of the Polar artwork… As Hometime said, the large ampersand, font and colours do look good.  The 1990s version of the CD, used for two editions of it, has a rather dodgy ABBA logo and removes the largest photo only to replace it with a brown surround. On the plus side it does at least keep the original font of the album title.  It will depend on tastes (and clearly Adam likes it) but to me the 2001 is all wrong. It does at least restore the largest photo and it’s a much smaller (and correct) ABBA logo, but the colours are wrong and the original font is completely lost. I think, if they had to include the ABBA logo, at least keep the font for the album title. (And same for the ABBA album. As Hometime pointed out, the 2001 is perhaps an improvement on Waterloo as the original [non-UK] unnecessarily had the ABBA name no larger than those of the members)  (This is actually the rare 2001 vinyl that Adam mentioned). |
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Post by HOMETIME on Mar 25, 2023 17:10:24 GMT
It's funny - each version of the cover reflects the aesthetic of the era in which it was released. The original album cover is probably even slightly classier and more restrained than many album covers from that era. The 90s CD has a chunky clunkiness that says 90s (and screams "budget edition"). I can kinda see why they streamlined the logo and fonts for the early noughties reissues - but I'm slightly surprised that it was allowed.
After more than a decade of really shoddy CD releases, the 2001 reissues felt glamorous and respectful. Personally, I think the Waterloo cover was greatly improved by the tweak, but the others are less successful. The logo/titles are disproportionately large for Arrival and The Album. The revised Voulez-Vous design works - it's nice, but unnecessary. They really took liberties with Super Trouper's layout - but it works. The revised layout for The Visitors completely misses the point of the original design by placing the text over the angel.
So I think it's good that the new Ring Ring reissue returns to the original design and layout. I wonder what the critical reception will be in the various mags?
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Post by Julian23 on Mar 25, 2023 18:14:40 GMT
It's funny - each version of the cover reflects the aesthetic of the era in which it was released. The original album cover is probably even slightly classier and more restrained than many album covers from that era. The 90s CD has a chunky clunkiness that says 90s (and screams "budget edition"). I can kinda see why they streamlined the logo and fonts for the early noughties reissues - but I'm slightly surprised that it was allowed. After more than a decade of really shoddy CD releases, the 2001 reissues felt glamorous and respectful. Personally, I think the Waterloo cover was greatly improved by the tweak, but the others are less successful. The logo/titles are disproportionately large for Arrival and The Album. The revised Voulez-Vous design works - it's nice, but unnecessary. They really took liberties with Super Trouper's layout - but it works. The revised layout for The Visitors completely misses the point of the original design by placing the text over the angel. So I think it's good that the new Ring Ring reissue returns to the original design and layout. I wonder what the critical reception will be in the various mags? The Ring Ring box set is a bit of a let down with the choice of coloured vinyl. It is very expensive as well. The Visitors box set will be a much cheaper option as there will only be three singles in that release. According to Ian Cole, The Visitors box set will be released this Christmas. Moving forward to next year, our wallets will be hit hard with Waterloo 50 rapidly hurtling towards us. The Waterloo box set is certainty as will be a separate picture disc and coloured vinyl issue. More wallet emptying 🤣🤣🤣 |
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Post by HOMETIME on Mar 25, 2023 18:44:20 GMT
[...] The Visitors box set will be a much cheaper option as there will only be three singles in that release. According to Ian Cole, The Visitors box set will be released this Christmas. [...] I hope Ian is right - The Visitors is the set I've been most looking forward to. I wonder if TDBYC and UA will be included in the singles box and picture discs? |
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Post by Alan on Mar 25, 2023 19:39:18 GMT
I wonder if TDBYC and UA will be included in the singles box and picture discs? Almost certainly, there’s no where else for them to go. So that’s another five-disc box and picture discs. Not being funny, but it will have been two and a half years since Super Trouper and now we’re set to get three within 12 months. Do we really need them rushed out? If anyone remembers, we got the ABBA album deluxe early (2012) so that they could finish it with Waterloo and Gracias. That Voyage album, how very dare it mess up the release schedule! The Waterloo issue is potentially three or four singles. The question mark is whether they include the Honey Honey/Ring Ring Remix from Germany. My thinking is that they won’t, but we’ll see. |
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Post by Julian23 on Mar 25, 2023 20:08:10 GMT
I wonder if TDBYC and UA will be included in the singles box and picture discs? Almost certainly, there’s no where else for them to go. So that’s another five-disc box and picture discs. Not being funny, but it will have been two and a half years since Super Trouper and now we’re set to get three within 12 months. Do we really need them rushed out? If anyone remembers, we got the ABBA album deluxe early (2012) so that they could finish it with Waterloo and Gracias. That Voyage album, how very dare it mess up the release schedule! The Waterloo issue is potentially three or four singles. The question mark is whether they include the Honey Honey/Ring Ring Remix from Germany. My thinking is that they won’t, but we’ll see. [br Completely forgot about TDBYC and UA. Another five disc boxes set. That could be another 80 quid price tag. If people waited until Christmas I am sure the Ring Ring set will be much cheaper. Does anybody know what the number produced will be, it keeps being increased every time they bring one of these box sets out. They should have kept it at the Arrival figure of 2000 copies. It felt line me you had something well and truly collectable. |
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Post by Alan on Mar 25, 2023 20:35:18 GMT
They should have kept it at the Arrival figure of 2000 copies. It felt line me you had something well and truly collectable. Just tried to search on eBay for the Arrival box, but couldn’t see anything. On Discogs, there are three for sale starting at £352. Very nice and all that, but no where near worth so much. The Arrival and The Album ones were probably the best. Nice colours and proper heavyweight vinyl. The ones since have been standard weight/thickness. It’s the prices of the older sets now that keep me sucked into it. I wouldn’t sell my Arrival box but I’m glad I got it when it was released. |
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Post by HOMETIME on Mar 26, 2023 8:33:28 GMT
[...] On Discogs, there are three for sale starting at £352. Very nice and all that, but no where near worth so much. [...] It’s the prices of the older sets now that keep me sucked into it. I wouldn’t sell my Arrival box but I’m glad I got it when it was released. If Discogs is a reasonable barometer of their worth, then the later sets have not held their value. I think I saw the Super Trouper box listed as being available for less than 20 quid?! |
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Post by Alan on Mar 26, 2023 10:50:10 GMT
Well, today’s the day. Happy Birthday to Ring Ring. Of course, that relates to its release in Sweden only. The rest of the world would have to wait a while - decades in some cases - for it to get a proper issue.
I was 16 months old when it was released in Sweden, and as the members of ABBA had already been working together for a few years, they have spanned my whole life and more.
I’m listening to it now. The Sweden edition, courtesy of the download that came with the coloured vinyl album box a few years ago.
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The highligts of the album for me are Nina, Pretty Ballerina and He Is Your Brother. I've always loved the live version of the latter as performed in ABBA The Movie.
