Waterloo 50th / BBC Documentary / Other Anniversary Events

Alan - The Definitive Collection did okay in terms of sales. In the "Grand Slam" markets (UK, Germany, Australia, US) for ABBA they sold over a million. Probably 2 million plus globally - about the same as Voyage. Yep the Essential Collection bombed.

Richard- Agreed. The Voyage album did suggest a lack of creativity and energy. Some good tracks but overall a bit "meh".

The runners and riders for the 2 non-released Voyage songs?

Definitive Collection update
This seems to me the most likely option.

Personally I would go with a More Gold update - the first 2 Voyage singles, 2 new Voyage songs, songs from Mamma Mia eg Slipping Through My Fingers, When I Kissed the Teacher. Songs from the Voyage show eg Hole in Your Soul, The Visitors. And of course "forgotten" singles like Ring Ring or The Day Before You Came

Voyage Deluxe or bonus track CD
is possible but less likely. The time has passed and limited appeal in that album.

Than you for the Music Box Set update
I can't see B+B wanting to revive the disc with rarities, unreleased etc

Anthology
No chance.

If we get nowt then at least there is the reissue of Happy New Year on coloured vinyl.

Not as exciting as new material, but better than sod all - which is what we have up to now.

I reckon the time is right for this kind of compilation. For some songs, it would be their first time on an official collection (other than those dodgy "lucky bag" CDs that were sold at garages back in the day). And those more thoughtful selections would sit a lot better alongside a couple of new tracks, I reckon. If they're good songs but not Singles™, they have a better chance of fair assessment among deeper cuts - albeit deeper cuts that have had their profile raised by a musical and a ground-breaking concert presentation. That's just my tuppence-ha'penny, anyway.

With Gold's unsurmountable role as the vehicle for the very biggest hits, a broader collection becomes more interesting. I think it would be worth managing our expectations about its short-term commercial performance, and focus on its longer-term role as a reminder that not every gem was a single, that some songs elevated movies/stage shows in interesting ways. It might not become a 1000-week resident of the charts, but it would probably sell well. No doubt, the matter of how many formats there are will boost the initial chart placings. Can't help thinking it'd sell even better, maybe (initially), if the promotional hook and context of the 50th Anniversary is properly employed.

My main hope is that it's handled with class and dignity. Elegant artwork for sure. Some proper thought put into the sequencing of tracks and the versions chosen. The sort of thing that, alongside Gold, would give you the ultimate capsule collection and encourage you to plan a trip to the Voyage show in the future.

But what if we get nothing at all?!

I must admit I rarely post these days, but I do pop in just in case of anything new. Which looking a the last few threads, is not a lot if anything. Like a few on here I’m disappointed in this so called celebratory year, but you can’t please us all.
I’m still hopeful that we will get something before Christmas, whatever that may be, I hope it includes something new/unheard.
I’m afraid if nothing that will be it, all over. I understand those who collect whatever format comes out, but for me it’s all the same in different guises.
One final hurrah and I’d be happy, but only 4 months left and no sign and no real rumours, I’ll keep those fingers crossed,
Then it’s probably goodbye….

Yes, there is the self titled album from 1975 as box set/coloured vinyls. But the picture were all black and white if I remember rightly. The typeface was a different colour for each single, so maybe that will determine the vinyl colour for each single. I reckon we should be hearing something about that next February.

I supposed the half-speed remaster isn’t out of the question but I’d be surprised, considering it didn’t get the coloured vinyl or picture disc treatment in recent years. A singles box and picture discs are unlikely as it was just original Polar singles (with one or two exceptions) which were reissued in these sets.

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum. My pick would also be the two leftover Voyage songs to be released and (or actually on) a new compilation. Fairly enough, it might be more what I wish for than what I really might consider likely. There might be nothing at all after the so far disappointing anniversary year and disheartening statements by B&B over the last time. I agree we will soon know anyway; if there is be a release for the Christmas market, we would definitively have to hear about it by September. So, I guess one can still hope a little, for now.

I agree that Gold is firmly established as the go-to ABBA Greatest Hits compilation. It has become a classic in itself and the group's most successful release ever. When thinking about a possible new compilation, it would have to supplement it rather than it trying to renew or replace Gold. This would probably point more towards a 2-CD compilation in the likes of The Definitive/Essential Collection. It would also be a 3-vinyl set nowadays, similar to the 2014 Wembley album. I really like the idea of it being called "ABBA Platinum" some of you discussed earlier in this thread, in conjunction with the new platin-looking 50th anniversary ABBA logo. After all, platinum comes after gold and has the anniversary logo really been put into proper use yet?

Its tracklist could include songs that have become popular through the Mamma Mia movies, like "When I Kissed The Teacher", "Why Did It Have To Be Me", "Angeleyes", and let's not forget "Our Last Summer" and "Slipping Through My Fingers", plus songs which are included in the Voyage show, like "The Visitors" and "Hole In Your Soul". Some of them have become streaming or TikTok trends lately, and the tracklist could reflect that. Then, it would certainly include at least the two Voyage lead singles "I Still Have Faith In You" and "Don't Shut Me Down", which are of course also featured in the show. This would make it the first and maybe only outing of Voyage tracks together with songs from the 1972–1982 period. It wouldn't be an entirely pointless compilation.

Someone of you referred to a rumour of a new compilation "with the new (Voyage) tracks and different versions of familiar songs" allegedly being in preparation earlier in this thread. Regardless if this is true or not (I wish!), I like the idea very much and would like to look a little further into what could be possible here. Some of you have mentioned the "Thank You For The Music" box set as a model of combining a career rundown with releases of new material. Not only does this box set have its own 2024 anniversary; we may remember that it started from Carl Magnus Palm's first edition of "The Complete Recording Session" (1993) and that he has released a new and thoroughly reworked edition in 2017. He even recently added a chapter on the Tretow tapes to it in "ABBA On Record". The 2017 book release has, as some of you have pointed out, already lead to a handful of unreleased ABBA songs being performed once by a pianist and singers to an exclusive public back then. Obviously, B&B have had some look into it. It might sound trivial, but by the revised book, CMP also gave B&B themselves a catalogue of what's actually there. In particular he covered recordings that hadn't really been discussed amongst the batch of unreleased stuff before, like the 1977 and 1979 tour rehearsals. The 2017 concert included one track each of them, "So Simple" (early "I Wonder") and "Been And Gone And Done It" (early "Gimme Gimme Gimme"). I can well imagine Benny would also approve these for a proper release and them being included on a "ABBA Platinum" compilation. After all, he also approved the full-length run-through of "Like An Angel Passing Through My Room" at the end of the "From A Twinkling Star…" medley after having been presented the digitized tapes in the early 2010s, and he even stated he liked it.

CMP also unearthed the tapes available from the live versions included in The Movie and clarified in what condition they actually are. A good handful of them are full length and in apparently fully presentable state. I hadn't known they were actually re-recorded in the studio to some degree, but I don't mind at all: they sound stunningly great, a lot of them as good if not better than the album versions, and at least some of them should really be released unedited and in full quality audio, after even having already being snippeted for the Live 77 flexi disc or remixed for Live 1986. I could well see "Why Did It Have To Be Me", "Money Money Money" or "When I Kissed The Teacher" appearing in these live versions on a "ABBA Platinum" compilation. On top of that, there could even be some Voyage live recordings (maybe "SOS" after having already been snippeted in the initial trailer for the show?) or any further early versions, demos, alternate takes, … anything would be more than welcome of course. It wouldn't have to be all unreleased material, the classic versions could still make up the bulk of it.

The crowning jewels would of course be the two leftover Voyage songs. They are easily my #1 wish for any new release whatsoever. I imagine "Hit By A Train" to be a final, glorious outing of a full-scale uptempo ABBA song, while I imagine "My Story Ends With You" to be a possibly toned-down, but grandiose and emotional 5 minute ballad – and what a title to close a legacy of 50 years it would be. This would really be B&B saying: this is the end, and bring real closure to ABBA, something the group never had from 1983–2016. Overall, I would say, everything would fall into places and there would be no better opportunity than now.

All posts regarding the new compilation should go here to avoid any duplication:

abbachat.com/thread/1899/compilation-abba-singles-first-years

Unlikely that anything else will be released. Nothing of interest anyway. They’re scraping the barrel with this compilation as it is.

Love the idea of tapping into the recorded rehearsals!

There's one title I've never seen/heard of before: Sinking Deeper. What can you tell us?!

Yes, it’s mentioned in the “List of unreleased songs recorded by ABBA” on Wikipedia, but doesn’t give any other details than gassi has, just, “"Sinking Deeper" is the possible working title of a demo of a song recorded in October 1981.”

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unreleased_songs_recorded_by_ABBA

[Hit By A Train is mentioned but “My Story Ends With You” isn’t. Where did that title come from, was it just a rumour?]

Well, we all wish now that they had kept them secret.

If there’s really no hope of a release of them by ABBA, it would seem hard to believe that Benny hasn’t recycled them into BAO. If they’re “quite good”, why on earth wouldn’t he?

But I’ve still got zero interest in BAO.

Well, this is a dividing line between some of us. I see no reason at all why ABBA should release early versions, completed but unreleased, demos or discarded.

It is totally selfish - and obsessive, for some fans who ask for more, and indeed of anything and everything.

It's true there's a risk of being, shall we say, overzealous in our (and my!) enthusiasm for unreleased material. If ABBA Undeleted and the various CMP books have told us anything, it's that many of these titles are often attached to short, incomplete, unmixed pieces. Unsatisfying. An album of those kinds of things might be fascinating to many, but a migraine-in-waiting for many more. Any yet there's probably a fantastic balance to be struck by folding some of these pieces through an anthology: brainstorming/sketches/rewrites alongside the pristine final versions could give a greater understanding of exactly how hard ABBA worked. More like an audiobook than an album, in a way. A whole album of documentary tracks like FATSTAPA might (or might not) be overkill, but that track is a hint of how interesting something like The Chiquitita Story could be. And maybe an ABBA Undeleted II track might not be the worst thing ever to happen - especially if it were a bit shorter, and split into a few parts.

I doubt any of us really thinks that the sweepings of the cutting room floor would make for a particularly fabulous release. But a morsel or two thoughtfully placed on a more considered compilation would be much less of a rip-off than the current Spotify playlist in a garish sleeve.

Exactly.