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Post by rickyrocknroller on Oct 9, 2024 13:24:07 GMT
[New topic split from another - the following post refers to More Gold (1993)]: There's plenty of really good album tracks that could be described as "the other side of ABBA". It seems odd to include B Sides. In the case of Lovelight not good enough to make VV... Many of the B-sides hadn't been readily available on CD, only occasionally on local and by then out of print compilations. So it was intended to make them available, as a supplement to the albums. The concept with More Gold then shifted towards including a few good ones in combination with additional A-sides not on the albums (SNC, TDBYC, UA), some album tracks plus and unreleased track (IATC). That's how I Wonder got there - initially as the B-side to TNOTG Live Version, which Michael B. Tretow pleaded to be changed to the album version, as Michal pointed out. Making all B-sides available on CD was then carried out in 1994 with the TYFTM box set (sans the TACOM Live B-side to IHAD). For several B-sides taht hadn't been grabbed by local compilations like YOMO, Crazy World or the Medley, this was the first CD release ever. |
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Post by Alan on Oct 9, 2024 15:37:40 GMT
Plus it was the alternate mix of Lovelight that made it onto More Gold. I think that had only been released in West Germany originally. I think More Gold was a good compilation, certainly at the time, if less so now. At least there’s no Love Isn’t Easy (or, indeed, any Ring Ring single aside from the title track).
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Post by rickyrocknroller on Oct 10, 2024 14:59:48 GMT
Yes Alan , however on the West German single, Lovelight was the common mix with earlier fade out. More Gold was the first time the alternate mix was released. Legend has it Michael B. Tretow accidentially picked the wrong tape from the shelf. Recently, I've come to question this story though, not least cause the alternate mix sounds so much better to my ears: crisper, shinier, better blended. The common mix also goes on for too long and has no clean fade-out, with two random drum hits being noticeably there, which is why the West German single faded it out earlier in the first place. In comparison, the common mix to me almost sounds like a rough first try to mix it, and the alternate mix getting it right, also with the edits (many ABBA tracks were tightened only during the mixing). And would someone as knowledgeable as Tretow really pick a wrong tape from the shelf and not notice it during the whole remastering process he did, when at the same time he insisted on the album version instead of the Live B-Side of I Wonder being included for how it sounds? Even more so: had he really made a mistake with More Gold, why did he continue to include the "faulty" alternate mix on the TYFTM box the following year? Neither this nor More Gold were particularly rushed releases - unlike the 16 January 1979 Chiquitia single that was quickly pushed onto the market after ABBA's apperance with the A-side on the 9 January Unicef Gala, and with a new single being long overdue after a planned IIWFTN single for December 1978 had been cancelled. So could it be the picking of the wrong tape off the shelf did in fact happen, however not with More Gold, but with the 1979 single? And Michael B. Tretow then correcting the mistake on the 1993/94 releases, for he knew which mix was the proper one?
Funnily, and possibly significantly, even on the upload of TYFTM to streaming services, Lovelight simply appears as "Lovelight" without any reference to the alternate mix, whereas the common mix gets flagged out as "Lovelight - Original Mix" on the Voulez-Vous album. |
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Post by Alan on Oct 10, 2024 19:30:02 GMT
Interesting suggestion, rickyrocknroller. But remember that Gold/More Gold/4-CD set did also originally have edits of The Name of the Game, Voulez-Vous and The Visitors, all of which were corrected for the 1999 re-release. I don’t think maximum CD lengths increased in that time to allow it. The wrong tapes selected seems to be more common than you might think. And as recently as 2014 an alternative mix of Andante, Andante surfaced. Also there was another mix of Man In The Middle doing the rounds at some point. What annoyed me about the Lovelight mix is that it didn’t have the “Let it glow and let it be bright” lines at the end, which I remembered but hadn’t heard for years. As I didn’t get the 1999 More Gold, it wasn’t until the 2001 reissues that I finally heard the original mix of Lovelight again and it was good to have those missing lines back! Actually I’m not sure they were restored in 1999 - the CD singles set from that year appears to have an edit. |
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Post by rickyrocknroller on Oct 10, 2024 22:13:20 GMT
The 1999 CD singles set does indeed have the West German edit re-created because the set is based on the German Polydor singles. You're right, Alan , about the edits of TNOTG, VV and TV on the early Gold versions and TYFTM (albeit TV appearing full length on the 4-CD set). As far as I know, VV and TV were indeed deliberate choices to save playing time. The maximum CD length indeed hadn't increased by 1999, but the length that was deemed safe to fill up to had. The TNOTG edit was due to the mixdown tape crazily having been used for that patch promo edit, and the second verse was only rediscovered by Tretow sliced to the very end of the tape while producing the 2001 remasters. The 2014 Andante Andante alternate mix to me shows exactly the difference to Lovelight. Today's Polar/Universal people seem to know quite less about "the vault" and the recording process than Tretow, and with a highly complex release with no less than 40 individual singles to be mastered at the same time from original tapes, it doesn't surprise me at all they picked a wrong tape. The Man In The Middle mix surfaced on the 1986 Japanese Polydor CD pressing of the ABBA album, but it's identical to the usual mix other than the low echo effect after the last "in the middle (middle middle middle...)" is missing. That effect was a suggestion by Michael B. Tretow, but B&B insisted on him to take it out. Tretow still sneaked it in once in the common version. The alternate mix probably comes from a tape Tretow prepared for B&B for approval.
How it found its way on a Japanese cutting tape is strange, but these kind of things apparently happened. There's also the so-called alternate mix of Head Over Heels that contains an actual first chorus whereas the common version has the second chorus copied and patched in as the first. It's on the tape that was used to master the Deluxe Edition of The Visitors - probably a wrong one as well, that today's Polar/Universal folks considered the proper one (again showing they don't safely navigate through the vaults). |
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Post by Alan on Oct 11, 2024 7:57:59 GMT
Ah yes, I’d forgotten about the Head Over Heels mix rickyrocknroller. So the deluxe version contains two different chorus vocals instead of the second one used twice as in the standard version? Just listening to it now. I can detect a couple of minor differences in the way the lines are delivered. This is my one remaining hope for The Singles 50 release. I’m hoping some rare mix we’ve not heard before sneaks onto that somewhere. If not then, aside from The Essential Collection (and the quickly forgotten Number Ones), it will rank as the most boring ABBA compilation release ever. I love the Andante Andante alternative mix. I like the accordion on it. It’s a different vocal take from Frida as well isn’t it? Or if it isn’t, the vocals are processed differently. The whole thing seems lighter than the standard mix. I prefer it. On the subject of Andante Andante, it was played on Radio 2 the other week. Can’t remember who played it, think it was Tina Daheley standing in for Jeremy Vine. The cynic in me wonders if these unheard mixes slip out deliberately in order to help sell the product. The 2014 40-singles box was quite an expensive purchase (but it would probably be at least double that if issued now). It appeared to offer nothing new in terms of audio but then it became clear about that mix. With nothing to sell The Singles 50 on to fans, can we dare hope that someone has “accidentally” selected the wrong tape of something? |
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Post by Alan on Oct 11, 2024 10:11:30 GMT
Just listened to the alternative mix of Man in the Middle, rickyrocknroller and can tell the difference but as you say, it’s only that one bit. I kind of assumed there were other differences but clearly not! The worst alternative mix of all (though it doesn’t count as such as it’s a re-creation) is the 1999 re-edit of Eagle with an edit point error that’s very obvious. Sadly it continues to re-surface even though the original single edit (or an exact re-creation of it) appeared on The Album deluxe. The error edit was part of the rubbish loudness war era, with Jon Astley cast as the villain of the piece. This period did at least see some rarities surface though, such as the two Ring Ring remixes and the extended Voulez-Vous. |
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Post by rickyrocknroller on Oct 11, 2024 11:05:01 GMT
Ah yes, I’d forgotten about the Head Over Heels mix rickyrocknroller . So the deluxe version contains two different chorus vocals instead of the second one used twice as in the standard version? Just listening to it now. I can detect a couple of minor differences in the way the lines are delivered. Yes, one can notice the difference at the line "she's a girl with a taste for the world" and then with the beat going straight instead of the triple drum hit. What I find so particularly disappointing with The Singles 50 in comparison with The Essential Collection and Number Ones is they at least had a CD+DVD concept going. The Essential Collection was essentially an update of the Definitive Collection to match up the DVD trackwise; it still comes out worse than the original release and wasn't exactly needed. Number Ones was indeed pointless, but the DVD offers a rather substential bonus section of TV appearances that's not readily available physically, that's what I like it for in my collection (the DVD that is to say). The Singles 50 seems to try to re-invent the wheel going back to The Singles 10, but what came out of it, is just ill-fated: the proportions are wrong, it's badly-designed, it's just so pointless. It's nice these tapes get selected accidentally or "accidentally". I agree the Andante Andante alternate mix is beautiful and distinct, it's so nice we have it. So The Singles 50 mastering engineers, feel free to go ahead... |
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Post by bjorenny on Oct 11, 2024 11:23:59 GMT
If you could pick one track on ABBA 50 to be 'accidentally' released as an early/alternate mix, which would you choose as your track of choice? I know that it's a bit of a strange question as we haven't actually heard any of the other mixes, and the ones that have been released have been reasonably subtle differences (apart from Lovelight) so it's not like we're going to get the 6 minute version of DYMK but even so... I'd like an earlier mix of SNC from the countless attempts they tried, to see what they thought the issue was with it. Not gonna happen, but fun to speculate.
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Post by rickyrocknroller on Oct 11, 2024 11:30:41 GMT
I agree, SNC would be among the most interesting options. Also Eagle, there's a natural mix which CMP describes as a la the 2nd verse from the Every Good Man demo. There's also an unreleased single mix of UA from November 1982 that's differently mixed and with cold ending - would nicely fall into place on a singles compilation. (Of course, probably not gonna happen.)
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Post by Alan on Oct 11, 2024 12:21:22 GMT
rickyrocknroller, yes, the DVDs of those two earlier compilations did make up for the lack of interest in the audio. Even The Essential Collection DVD offered two Spanish videos for the first time. So yes, The Singles 50, with no DVD and no unreleased audio (that we know of yet anyway) looks to officially be the worst proper, full-price ABBA compilation ever.
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Post by HOMETIME on Oct 11, 2024 14:04:55 GMT
This thread reminds me why I like More Gold so much. It delivered much more than might have been expected of an "also ran" compilation. The rare edit of The Visitors. The (then) rare edit of Eagle. The alternate mix of Lovelight. A previously unreleased track. And it still managed to serve 13 A-sides among its 20 tracks. True, the running order might have been a bit wonky and the logo was wrong, but its original incarnation was a bit of a prize. It always baffled me that fans complained so hard and loud that the rarity versions were replaced by the ten-a-penny originals. Why? Surely offering something different was the whole point? If it ever gets tarted up for a new vinyl edition, I hope the rarities are restored.
Thinking of it now, "The Other Side of ABBA" could still be a great hook/premise for a new compilation. It could have all of the treats that we all brainstormed on the other thread about what we'd like for an anniversary release.
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Post by Alan on Oct 11, 2024 14:43:52 GMT
Attempting a list of all of them (as long as they were officially released). This will probably be a work-in-progress. Excluding the non-English language versions, even though many of the Spanish ones do have different mixes. Live versions generally excluded apart from one or two exceptions: Major differences to standard mix:Ring Ring (1974 Remix, Single version) Ring Ring (US Remix) Waterloo (Alternative mix) I Wonder (Live version)* Thank You For The Music (Doris Day version) Summer Night City (Full length version) Lovelight (Alternative mix) Voulez-Vous (Extended remix) On and On and On (Full length version, either stereo or mono) Andante, Andante (Alternative mix) Head Over Heels (Deluxe version - different first chorus take) Minor differences:Man In The Middle (Alternative mix) Eagle (Error 1999 edit) Take A Chance On Me (Live version, alternative mix) Medley (1978 mix, though identical to 1975 apart from added compression) Dream World (“Cold” opening, not fade-in) The Way Old Friends Do (modern version separated from LAYLOM and missing some of the applause on either side) Should I Laugh Or Cry (with count-in) I Am The City (2008 remaster to correct fault, and now at correct speed) Edits (edit points, not early fades):The Name Of The Game (second verse missing) Eagle (1978 single edit) The Visitors (1993 More Gold edit) Voulez-Vous (1992 Gold edit) DVD-onlyWhen I Kissed The Teacher (ABBA-Dabba-Doo video version - added from HOMETIME’s suggestion below] If It Wasn’t For The Nights (Japan version - added from rickyrocknroller’s suggestion below) When All Is Said and Done (Alternative mix) *Included in this list as it was the first version of the song released. I’m sure I’ll have missed some, or got some wrong. Anyone? |
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Post by rickyrocknroller on Oct 11, 2024 15:07:22 GMT
Well-compiled Alan. WAISAD is correct, though I can't tell which DVDs (or VHS even) use it and which dub it by the common version. To DVD-only, I'd add the alternative mix of IIWFTN from the ABBA in Japan DVD. It's not only a great one (more straightforward, more gripping and somewhat more groovy to me than the album version), but it's one of the most significant ones. When ABBA travelled to Japan in late November 1978, they went there with IIWFTN as their next single, and that in this mix, maybe even in this edit. It went as far as a vinyl cutting session had been booked for December, but it was called off in favour of Chiquitita. The IIWFTN alternate mix also was broadcast on the radio in Japan during the trip and also features on the documentary. It's way more than a "Japanese TV Mix" as it's sometimes labelled, it's a misunderstanding to compare it with the UK TV mixes that were done in a deliberately stripped down or altered way to match BBC requirements. Kudos to the Polar/Universal folks for including it in stereo on the DVD. |
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Post by Alan on Oct 11, 2024 15:27:01 GMT
WAISAD is correct, though I can't tell which DVDs (or VHS even) use it and which dub it by the common version.. I’ve since consulted Ian Cole’s ABBA Omnibus site. It was originally released on ABBA Music Show 3 VHS in 1983, then on the deluxe DVD of The Visitors. All other releases of the video use the standard mix. |
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Post by HOMETIME on Oct 11, 2024 15:31:54 GMT
The DVD-only criterion allows for the earlier, boogie-woogie version of Does Your Mother Know, and the shorter/edited version of Lovers. I'm not sure if the alternative mix of When I Kissed The Teacher is on DVD or just the VHS of More Gold. And did the version of Take A Chance On Me with the acapella ending make it to DVD? I think it did. The cold-ended version of Under Attack escaped on to a compilation some years ago, and is on a DVD. There's also a live version of Summer Night City on that Swedish compilation, Antligen Sommarlov - most likely a different mix to the Wembley album.
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Post by Alan on Oct 11, 2024 15:49:05 GMT
Adding the DVD bit does open a can of worms doesn’t it?! The alternative mix of When I Kissed The Teacher was released on the Arrival deluxe DVD (apparently its only commercial release) but yes, it counts. With rickyrocknroller mentioning why the Japan version of If It Wasn’t For The Nights counts but the UK Mike Yarwood version doesn’t, I think we need some consensus on what are prepared-for-TV versions and what are genuine mixes that may have later been released on audio had they not been worked upon further and released in their familiar mixes? |
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There's plenty of really good album tracks that could be described as "the other side of ABBA". It seems odd to include B Sides. In the case of Lovelight not good enough to make VV...Many of the B-sides hadn't been readily available on CD, only occasionally on local and by then out of print compilations. So it was intended to make them available, as a supplement to the albums. The concept with More Gold then shifted towards including a few good ones in combination with additional A-sides not on the albums (SNC, TDBYC, UA), some album tracks plus and unreleased track (IATC). That's how I Wonder got there - initially as the B-side to TNOTG Live Version, which Michael B. Tretow pleaded to be changed to the album version, as Michal pointed out. Making all B-sides available on CD was then carried out in 1994 with the TYFTM box set (sans the TACOM Live B-side to IHAD). For several B-sides taht hadn't been grabbed by local compilations like YOMO, Crazy World or the Medley, this was the first CD release ever.
