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Post by Alan on Nov 16, 2024 17:12:59 GMT
PS: Happy New Year is clearly a New Year's Eve/Day/Time song. On the surface, yes, but there’s a lot more to it than that. The second and third verses are much deeper. Little Things is about Christmas morning and not much else. There’s no depth to that. Most of the Christmas records that exist aren’t about New Year, simply because it’s not the same. New Year really is the end of the party. Back to work/school, three months or so of cold, dark weather. Therefore hearing ABBA’s Happy New Year out of season is completely different to hearing, say, Slade or Roy Wood (or any of the others). |
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Post by clumsylikeaclown on Nov 16, 2024 23:58:46 GMT
I have to agree that Little Things should've been a single only. It's a decent song but completely and utterly clashes with the general mood and ambience of Voyage.
My rankings:
1. Don't Shut Me Down
2. I Still Have Faith In You
3. No Doubt About It
4. When You Danced With Me
5. Bumblebee
6. I Can Be That Woman
7. Ode To Freedom
8. Keep An Eye On Dan
9. Just A Notion
10. Little Things
The top two are Gold standard, the next couple are great album tracks which IMO could've fit nicely onto a peak era ABBA album, the next four are still great but not quite on the same level, and the last two are weaker than most of ABBA's back catalogue.
Just A Notion is a pleasant enough listen but it's easy to see why it didn't make the cut on Voulez-Vous the first time around. And the clash between 70s era vocals and 2020s re-recorded backing track is too noticeable. IMO I wish they'd gone the whole hog and added in some new backing vocals - imagine past and present Agnetha and Frida all harmonising!
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Post by bennybjorn on Nov 17, 2024 23:14:21 GMT
1. Don't Shut Me Down
2. No Doubt About It
3. Ode To Freedom
4. Keep an eye
5. Just a notion
6. Bumblebee
7. When you danced
=8. Still have faith/Be that woman
10 Little things
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Post by Dina on Nov 18, 2024 5:06:17 GMT
They should have totally re-recorded JAN. It is jarring and lazy to hear 1970s vocals on the album.
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Post by johnny on Nov 19, 2024 6:24:11 GMT
Don't Shut Me Down is the only one that comes close to the ABBA Classics. Close-but one notch down. 4.5 out of 5, not 5. Gold standard nonetheless
I Still Have You and When You Danced With Me are More Gold standard. I find the lyric "like fighters in the ring" on I Still Have Faith in You a bit irksome and the song is marked down because of that.
I agree Little Things is out of place. Christmas songs don't belong on studio albums.
I always felt JAN was an act of desperation/time-filling. It was spun too as being "something old, something new, like the show". No, they needed an album more than half an hour!
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Post by Alan on Nov 19, 2024 11:29:09 GMT
They should have totally re-recorded JAN. It is jarring and lazy to hear 1970s vocals on the album. There were actually some fans that tried to claim/believe they were all new vocals. When Just A Notion first dropped in the October, I seem to remember it was confirmed early on that they were the 1978 vocals but not everyone got the memo. I remember arguing with someone (on YouTube of all places) that swore blind it was a complete re-recording and that any confirmation of otherwise was wrong! |
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Post by richard on Nov 19, 2024 16:19:59 GMT
Apart from DSMD, would I miss not hearing again the other tracks on the album?, I ask myself; and I don't think I would much. Even ISHFIY doesn't appeal to me as much as it did.
For me, it's an album of missed opportunities - for whatever reason/s. To my ears, a lot of the arrangements are lacking, and sound kind of truncated. I feel that especially about OTF - I think it could have been so much better. As it is, it feels incomplete, somehow.
Along with BB and LT, JAN seems to be one of the less fancied tracks. But I like the melody and vocals. Again, it's the arrangement I don't like, apart from Benny's reiteration of the tune on piano in the outro.
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Post by johnny on Nov 19, 2024 17:05:50 GMT
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Post by matt on Nov 19, 2024 17:45:06 GMT
Neither Little Things or Just A Notion should have been included on the album. If they were going to be released at all, then they could have been a stand-alone Christmas single as a double A-side. Just A Notion received a ton of airplay on Radio 2 in the UK. They just don't fit on the album at all.
They could have been replaced by the two songs not finished: Hit By A Train and the other which title has never been confirmed.
The Atmos mixes on YouTube sounds soo much better and allow the vocals to shine whereas the official mixes sounds very muddy and unfinished.
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Post by ed on Nov 19, 2024 18:42:11 GMT
It was one of my favourite studio albums until recently. Some of the tracks are dwindling in my estimation. I used to quite like " Just A Notion ". However it is a little too weak and should not have been released as a single. " Little Things " is pretty but that's about it. A mistake for the record company to release it as a single. The three I love are Don't Shut Me Down, I Still Have Faith In You and I Can Be That Woman. Even Ode To Freedom although haunting and moving doesn't really sound like ABBA.
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Post by johnny on Nov 19, 2024 18:53:27 GMT
^I think a lot of fans at the time were more pleased about it because it was the first album in 40 years.
On reflection, many not so keen.
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Post by Alan on Nov 19, 2024 18:57:50 GMT
Just A Notion released as a single felt like a case of lampshading. Deliberately attracting attention for the one song that shouldn’t have been on the album. To a lesser extent, the same with Little Things. If you’re going to stick a Christmas song on a studio album, you can’t not then release it as a single.
Just A Notion did indeed receive a lot of airplay on Radio 2. A lot more so, I seem to recall, than either of the first two singles (I can’t actually remember hearing I Still Have Faith in You on the radio, but I must have done). JAN was never going to be a hit, as it’s hard for heritage acts to have hit singles. The first two had a huge amount of novelty value - a long-dead act releases new music after 39 years - but by the time of JAN’s release the novelty had worn off.
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Post by Michel on Nov 19, 2024 19:00:33 GMT
And to think that Just A Notion was rejected twice before it landed on the Voyage album. First during the Voulez-Vous sessions and then again in 1994 when it was meant to be included in full on the box set. I think the song would have been a better fit as a bonus track on the Voulez-Vous Deluxe edition and then in its original version.
Was it really impossible to come up with one more brand new song for the Voyage album. One gets the impression that the inclusion of Just A Notion was indeed an act of desperation. Maybe they were facing a deadline to finish the album and this was the only way to get it done in a short space of time.
One of my least favorites on the album is I Can Be That Woman and then mainly because of its lyrics. There's something awkward about them that I just can't warm to, f.e. the lines that start with "And the dog...". "Dog" is not a word that rings well in an emotional pop ballad. Then you also have cliche rhyming like "I say 'I love you' and I know it's true".
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Post by ed on Nov 19, 2024 19:07:12 GMT
Quite a few tracks on " Voyage " are now becoming something of an acquired taste. Maybe not the classic ABBA of old after all with the exception of DSMD and ISHFIY.
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Post by johnny on Nov 19, 2024 20:18:08 GMT
I only think DSMD isn't far off ABBA Classics but as I said earlier not quite up there.
I think they could have stopped at the first two
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Post by Alan on Nov 20, 2024 7:38:15 GMT
On the plus side, it’s something of an achievement that they could still sound like ABBA at all after 35 years (and more). I don’t think this album embarrasses the rest of their catalogue in any way. And I still can’t agree that they should have stopped at the first two. It had to be a full album.
Plus I’m not the ten year old kid that first heard The Visitors in 1981. Back then in was vinyl (first time around) or cassette but this time there were so many ways of hearing it - I’m not sure an album is the same experience for anyone as it was back then (even those that actually play vinyl).
For so many reasons, I think it would be unfair to try and compare Voyage with their 40-year-old catalogue. They’re not the same people and neither are we.
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Post by justabba on Nov 20, 2024 7:56:55 GMT
Alan I completely agree with you. Yes the 2 singles are the stand out tracks but I hear voyage most days as it's on a memory stick in my car. I still marvel at their sound in when you danced and were they REALLY in their 70s? I never ever expected it to sound like they did years ago so perhaps my enjoyment is heightened by lack of expectations. I love it for what it is, not what it wasent. I shall continue to listen and enjoy ABBA in 2021!
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Post by Visitor1982 on Nov 20, 2024 9:16:13 GMT
01 Don't Shut Me Down **** (out of five stars)
02 Ode to Freedom ****
03 When You Danced With Me ***
04 I Can Be That Woman ***
05 I Still Have Faith In You ***
06 Just A Notion ***
07 Bumble Bee ***
08 No Doubt About It **
09 Keep An Eye On Dan **
10 Little Things *
Marnix
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Post by johnny on Nov 20, 2024 9:16:26 GMT
Voyage isn't an embarrassment, just a bit disappointing. There were always some dodgy songs on ABBA albums but on Voyage really only one song up to their previous standard.
ABBA chose to release an album, in their 70s and after a 40 year gap. And no, I won't make allowances for their age or gap between albums. It is unmistakably ABBA but older more mature. Then again The Visitors (a much better album) was too. So, I am comparing it to other albums. Here's my current list of ABBA Album Rankings
1. The Album
2. The Visitors
3. Arrival
4. ABBA
5. Voulez Vous
6. Super Trouper
7. VOYAGE
8. Waterloo
9. Ring Ring
I think when first released I put it at 5.
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Post by eurovisionaer on Nov 20, 2024 9:47:01 GMT
I'm glad they didn't stop after two songs. For me, Voyage is a gift that I received from good friends. And I'm not comparing it to other presents, am I? Of course I don't like all the songs on the album equally, but I'm happy that I can listen to DSMD OTF and ICBTW again and again. For me, they tie in closely with the overall work.
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Post by Visitor1982 on Nov 20, 2024 15:55:45 GMT
For me, album-wise:
01 The Visitors
02 Super Trouper
03 Voulez-Vous
04 ABBA - The Album
05 Arrival
06 ABBA
07 Voyage
08 Waterloo
09 Ring Ring
Numbers 6 & 7 are a toss-up, really.
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Post by ed on Nov 20, 2024 18:21:28 GMT
My current ranking of all ABBA studio albums,
1. Super Trouper
2. Arrival
3. Voulez-Vous
4. The Visitors
5. Voyage
6. The Album
7. ABBA
8. Waterloo
9. Ring Ring
Voyage has slipped down two places from 3 to 5.
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Post by Tinneke on Nov 20, 2024 18:41:33 GMT
1. Super Trouper
2. Voulez Vous
3. The album
4. Arrival
5. The visitors
6. Abba
7. Voyage
8. Waterloo
9. Ring, ring
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Post by HOMETIME on Nov 22, 2024 8:27:26 GMT
1. The Visitors
2. Voulez-Vous
3. Super Trouper
4. The Album
5. Voyage
6. Arrival
7. ABBA
8. Waterloo
9. Ring, Ring
It's not a particularly scientific ranking on my part. If it was built on how often I play a given album, then Voyage would probably be at number 3.
While I was browsing the other day, I noticed that Chron had made a couple of posts in this thread, including a potentially cat-amongst-the-pigeons observation. It's a pity he deleted his comments: they're precisely the kind of conversations we should be having. Come back, Chron!!
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Post by gary on Nov 22, 2024 10:15:36 GMT
Voyage above Arrival! Provocative! 😉
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