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Post by wombat on Feb 28, 2017 17:18:54 GMT
^^^^
There was a funny moment in the USA TV show "welcome to Sweden" where Bjorn looks an investor right in the eye and says, "Why would I want any more money?"
I can sort of see Bjorn doing little things like this, TV appearances, etc... to keep the Abba interest up, for whatever reasons.. he doesnt need the money but perhaps he likes the attention or something like that. I dont have any idea what he thinks of course.
Benny often sounds like he is saying, "Abba is dead. I've been doing my own music for 30 years now. Dont ask me about Abba anymore. Go ask Bjorn". LOL
Then he turns around and does things like getting his son to mix the Wembley concert. Weird. Does he say one thing and then do another?
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Post by lovepigeon on Feb 28, 2017 20:07:25 GMT
No matter where such a one-off event is held, it would be "centric" to that city. Perhaps in the sense that it is logistically easier for people already in or close to that city to attend, but that doesn't mean the event is geared towards them. It's a Swedish guy talking about a Swedish group to a bunch of people who have travelled from far and wide to hear him. It just happens to be happening in London. Why would anyone suggest that that's a bad thing? ...I can't deny that this kind of elitist thing leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. What's elitist about it? I've seen someone else make similar comments elsewhere, and it's stuff like this that I'm getting a whiff of bitterness from. Maybe it's not bitterness and I've just misunderstood the context, but I don't see why anyone would think that people would be purposefully excluded. |
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Post by Michal on Feb 28, 2017 21:00:32 GMT
^^^^ Benny often sounds like he is saying, "Abba is dead. I've been doing my own music for 30 years now. Dont ask me about Abba anymore. Go ask Bjorn". LOL I have the same feeling sometimes... I guess he was trying to distance himself from that part of his life/career since he just wanted to move on instead of looking back constantly. However it seems he's already come to terms with the fact that he will forever be associated with ABBA and he's finally starting to be comfortable with it, maybe because ABBA is much more acclaimed these days. And that's probably the reason why he finally gave his blessing to the live album, even having his son mix, it or why he bothered to share the demos of Like An Angel Passing Through My Room. And I believe that whatever he says about the unreleased stuff, we will get something more from the vaults one day for the very same reason. |
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Post by WATERLOO on Mar 1, 2017 9:51:20 GMT
I just don't understand why you don't release all that stuff somewhere. of course, Universal would love to label Just Like That as a new ABBA-song and release it as a single. But there are so many other ways. Benny could offer a download through MonoMusic.se (maybe even without announcing it so you have to find it yourself) or they could have pressed a CD or offer a download code in conjunction with the book. I can understand how they don't want the media to jump at such a release but there are means to give the hard-core fans a little treat.
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Post by Michal on Mar 1, 2017 10:04:06 GMT
or they could have pressed a CD or offer a download code in conjunction with the book Well, THAT would be unfair. If they made it available just for those who ordered the book, all those negative reactions we are reading here would be justified. And I'm saying this in spite of the fact that I would be the "chosen one" :-) Even if they announced such thing beforehand (i.e. all who would pre-order the book would be given, say, a CD with demos), it would be a bad thing to do - milking of the fans indeed... |
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Post by Michal on Mar 1, 2017 10:35:38 GMT
What never ending excitement, one has, being an ABBA Fan in the 21st Century..... What kind of excitement do you expect from being a fan of a band that split up 35 years ago?  Let us be fair... there has beens loads of more or less exciting ABBA-related activities and releases in the 21st century (all those Deluxe editions, ABBA The Movie restored and released on Blu-ray, official photo book, complete concert on CD, ABBAWorld, ABBA The Museum, 2 new solo albums by Agnetha, countless concerts by Benny, Kristina both in concert and theatrical format...) Is that not enough for a band that never had a comeback? Oh yes, I've forgotten.. we got just one medley of demos this century... too bad!  |
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Post by wombat on Mar 1, 2017 15:38:51 GMT
What kind of excitement do you expect from being a fan of a band that split up 35 years ago? That's been my question all along. How much outcry really, is there for these unreleased tidbits? Is it just a handful of fans on a forum... or are there really large numbers of people asking for it all the time? How were the sales for the recent Wembley Live album? Did it sell like hotcakes, off the charts... or was it merely "respectable"? |
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Post by Michal on Mar 1, 2017 16:20:09 GMT
What kind of excitement do you expect from being a fan of a band that split up 35 years ago? How were the sales for the recent Wembley Live album? Did it sell like hotcakes, off the charts... or was it merely "respectable"? I've read somewhere that the worldwide sales were around 85000 copies. I must admit I was shocked at first - so few? But it seems it's enough for Universal otherwise they wouldn't bother releasing anything else. Maybe with decreasing sales of CDs generally it is quite good? Who knows how much e.g. Madonna is selling these days? But I guess the demand for the unreleased stuff or rarities is low at the general public and another reissue of ABBA Gold might sell more than a compilation of demos... Nevertheless I'm quite sure Universal would release it if they were allowed so it's certainly not about money. |
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Post by josef on Mar 1, 2017 16:22:45 GMT
As far as I know Just Like That that is the ''Holy Grail'' of ABBA songs. Thing is, I have it in all its versions and quite like it but I rarely listen to it. I can understand how it didn't quite cut the mustard. The subject has been done to death in the past. As for sales, I think ABBA still sell steadily but not in the millions. The onlyabbaforme man is the one to ask about sales figures.
The one thing I really AM looking forward to is this ABBA Virtual Tour thingymajig that's in the pipeline. Now, that sounds exciting!
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Post by lovepigeon on Mar 1, 2017 16:54:03 GMT
Last night, I was blocked from a certain Facebook group for asking this very question. What in heavens is going on? |
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Post by Alan on Mar 1, 2017 17:16:42 GMT
^^ If it's the group I think it is, then join the club. Quite a few of us have been blocked in recent years. If it's the other group, it was briefly archived last night then unarchived this morning.
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Post by lovepigeon on Mar 1, 2017 18:02:02 GMT
It was A.B.B.A The Music Still Goes On And On And On. Perhaps I wasn't blocked then. It's now reappearing in my search and it still says I'm a member, but I can't see any content. Oh, this is bizarre. As was the behaviour I encountered last night.
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Post by wombat on Mar 1, 2017 18:10:42 GMT
I've read somewhere that the worldwide sales were around 85000 copies. I must admit I was shocked at first - so few? But it seems it's enough for Universal otherwise they wouldn't bother releasing anything else. Maybe with decreasing sales of CDs generally it is quite good? Who knows how much e.g. Madonna is selling these days? But I guess the demand for the unreleased stuff or rarities is low at the general public and another reissue of ABBA Gold might sell more than a compilation of demos... Nevertheless I'm quite sure Universal would release it if they were allowed so it's certainly not about money. 85000 for a live album that, in my opinion, failed to meet expectations... doesnt surprise me, and like you said, sales of CDs in general, seems to be down all over the place. Abba isnt the hot ticket they once were. I wonder how many people say they LOVE them yet only have Abba Gold. It is a really great album, if thats the only one you have. Lots of great stuff on it. Because of all this, I wonder if Universal would actually release a bunch of unfinished or nearly finished or in whatever state of recently unearthed Abba songs, on a CD by themselves. I suppose they would, but part of me wonders if they would try and tie it into yet another release of Gold or something like that. New Abba Gold Double-Disc deluxe with bonus CD of rarities! Get yours now while we beat that dead horse ONE MORE TIME BABY!!!! |
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Post by Michal on Mar 1, 2017 19:10:21 GMT
^^ ABBA Live at Wembley failed to meet expectations? What do you mean? For me it is by far the best ABBA-related release of 2014... But I can understand that for ordinary ABBA Gold owners it's probably not that interesting.
And you're right... A CD with just demos on it is highly unlikely. If Universal was given a chance to release such a material, I suppose it would be a part of another career retrospective compilation in the vein of the Thank You For The Music box set. To be honest, I wouldn't mind. I learned from EMI that it could be worse... Roxette used to release compilation after compilation of the same old hits with additional two new songs that you couldn't get anywhere else...
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Post by lovepigeon on Mar 1, 2017 19:30:54 GMT
Perhaps I wasn't blocked then. Nope, I was right. He's well and truly blocked my arse off. |
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Post by wombat on Mar 2, 2017 17:46:00 GMT
^^ ABBA Live at Wembley failed to meet expectations? What do you mean? For me it is by far the best ABBA-related release of 2014... But I can understand that for ordinary ABBA Gold owners it's probably not that interesting. And you're right... A CD with just demos on it is highly unlikely. If Universal was given a chance to release such a material, I suppose it would be a part of another career retrospective compilation in the vein of the Thank You For The Music box set. To be honest, I wouldn't mind. I learned from EMI that it could be worse... Roxette used to release compilation after compilation of the same old hits with additional two new songs that you couldn't get anywhere else... The sound was awful. Especially the drums, which seemed to have liberal amounts of fake digital reverb puked all over them. A dense, murky mix. I dont know, maybe that was true and accurate, maybe that's how it really sounded at the venue, at the time. I thought it was pretty bad... from Abba, I expected a lot better in terms of sound. Then there were the sales numbers. I dont know what everybody else expected.. but I guess I would have thought Abba was more popular than 85000. Maybe thats really impressive in today's era of single song downloads. And I've talked to several other big fans who frankly just didnt like the album, for whatever reasons. My car stereo seemed to hate it... the CD got stuck in there and now I cant get it out ;-) Hey, cant please everybody you know. |
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Post by Michal on Mar 3, 2017 19:05:46 GMT
^^ Well, to be honest, I was a bit disappointed by the sound quality at first too but somehow I got used to it. Maybe that's really how it sounded back then and it's a raw mix with no overdubbing or any other improvement. Another aspect to get used to was Agnetha's vocals on certain songs. But after listening to it a few times I really like the album. I hope that we will get the 1977 tour as well. I've heard a few amateur recordings and it sounds like ABBA were in a better form than two years later...
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Post by wombat on Mar 3, 2017 21:52:47 GMT
^^ Well, to be honest, I was a bit disappointed by the sound quality at first too but somehow I got used to it. Maybe that's really how it sounded back then and it's a raw mix with no overdubbing or any other improvement. Another aspect to get used to was Agnetha's vocals on certain songs. But after listening to it a few times I really like the album. I hope that we will get the 1977 tour as well. I've heard a few amateur recordings and it sounds like ABBA were in a better form than two years later... They promised "no overdubbing or other improvement" but I'm not sure I believe that. They later admitted they had to fix the drum recordings because a mic didnt work, so, they used a recording of that drum mic from a different night. I could be way wrong, but I think that might be the reason the drum sound is so drowned in fake reverb... it covers up the problems caused by a recording stripped in from another source. I dont know if they overdubbed anything, unless they had done overdubbing in 1979. They say its all from one night. It could be. The whole affair is so suspiciously drowned in delay and reverb, it makes me wonder. Or maybe its all from one night and thats really the way it sounded. Or maybe thats what happens when you have such a huge band and try to make a decent recording.... I dunno. For whatever reason, it doesnt sound good to me. Its muddy, overly reverbed, and not clear. |
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Post by WATERLOO on Mar 8, 2017 21:09:41 GMT
What kind of excitement do you expect from being a fan of a band that split up 35 years ago? That's been my question all along. How much outcry really, is there for these unreleased tidbits? Is it just a handful of fans on a forum... or are there really large numbers of people asking for it all the time? How were the sales for the recent Wembley Live album? Did it sell like hotcakes, off the charts... or was it merely "respectable"? But that is exactly the thing. Since it is just us. Press 1000 CDs with the songs and sell them via monomusic.com |
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Post by wombat on Mar 8, 2017 22:40:20 GMT
But that is exactly the thing. Since it is just us. Press 1000 CDs with the songs and sell them via monomusic.com right and then watch them mysteriously pop up on bit torrent sites and youtube and everywhere else all over the world it'll be Diego all over again not going to happen |
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Post by Zeebee on Mar 9, 2017 21:50:03 GMT
But that is exactly the thing. Since it is just us. Press 1000 CDs with the songs and sell them via monomusic.com Did I miss something? How was it determined that it is just us? |
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Post by WATERLOO on Mar 10, 2017 21:14:46 GMT
It wasn't. I was just reacting to Wombat's post. But that is exactly the thing. Since it is just us. Press 1000 CDs with the songs and sell them via monomusic.com right and then watch them mysteriously pop up on bit torrent sites and youtube and everywhere else all over the world it'll be Diego all over again not going to happen And that would be a problem because …? B&B are clearly not interested in earning any more money through ABBA, otherwise they would've released something new in the last couple of years. They certainly wouldn't care. |
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Post by wombat on Mar 10, 2017 21:53:22 GMT
They obviously DO care, because they have never released any of it. And apparently they are not going to.
My point was, why release it to a small number of CDs, when they know its immediately gonna go world wide via the internet?
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Post by WATERLOO on Mar 10, 2017 21:54:47 GMT
Because you made the point that hardly anybody would be interested in such a release to begin with.
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Post by wombat on Mar 11, 2017 0:54:34 GMT
which is fine withe them I guess... fewer people to disappoint by not ever releasing it!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2017 5:11:54 GMT
There is still a huge amount of interest in ABBA, as can be seen by the UK Media fuss that Steps
have had, since they announced that Benny & Bjorn have given them an 'ABBA' Song - 'Story Of
A Heart'. If an unreleased ABBA Song was actually put out & promoted, the Global Media would
be interested. Unfortunately, even some ABBA Fans think that there is Zero interest in such a thing.
Even though a '2nd Rate' ABBA, like Steps, have now got such huge attention, that their comeback Single,
'Scared Of The Dark', is already No.1 on UK iTunes & on Amazon UK Downloads. Because a great many people
want 'Pure Pop' back - and that includes the Act that were best at it - ABBA.
Of course, if some of the ABBA Fans here were in charge of Steps, they'd say, 'Oh! No-one will be interested
in 'Scared Of The Dark'! Just a few 100 Steps Fans! Let's just do 1000 CD's of it - just for the Fans!'. This
is what happens when Fans are over-cautious & scared of ABBA etc. 'flopping'. No bold chances are taken. Every
thing is done in half-hearted nervousness. I find it very sad, that so many ABBA Fans, have so little faith in
how respected & loved ABBA really are. Steps have got huge attention, just by saying they have been given a
Benny & Bjorn Song.....
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Post by Michal on Mar 11, 2017 12:51:42 GMT
A thousand or millions... it really doesn't matter how many people really want all these unreleased track released... Björn and Benny will release it if THEY want. And sometimes I feel that if they were asked about it less frequently, they wouldn't be so adamant about not letting it happen. By the way, have you seen the video, where Benny explains why Just Like That remains in the vaults? It can be seen here:
The message is clear. "We don't like it, so it doesn't really matter how much you do." And I would understand this if they had not released far worse songs during their career... |
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Post by wombat on Mar 11, 2017 14:15:10 GMT
Because you made the point that hardly anybody would be interested in such a release to begin with. in the first place, I never said only a few people would be interested, it was me who WONDERED how many people would be interested, so please stop putting words in my mouth. and based on the fact that Live at Wembley only sold 85000, for Abba, thats not exactly stratospheric numbers. But that could be for all kinds of reasons. No new material, maybe people dont like live albums, maybe people dont buy CDs anymore. Who knows what would happen if a completed Abba song, finished, mixed, perhaps Just Like That, was released to the public or even as a single. It might hit number one or it might flop, nobody knows. But thats NOT what the discussion here is. Its about unfinished demos and the interest in something like that, NOT finished fully realized songs. I dont know, but I'm wondering that the interest in unfinished demos might not be that great of demand. Maybe. |
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Post by Michal on Mar 12, 2017 7:53:30 GMT
Its about unfinished demos and the interest in something like that, NOT finished fully realized songs. The question is, what you (or others) count as demo... If we take the term strictly, there are not many such recordings known and I wonder if Benny and Björn made them in the first place. Only two examples spring to my mind - "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" and "Every Good Man" (the latter is not an ABBA demo of course). The other unreleased (or half-released) recordings I would rather label as early versions or unfinished songs at various phases of completion. I think that many people in this discussion consider these as "demos" as well. And I think that in such recordings we are interested the most of all, aren't we? (besides the completely finished but unreleased songs of course).
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Post by wombat on Mar 12, 2017 19:02:06 GMT
I guess then in terms of this particular discussion, the songs in question are the ones being performed in the presentation in London.
I dont think an Abba song is "finished" unless Bjorn and Benny say it is.
Which may explain why songs in question were never released. Perhaps Bjorn and Benny did not consider them finished.
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Let us be fair... there has beens loads of more or less exciting ABBA-related activities and releases in the 21st century (all those Deluxe editions, ABBA The Movie restored and released on Blu-ray, official photo book, complete concert on CD, ABBAWorld, ABBA The Museum, 2 new solo albums by Agnetha, countless concerts by Benny, Kristina both in concert and theatrical format...) Is that not enough for a band that never had a comeback? Oh yes, I've forgotten.. we got just one medley of demos this century... too bad! 
