Frida In The Vaults

I bet this one's open to speculations... and debunking, possibly; I believe after digital recording was practicable, outtakes were becoming less valued in favour of "instant finish tracks".

Seems to me that Frida's "Chapel of Love" is the Berry-Greenwich-Spector song that Benny was going after... and I hope Anders Glenmark still has that digital session of Frida covering a (probably) Oasis song!


Frida + Benny + Lennon-McCartney = A dynamic quartet that never was... That's one strong song. I wonder why Benny didn't think of including this in the 1971 album?

A post on Facebook led me to Discogs last night, where I found two unofficial Frida singles. Both beautifully (if similarly) packaged, and both with unreleased B-sides. One Little Lie/Can't Be Serious, and Chemistry Tonight/When Love Turns To Lies! Clearly as rare as hens' teeth and probably eyewateringly expensive, but it shows that the tracks are actually out there. I don't suppose anyone here has them?


www.discogs.com/release/27065898-Frida-Chemistry-Tonight







www.discogs.com/release/27065979-Frida-One-Little-Lie

Is it this post you refer to, HOMETIME?

Shine (update)

(www.fridabeyondabba.com)

40 years ago today, in 1984, the first recording sessions took place in Paris for Frida's follow-up to her international solo debut album Something's Going On under the working title The Face. Steve Lillywhite, one of the hottest young producers at the time, who, after his previous work with bands like Ultravox or Peter Gabriel, was producing big acts such as U2, Simple Minds and Big Country, was responsible for the production.

Prior to the recording sessions for the album, Frida had tenaciously persisted in writing as much of her own music as possible, as Phil Collins, who had produced her first international album, had encouraged her to do. As a result, she had recorded several demos of her own compositions at the Polar Music Studios during the previous year. “I don’t have enough distance from them. That’s why I’ll be recording them in the studio,” she said in an interview at the time, “to hear if they hold up and to see if other people like them as well.”

The first self-written demos that were recorded by Frida were ‘My Dearest Friend’ and ‘I Don't Wanna Be Alone’, on April 18, 1983, together with Rendez-Vous, a relatively unknown young band founded three years earlier by her son Hans, Benny Andersson’s son Peter Grönvall and two of their friends. Although both were strong compositions in their own different ways, only the latter would ultimately be recorded in 1984, that is, by her son Hans and Johanna Lundberg for a yet-to-be-formed band called FX.

The fate of the ballad that Frida wrote that spring, on the other hand, would be more favourable in that respect. The title, ‘Don't Do It’, had come about quite spontaneously and she had completed the composition in just over a month. A demo was recorded for the song on June 18, produced by Rutger Gunnarsson. Paris Edvinsson, the sound engineer present, still has vivid memories of recording Frida’s vocals for her demos. “It was amazing how incredibly fast and confident Frida was when she sang lead vocals, backing vocals and choruses,” he says. ”She did great first takes and no retakes at all as I remember it.”

Apart from unknown work by Frida and Polar Music sound engineer Leif Mases during a third afternoon/evening recording session on September 27 in studio B, of these sessions only ‘Don't Do It’ would make it onto the new album, which would eventually be called Shine.

If you like to learn more about Frida’s 1983 recording sessions, the book Frida Beyond ABBA or to place an order, please visit fridabeyondabba.com

The photo on the left (from Mark Brzezicki’s personal collection) was taken during the recording sessions for Shine in Paris and is exclusive for Frida Beyond ABBA.

It was a different post, Alan, but something inspired by that, I think. Someone in the replies posted photos of their orange-vinyl edition of Chemistry Tonight with When Love Turns To Lies on the flip. He said that Frida's version was more uptempo than Chris Rea's version.

I totally understand your stance, gazman. Looking at things more broadly, though, we wouldn't have heard the likes of Just Like That, Every Good Man, I Am The City, etc. if the creators' wishes were similarly respected. I'm very curious about how these two Frida tracks came to light. Are they taken from some grainy cassette, or did they get slyly copied when CD-Rs were sent for approval when Shine was remastered? I gather the prices for these singles were in the hundreds of Euros...?!


Totally agree. The box set we got for SGO coincided with Frida's 70th birthday, so if a Shine special can't come this year, then Frida's 80th birthday in 2025 offers another moment of context (should such a thing be necessary). I'd love to see Djupa Andetag, Ensam and the 1971 debut get the same treatment.

By the way, that Frida book is fantastic. The chapter on Shine mentions quite a few songs written and demoed by Frida and Remko seems to have heard at least some of them, as he tries to describe what they sound like. Clearly, the material is out there. It'd be great if Frida got in front of things and released them.

Remko's book gives a couple of lists of the tracks recorded for Shine. The first is a list of demos recorded at Polar Studio B in 1983: Can't Be Serious*; My Dearest Friend; I Don't Wanna Be Alone; Light Of Love; I Do Not. All of them are credited as having been written by Anni-Frid Lyngstad, except for Light of Love, which seems to have been co-written with Hans, Per Gessle and possibly Dorothy Parker (i.e., another of her poems set to music??). There's separate mention of a demo of Don't Do It in 1983 that's produced by Rutger Gunnarsson.

The first studio sessions with Steve Lillywhite in Paris list the following songs: When Love Turns To Lies; Come To Me (I Am Woman); Heart Of The Country; I'm One Of God's Children; Don't Do It; Can't Be Serious*; Comfort Me. The next set of studio sessions was for: Twist In The Dark; One Little Lie; That's Tough; The Face; Slowly. Both Shine and Chemistry Tonight were recorded a bit later, after Stig suggested (as with SGO) that he couldn't hear a single. So I Don't Wanna Be Alone and My Dearest Friend don't seem to have been recorded in the formal album sessions.

Can't Be Serious is a curious thing. The 1983 demo is listed as having been written by Frida. If that's true, then the track recorded in Paris is an entirely different song. The book does not mention the composer. It's possible, of course, that Frida heard the song in '83 and liked it enough to record her own version. But it seems strange that she'd record a cover when she was demoing her own compositions.

I know someone who has the bootleg singles mentioned earlier in the thread, so I got to hear When Love Turns To Lies and Can't Be Serious. Both are excellent. When Love Turns To Lies has a lovely Twin Peaks style guitar solo and a little harpsichord (finally making sense of the instruments credited to Simon Climie on the sleeve). Stylistically, Can't Be Serious sounds like it links Chemistry Tonight, That's Tough and Twist In The Dark. It's kinda slinky, and features some really lovely bass, and a catchy vocal chant. This little-known version by Ginny was released in 1985, and it's not a million miles away from Frida's version.

Afraid not, Adam

Oh wow. I wonder how long they'll last on YouTube? An acquaintance alerted me to these clips a little earlier and, apparently, there are "other recordings" too. No idea what that means or what songs might now be out there. But Team Frida needs to be smart and get in front of this by releasing a properly expanded album. Its 40th anniversary in September provides great context.

I particularly love "Can't be Serious." The guitar and bass work are fantastic. Very Peter Gabriel sounding. And that vocal chant at the end is a real earworm. I think the track works as a sonic/stylistic link between Twist In The Dark, That's Tough and Chemistry Tonight. I'm going to have a little fun building an alternative running order for the album now.

When Love Turns To Lies is a lovely song. That Twin Peaks style guitar solo is great. I can see why one ballad had to be left off the tracklist - it would have weighed things down a bit. Plus it has a similar lyrical theme to Comfort Me. But it could have made a good double A-side to a fourth single.

EDIT. The videos are gone already! And because of a copyright claim by Universal. Interesting....

Universal are going to end up playing a pointless game of whack-a-mole now: the first videos were widely downloaded as MP3s, and that just means that anyone can now upload a new video... for download by other people, and so on to infinity. I see that Rubber Ball man's channel has created very clean instrumental tracks, and tracks of isolated vocals.

There seem to be two versions of I Don't Wanna Be Alone in circulation too. One is a good quality snippet; the other a poor quality full version. Whether I'm One Of God's Children or any of the 1983 demos are ready to leak is anyone's guess.

Universal and/or Team Frida needs to get in front of this now. The high quality of these two studio tracks is such that it makes no credible sense to withhold them from fans/the public. Put out a properly expanded, crisply mastered new version of the album, already. It's not as though the fans won't buy it.

IDWBA is very catchy, but I think it's so poppy that it would have been too different to everything else on Shine to work. Then again, if Kirsty had written some ballsier lyrics and Steve Lillywhite had brought some edge to the arrangement/production, who knows what the results might have been. The other two tracks could fit very nicely, though, even if WLTTL would have made the set a bit too ballad-heavy.

With regard to Chess, I would have thought a vinyl reissue was warranted. 

Agnetha... Yes, although this is the Frida thread, that is something really strange!
She never got the treat of a CD/DVD Box or something like the SGO Box.

As late as 2016 Shine received a very good review in an UK Magazine:

poprescue.com/2016/01/20/pop-rescue-shine-by-frida-vinyl-1984-review/

It would be nice if the other 3 unreleased songs from the Shine sessions were leaked 'I Don't Wanna Be Alone', 'I'm One Of God's Children' & 'My Dearest Friend' this album deserves to have a Deluxe Edition for its 40th Anniversary I prefer it over Something's Going On in my opinion Shine is Frida's best album.

I did find it strange that the 2015 Deluxe Edition of 'Something's Going On' didn't include the unreleased song 'Shot Down In Action'.

I have remastered one track but not sharing due to copyrights of unreleased tracks. Same with other tracks as well. No Sharing as well.

On YouTube there’s a “MHP Reconstruction” (from “ABBA Stuff”). I couldn’t find anything when I did a Google search. Apologies if this is widely known but where would the reconstruction have come from? How much of the song is out there? I know Frida was shown singing it in the SGO Making of documentary, but that wasn’t enough of it to construct this.

Just done a version of when love turns to lies Featuring Frida and Chris Rea and a duet version and sounds good. But could post on YouTube as not going to as Polar music most likely get whif of it on there. And on verse one Chris Rea singing first and Frida singing second. Verse 2 Frida singing first and Chris Rea singing second. But going to share a WeTransfer link here of it here not on Facebook.