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Still not? I would have got mine on Monday but I wasn’t in, so I had it re-arranged for Tuesday. They emailed on the Wednesday or Thursday last week to say they wouldn’t be getting their supplies until the Friday so there would be a delay (this was the official store). It was the same with Voyage (different record company) so I’m starting to think you’re best off buying from a shop on the day of release. These days there’s little difference in price anyway. At least with Voyage they provided a free download, they didn’t with this.

I sometimes think the charts should be stopped. Sales are so low generally anyway and when they do this kind of manipulation with it, it’s making a mockery of it. Of my three variants, two counted towards A+ and one to A. I got the double vinyl because it was clear and I hadn’t got any like that, whereas I had with white. It wasn’t really to get the original A again. I couldn’t really care less about charts but I do think sales should have been combined.

As these reissues rightfully use the Polar artwork, here’s a look at how some of these singles were represented elsewhere in the world…

Firstly, UK. I’m incredibly biased here as this is how I always knew it. I don’t think I was aware of the international sleeve until the 1999 CD singles set. A suntanned ABBA, prior to Frida’s and Björn’s changes of hair (Björn to his face). It makes use of the two sides. Well, I like it anyway, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I make no apologies for that!

This was the third time that CBS/Epic had deviated from official single artwork (after Angeleyes/Voulez-Vous and, less radically, I Have A Dream). ABBA may look crap but at least they’re all smiling (as they had on every CBS/Epic single in a picture sleeve so far).




And they repeated it with Head Over Heels. Still separate photos, still Frida before her change of hair. Clearly severe nerves on the part of CBS as to how ABBA now looked, though Björn’s with beard and not smiling. Again, I like it. The official sleeve is such an awful photo with only Agnetha managing a non-committal smile.

Where the UK and some other licensees do well is promotion of albums on the reverse side. The Polar sleeves tended to just repeat the front image. CBS and other companies made full use of them.




Onto Australia, and the single that many think should be in these new issues after its inclusion in the 2014 box. The image is from a session done during the making of the video, with ABBA looking slightly more photogenic than they did at the time of One of Us. The US sleeve just used the album cover shot.



A belated US release of One of Us. Album promotion on the reverse sleeve is one thing, but doing it on the front is taking things a bit far!



West Germany. ABBA’s name and the titles are rendered in a similar way to the official sleeve, but the album photo is used instead of the painting. After apparent trepidation regarding The Visitors singles artwork in the UK, CBS went with the official artwork. Perhaps they were past caring by then? They did use the album cover photo for the picture disc though.

Not sure I agree with you there, HOMETIME. You’re right about the additional Voulez-Vous single, there was really no need for that when six official singles would make it the biggest issue of the eight albums anyway, but I can’t agree on Slipping Through My Fingers or the Spanish tracks. Prices have increased since 2019, so the fewer the better in my opinion!

There is some justification for When All Is Said And Done, but I accept the apparently official explanation that it’s only Polar singles unless fewer than three were released. Also, Lay All Your Love On Me has been sufficiently elevated to major single status thanks to its inclusion on Gold, so it would have seemed unimaginable not to have it in the Super Trouper issues.

The 2014 singles box did just include the five for The Visitors and beyond, so Slipping Through My Fingers (as a promotional single to advertise Coca-Cola of all things) has clearly been written out of official history. I wouldn’t have been happy with more than the five included, a bit too much paying out and too much milking the fans.

And even worse, it was released to advertise/promote Coca-Cola.

Do you mean the UK sleeve? That was UK and Ireland only, so it’s unlikely we’ll ever see it again. The international sleeve was the alternate shot from the album cover session.

I surmise that the UK record company were nervous about the sleeve (and that for Head Over Heels) as all previous UK singles in picture sleeves had a smiley ABBA on the front, so they wanted to keep that going for these two. I suspect Polar took note as The Day Before You Came had a smiling ABBA. West Germany changed the Under Attack sleeve to the album cover shot (again with a happy ABBA) so I’m surprised the UK didn’t do the same (though they did use it for the original picture disc).

There are five physical versions:
Single CD with just A+
Single vinyl (white) with just A+
Single picture disc with just A+ (store exclusive but presumably counts for charts?)
Double CD with both A and A+
Double vinyl (“crystal clear”) with both A and A+


Have the double ones been split in terms of sales in order to give separate chart positions? If so then surely that means A+ is losing out if only half a unit sale is counting?

In terms of streaming or downloads, it’s possible that some people hearing the new album want to be reminded of the original versions, so are streaming/downloading them too?

There is a singles box:

As expected (and I think, rumoured earlier this year), The Visitors half-speed vinyl and single picture discs are released before the end of the year. I haven seen details myself yet, but a friend has received an email.

Two curiosities:

When All Is Said And Done not included, so it’s just four singles - the main two from The Visitors plus the two late 1982 singles. Although WAISAD was not released by Polar originally, it was included in the 2014 singles box. And of course, Lay All Your Love On Me was included in the Super Trouper issues three years ago, even though that wasn’t a Polar single either.

No mention yet of a coloured vinyl singles boxed set. While prices for the Ring Ring one seem to keep going up, and all other albums so far have had such a box released, it would seem rather odd to stop now.
[Edit: singles box now confirmed - see a later post].

This is why I dislike PR and much of the media these days. It’s difficult to know what’s real and what isn’t. I strongly suspect that much of the over-the-top positives on YouTube and the like are not real people like you or I but put there by the record company and her PR people. However, that would be the case generally and not just with Agnetha or this album so I’m certainly not singling her out.

That does, of course, mean I’m assuming the negative stuff comes from genuine, real people as there’s no PR reason for planting such stuff. I don’t know if that’s necessarily the correct assumption either though!

Which store is that? I ordered a bundle from the official store but I got an email the other day to say that supplies won’t be arriving at their facility until today, so my order is delayed. I half-expected this as similar happened with Voyage and seems to almost be the norm now. I went a bit overboard with purchases, with the clear vinyl, picture disc, single CD and the “free” CD single. At times I thought about cancelling but decided to stick with it.

Er… it’s actually about a man that’s been cheated on by his boyfriend. It’s not explicitly stated in the lyrics but all the clues are there. Not many women go into men’s toilets do they? Or vice-versa. Not sure what gender Agnetha’s character is meant to be but could be any. Jörgen did it deliberately to appeal to the gay audience, but it was a bit patronising/condescending (and applying several stereotypes in the process).

I’m warming to this project a bit. Some versions I like more than others. Her vocals are intact (if processed) but some of the backing tracks seem very generic and doing their own thing at times. I’m seeing it now as simply an alternative way of hearing the songs. The originals are still there and, indeed, very much still part of this project as they’re included in physical releases of both vinyl and CD configurations. I guess it’s a case of, if you like the new versions then great, if you don’t, the old album remains. No harm done.

Someone sent me a link to where the info in Mark’s post came from:

rector-hicksfuneralhome.com/tribute/details/1236/Jonathan-Casper/obituary.html#tribute-start

I am surmising that they want to keep this a private family matter, as he actually died nearly four weeks ago. I’ve not seen this announced anywhere else in the ABBA online community and even Frida’s entry in Wikipedia makes no mention of it.

As the link above appears to be legitimate, and the information is in the public domain, I am not going to delete the topic. However, I would suggest not mentioning it anywhere else online. I dare say most of the ABBA online community will be aware of it but might not welcome anyone actually saying it.

I read on another forum today that the same applies to Slipping Through My Fingers - the Spanish vocals were recorded over the English ones. If three songs are known to be affected like this then there must be others. It’s no biggie really if the actual master tapes are intact.

A famous case of master tapes not being saved is Roy Wood and Wizzard’s 1973 hit “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday”. Apparently, when it came to the 1981 re-issue, the master tapes could not be located or had been destroyed. They hastily re-recorded it exactly as the original version and it’s the re-recording that has been used ever since. Presumably the two are so similar that you’d really have to listen hard to determine the differences.

Ouch, that “homeless” line must have passed me by completely, HOMETIME. I’m not sure what I thought she was singing but perhaps I was deliberately not hearing it. The full line is apparently “Left me seaside like a homeless”. What on earth does “seaside” mean in this context?

My focus was generally on the “mongers” lyric prior to this but I’d now have to question if Jörgen’s English is as good as he thinks it is. Björn may have made some gaffes, but nothing as bad as that.