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Post by Alan on May 10, 2024 17:20:46 GMT
 If there’s anything in this, even that’s not exciting. Unless they have something to announce of course. |
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Post by Alan on May 10, 2024 16:59:34 GMT
As HOMETIME has reminded us of what Catherine Tate said…. Not sure where to put this, but hot news I found on facebook this afternoon... Catherine Tate was interviewed this morning on Zoe Ball Radio show. She is about to reprise her role as Donna on Dr. Who. She mentioned that Russell T Davies (Dr Who writer) is a friend of Bjorn and recently stayed with him on a trip to Stockholm. Bjorn told him about the two unreleased "Voyage" tracks and said watch this space for news about their release at a special event.... Not sure Eurovision counts as a “special event”, being as it’s held every year, but even so, unless Catherine or Russell made it up (which I can’t believe, but some element of exaggeration may be present), some hope has to remain. |
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Post by Alan on May 10, 2024 16:11:16 GMT
Just noticed the Official ABBA Fan Club have spelt “Conchita” incorrectly in bjorenny’s link - was that a Freudian slip, I wonder? |
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Post by Alan on May 10, 2024 14:16:32 GMT
Oh dear. Is this really the best they can do?
No one seems the least bit bothered about this anniversary, aside from the producers of Against The Odds. The brief seems to be: let’s keep ABBA naff and camp.
And ABBA are apparently happy with this. I doubt Benny really is, but he’s allowed it to happen (Björn, I fear, would just sell out ABBA to anyone that asked - I certainly wouldn’t bet against him appearing tomorrow night).
Then again, I wouldn’t want them associated with Eurovision anyway. Let’s not forget they only did it in the first place in order to pick up a wider audience - a strategy that clearly worked.
The divide between what the hardcore, serious fans want and the general perception of what ABBA is - at least to the lowest common denominator - just gets wider and wider.
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Post by Alan on May 8, 2024 22:31:11 GMT
megb876, as justabba says, the link is showing “not found”. Unless you can provide the correct link, I’ll delete the topic. For now, I have deleted the link.
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Post by Alan on May 8, 2024 16:52:16 GMT
Oh yes. I have seen har, of course. Not good. It’s never bothered me. The design of the sleeve allows for it, it’s not intruding on anything important. Later copies had an actual sticker on the other side advertising the inclusion of I Have A Dream. I agree about the Super Trouoer one though, that one is tacky. The competition closed at the end of 1980 but the thousands of surviving copies are stuck with it for eternity. |
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Post by Alan on May 6, 2024 12:38:11 GMT
PS - HMV have special offers on the picture disc singles just now. A bit late for me as I've already bought them though. Go treat yourselves! Also, the Polydor store has 20% off any order for a limited time - Use code '20OFF' at checkout. store.polydor.co.uk/Too late for me as well - once again I went in too early. |
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Post by Alan on May 6, 2024 10:37:02 GMT
To detail what happened before Waterloo and ignore the period after 1980 is left with a feeling of being shortchanged. I feel the opposite. I do think that 1981 and beyond has been done to death in these things. How many times can we hear variations on the “standing apart on the album sleeve”, “tense atmosphere in the studio” and “Björn and Benny wanting to write a musical”? For me it would have spoilt it had the documentary gone on to cover that. And I certainly wouldn’t have wanted Gold, Mamma Mia! or Voyage included. We knew it was going to be focussed on 1976-80 and I like the detail included for those years. |
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Post by Alan on May 5, 2024 15:55:21 GMT
jj, do we have an exact (or near enough) timeframe of when Benny announced to Frida the end of their marriage (and the reason why?). It was included in the documentary that Björn’s and Agnetha’s effectively ended on Christmas Day 1978 when she left with the children that night (almost certainly pre-arranged that way with the decision to part already having been made before then). We already knew that. With Benny and Frida I’d kind of always thought it was early 1981, after promotion for Super Trouper had been completed (and one of the reasons, along with the threatened kidnap of Björn and Agnetha’s children, that no further singles were released or promotion undertaken).
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Post by Alan on May 4, 2024 20:18:03 GMT
That was by far the best ABBA documentary I have ever seen. Yep, there was nothing I didn’t already know but some of it was a nice reminder (let’s face it, the hardcore fans are hardly going to learn anything from these things). Talking heads were there but you didn’t actually see any of them, and I think everything you heard was from the archives?
That was how it should be done. And I’d definitely watch it again.
The Visitors photo is not the album cover shot (or rather, either of them). Not sure if I have seen it before. If I have I’ve forgotten.
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Post by Alan on May 3, 2024 20:45:18 GMT
Is Super Trouper significant in that it has three songs that have three full verses? Happy New Year, The Piper and Lay All Your Love on Me. I like that. Our Last Summer has a half third verse but that doesn’t count. And The Winner Takes It All is really just a series of verses, but those three songs do it properly. Andante, Andante fails in that regard as the first two verses are joined together without a chorus in the middle.
Do many/any other ABBA songs have three full verses (all with a chorus following)? I’ve never really thought about it until now!
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Post by Alan on May 3, 2024 17:04:11 GMT
I wasn’t saying I saw her as a victim. She did have a few relationships after Björn but none of them lasted. Perhaps that was her choice, we don’t know. It’s her private life and absolutely none of our business.
I actually think she is happy on her own. Certainly when the split with Björn was announced in early 1979, the perception was that she wanted out. If she needed a man she’d possibly have stuck with him. She didn’t, even though she had two young children with him and worked with him.
I would agree, the perception of her as this Greta Garbo-esque recluse and a victim is utter nonsense. I think she’s happy with the life she’s chosen.
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Post by Alan on May 3, 2024 15:27:30 GMT
Agnetha did briefly have a second husband, Tomas Sonnenfeld. They married in 1990 but divorced three years later. She’s not had much luck with men since her split from Björn at the end of 1978.
[It’s claimed on Wikipedia that her second marriage only became public knowledge when they divorced, but that’s incorrect as I distinctly remember it being mentioned in the news on breakfast TV in 1990. It was more of a surprise that anyone from ABBA got a mention on British TV at that point, than it was that she’d remarried.]
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Post by Alan on May 2, 2024 18:27:02 GMT
If we count GGG, it would be around 5. Gimme Gimme Gimme is much more associated with Voulez-Vous isn’t it? I know it was on the 1997 reissue of Super Trouper but it didn’t belong on there, and was soon rectified four years later. |
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Post by Alan on May 2, 2024 7:17:35 GMT
There is also a similar take on The Day Before You Came on the same channel. Nothing to do with the video or audio itself, I know, but I wonder why they’ve used a more recent photo of Benny? It looks really odd with 1982 photos of the others! |
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Post by Alan on Apr 30, 2024 12:42:06 GMT
 Interesting that it looks as though it will be on BBC iPlayer on 4 May, ahead of its BBC One broadcast on 8 May. |
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Post by Alan on Apr 27, 2024 16:42:41 GMT
I finally ordered the coloured vinyl singles box yesterday and it arrived today.
It’s quite underwhelming. The red, white and blue have been done before and the two company sleeves are a bit boring.
This is the tail-end of an ongoing series begun in 2016. It was always set to be the most boring of the issues so far, but the fact that it’s the only set of releases in this anniversary year makes it worse. The picture discs are slightly more interesting but you have to wonder why they seem so disinterested in doing much.
(My box is number 1,785. If that means the previous 1,784 have been sold, that still leaves 1,015 left. The issue is limited to 2,800… a pity they didn’t make it 1,815 as that was the year the battle of Waterloo was fought. And would have made it as limited as it perhaps deserved…)
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Post by Alan on Apr 26, 2024 20:10:52 GMT
ABBA - Against The Odds trailer:
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Post by Alan on Apr 26, 2024 18:41:31 GMT
This photo came up on a social today. Not sure if Frida really is asleep or pretending* (otherwise why is Benny laughing?) but it amused me.  *My money would be on the latter. |
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Post by Alan on Apr 26, 2024 13:18:13 GMT
All the flops with the exception of The Day Before You Came which is Top 5. And this is where I would have liked it to be just one vote allowed per song. I’ve got nothing against that song at all, but I can’t help but feel it’s the hardcore fans giving five votes to it that’s caused it to be so high. As HOMETIME says, it’s a bit cringey. Then again, I Have A Dream seems to do quite well in these things and I can’t imagine there are any hardcore fans giving that five votes. Or Thank You For The Music for that matter. |
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Post by Alan on Apr 26, 2024 7:15:59 GMT
The Radio 2 ABBA list, voted for by listeners: 1. Dancing Queen 2. The Winner Takes It All 3. Thank You For The Music 4. Slipping Through My Fingers 5. The Day Before You Came 6. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) 7. Waterloo 8. Knowing Me, Knowing You 9. Super Trouper 10. Eagle 11. Mamma Mia 12. Fernando 13. Chiquitita 14. Voulez-Vous 15. SOS 16. The Name Of the Game 17. Take A Chance On Me 18. Does Your Mother Know 19. Lay All Your Love On Me 20. I Have A Dream 21. One Of Us 22. Angeleyes 23. Andante, Andante 24. Summer Night City 25. Money, Money, Money 26. My Love, My Life 27. Our Last Summer 28. Honey, Honey 29. The Visitors 30. Don’t Shut Me Down I wonder how different this list would have been had it NOT been possible to vote for the same song five times? www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2024/your-ultimate-abba-song-results-announced |
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Post by Alan on Apr 25, 2024 7:39:46 GMT
A reminder of what Björn said last year, in full:
——
And this just in! A new interview with Bjorn in the Netherlands...
Ulvaeus has sporadic contact with the other three ABBA members, now a little less than two years ago when the new album Voyage was released. As fun and lucrative as that was, it really was the final piece. That was definitely our last album. Not our last activity, because now we have to start thinking about next year, when it will be fifty years ago that we won the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo.”
Thanks to compatriot Loreen and her hit Tattoo, that party is at least celebrated in our own country. ,,Amazing, right? Our anniversary and the Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden coincide beautifully. Yes, that's a coincidence. I know there are people who think it's intentional, but it's not planned. I'm glad Loreen won, although unfortunately I missed it myself. I was writing that night. Although I had seen her perform in our national preliminary round, so I am familiar with her act and her song.”
Oh this is perfect! This is all I need, do you think we can rent this?
Björn Ulvaeus (ABBA) about Royal Theater Carré
It is inevitable that ABBA will have a role in the Eurovision song contest next year. ,,Hopefully in Stockholm, our home city”, Ulvaeus gives a cross. ,,ABBA and the Eurovision Song Contest belong together and next year even more so. How are we going to do it? We have no idea yet. We're just now thinking about that. Our record company recently started talking about it. We have to do something with it, it will not be a re-release, we find that very boring. We need to be more resourceful.”
They don't want to perform anymore, not even on this occasion. Or it must be the ABBAtars, that is of course possible. “We will also think about that. I am especially happy that we can celebrate this next year, it feels unreal that it has already been fifty years.”
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(The interview - or at least this part of it - can no longer be found online).
It can be argued that the Waterloo reissues don’t count in what Björn said, as these are merely part of an ongoing series and would have happened anyway.
I’d still say that the record company working on this year’s releases from the start of last year may be nothing unusual or significant, and that perhaps they’re always working a year in advance on anything. There was, at one point, a backlog on vinyl due to not enough pressing plants. If that is still the case then these things have to ge ordered early (and with three lots of ABBA vinyl reissues released in the space of 12 months, that’s not too surprising).
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Post by Alan on Apr 24, 2024 16:00:57 GMT
Apparently, the ABBA: Against The Odds documentary is scheduled to be shown in the UK on BBC One at 10.40pm on Wednesday 8 May.
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Post by Alan on Apr 24, 2024 15:56:28 GMT
Ludwig (interviewed with Svana about the voyage project) is pretty adamant that there are no new surprises to come from the band. I wonder if a “surprise” includes a setlist change for the show? Everyone seems be speculating that they will make some changes at some point but I don’t *think* there’s been any indication that it will happen? I hope they don’t regret this in years to come… letting a 50th anniversary pass without much fanfare. I don’t think many of us are even placing much hope on Eurovision. On the other hand, Voyage was released in 2021, which wasn’t an anniversary year (other than 40 years since their last studio album, but that was more of a coincidence). It therefore doesn’t have to be this year. Realistically though, if they can’t be bothered with this milestone, I think that really could be it. |
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Post by Alan on Apr 20, 2024 21:24:02 GMT
I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Not getting my hopes up for anything interesting as it’s been a disappointing anniversary year so far. Yep, there’s still plenty of time, and major 1994 and 2014 releases didn’t happen until later in the year, but I’m not optimistic.
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Post by Alan on Apr 20, 2024 19:26:58 GMT
Sorry, I must have missed/forgotten that bit. Thanks for clarifying.
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Post by Alan on Apr 20, 2024 17:29:59 GMT
I don’t think he actually said “more work from me” did he? I thought he just said they were “quite good but needed more work”. I think in a previous discussion on here we may have speculated that he meant just him but that wasn’t actually said.
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Post by Alan on Apr 20, 2024 14:04:53 GMT
Some photos of the actual disc have appeared on Discogs:   |
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Post by Alan on Apr 20, 2024 10:39:44 GMT
Yes, the Discogs images aren’t helpful, it’s on a black turntable isn’t it?
It was described as “crystal clear” and yes, very easily readable through the run-off groove. “Crystal clear” was an accurate description.
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Post by Alan on Apr 20, 2024 9:50:24 GMT
It follows up Agnetha’s A+ (double vinyl edition) and Under Attack in The Visitors singles box, both of which were on clear vinyl (I can hear my dad saying “colourless” not “clear” as any colour can also be “clear”!).
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