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According to Discogs, limited to 1,500 copies.

I don’t have “Frida”, but it does have beautiful artwork. The “ABBA For The Record” book in 1980 was when I discovered that all of ABBA existed as artists before ABBA itself. The Frida, Agnetha, Hep Stars and Hootenanny Singers photos/record covers shown in that book seemed like these almost mythical releases I’d never hear. And being as I was only nine years old in 1980, if meant that all members of ABBA may as well have been around for at least a hundred years in an adult timeline!

Photos of the vinyl from an eBay listing… a pet hate of mine is that ringwear already appears to be forming (unless it’s just the lighting). The cellophane/shrink wrap is so tight, and the vinyl so thick, that it’s often unavoidable.

Marnix, that’s not you is it? I seem to remember your guest username from a previous forum.

Was anyone actually suggesting they bring the technology over? Surely they’d just send a film, as they did for the 30th (The Last Video). As most people would be viewing it on TV, it wouldn’t make any difference anyway.

Would that be this one? Seems to originate from Argentina. It’s quite a good tracklisting, I’d buy an official version of this if all the tracks were sourced from master tapes and not vinyl rips. I like how they have what looks a bit like a WEA logo and quote the old company name. If this was official it would carry the “Warner Music Sweden AB” name.

Sidenote… she’s wearing a wig on the front cover isn’t she? Way too much hair, and bears little resemblance to how it looks on the back cover.

I don’t think anything has changed, has it? All along they’ve only made batches of dates available at a time? If the 2026 end date is still on, I’d still put money on that being extended.

It’s still quite telling that, after all the speculation, there still hasn’t been any confirmation of a second location or even a setlist change. I suspect the real hope is that they can secure a decent extension beyond 2026.

Someone (I think johnny ?) mentioned Money, Money, Money being added? Benny once dismissed that, saying it wouldn’t work. It wasn’t one of the (alleged*) 24 songs they did the motion capture stuff for.

[* I say, “alleged” because, as we know, some of what Björn and/or Benny say can be taken with a significant amount of salt.]

It certainly is the case that the Warner Music stuff has been neglected. The Polar/Universal albums have at least had expanded CD reissues (in 2005) and later coloured vinyl releases.

Sony must be running out of Agnetha albums to issue, having done all her studio albums plus several historic compilations over the years. However, I think there are only about two tracks on this singles/b-sides compilation that can’t be found on either Tio År Med or Sjung Denna Sång, both of which have been reissued on vinyl in recent years.

The two exclusives are "Borsta tandtrollen bort" and "Tio mil kvar till Korpilombolo", though the latter was released on CD on “My Very Best” in 2008. The only other “exclusive” is the radio interview (this is not included in the vinyl version).

Two further tracks - Ljuva Sextital and Nu Ska Vi Opp, Opp, Opp - remain unavailable, though the latter is probably Agnetha’s most famous Swedish solo song as it has the film clip, so is often wheeled out whenever an ABBA documentary wants something to represent Agnetha’s pre-ABBA career.

Tracklisting:

”När du tar mej i din famn" (A. Fältskog/Ingela "Pling" Forsman) – 4:07
"Tio mil kvar till Korpilombolo" (A. Fältskog/B.Ulvaeus/P.Himmelstrand) – 3:00
"Vart ska min kärlek föra" (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice/Britt G Hallqvist) – 3:20
"En sång om sorg och glädje" (Mario Capuano/Giosy Capuano/Mike Shepstone/S. Anderson) – 3:45
"Någonting händer med mej" (Alan Moorehouse/Bo-Göran Edling) (with Jörgen Edman) – 2:35
"Litet solskenbarn" (Peter Howlett Smith/Karl Gerhard Lundkvist) (B-side of "Om tårar vore guld") – 3:10
"Så glad som dina ögon" (A. Fältskog/Kenneth Gärdestad) (B-side of "Tio mil kvar till Korpilombolo") – 3:00
"Nu ska du bli stilla" (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice/Britt G Hallqvist) – 3:48
"Sjung denna sång" (Sonny Bono/Charles Greene/Brian Stone/A. Fältskog) (with Jörgen Edman) – 2:40
"Vi har hunnit fram till refängen" (Neil Sedaka/Howard Greenfield/S. Anderson) – 4:06
"Here For Your Love" (A. Fältskog/Bosse Carlgren) – 2:54
"Golliwog" (A. Fältskog/Bosse Carlgren) – 2:55
"The Queen Of Hearts" (A. Fältskog/Ingela "Pling" Forsman) – 3:20
"Det var så här det började" (Intervjuer och radioinslag) – 4:58 (not on this vinyl release)
"Borsta tandtrollen bort" – 1:52

"Nu ska du bli stilla" and "Vart ska min kärlek föra" are reworked studio versions of the Jesus Christ Superstar stage versions.

The ABBA Waterloo 50th celebrations continued last night with a showing of the episode of Top of the Pops from 1974 featuring ABBA’s first appearance.

Although BBC Four is showing the ongoing repeats of the show (currently at late 1995) as well as two random episodes each week from the late 1970s onwards, this episode was significant as I don’t think it’s been shown since its original broadcast? In April 2011, they began re-showing episodes from April 1976 onwards (from that point they had almost a complete archive of them, even though, for various reasons, they couldn’t re-show some).

This was the episode shown on the Thursday after Eurovision, so Waterloo hasn’t yet charted and ABBA are on it merely because they were the contest winners. They’re getting full use out of those Waterloo costumes (I wonder how many of each they had? It’s unrealistic that they only had the one).

The Wombles were also on, so presumably ABBA met them for the second time in a week. Apparently Mike Batt gave Agnetha a Wombles badge to wear amongst the others on her Waterloo costume.

Also on were Mud, Slade, Mungo Jerry, Bill Haley & His Comets (a re-release) and Terry Jacks.

Noel Edmonds presented, so he was there almost from the start of ABBA’s UK career, just as he was at the end.

I rarely see the albums CD box in HMV. It’s quite expensive anyway. The 2008 version was better. No Voyage of course, but the bonus disc had more tracks on. It was better value for money, sometimes retailing for £15.

I’d like to see new versions of the studio album CDs too. The current ones are from 2001 and use the inferior and very loud Jon Astley remasters that have long since been discredited. What’s odd now is that the vinyls use the original Polar artwork while those CDs use modern artwork with standardised text and the ABBA logo (presumably because they thought at the time that more people would buy them if they all had the logo). If they can sell Ring Ring on vinyl without even the ABBA name then I don’t see why they can’t re-issue the CDs using the original Polar artwork as well.

They could use a similar tracklisting to the deluxe CDs, but perhaps removing the Spanish versions (being as two deluxes didn’t include them anyway due to timing). However, the music industry isn’t interested in the CD format anymore. They begrudgingly keep it as it still sells. They try to force-feed vinyl on us and tell us it’s better sound quality than CD (even though, in the 1980s, they were telling us precisely the opposite).

johnny, Summer Night City got two different releases. The first in 2018 as a Record Store Day exclusive, and the second in 2019 as part of the reissue series in standard artwork picture disc. I’m assuming the charts company combined the two, as in your list it’s only shown in 2018? I’m assuming the chart placing shown is really for the 2019 issue, as the 2018 RSD version was much less widely available.

Also, I’m assuming the two issues of Voulez-Vous (standard and extended, the latter with If It Wasn’t For The Nights as the b-side) were similarly combined?

I notice the chart positions for The Visitors singles are lower than the others… guessing their December release meant there was more competition.

And Waterloo’s position must be a combination of the English and Swedish versions (again, different b-sides).

It’s a bit déjà vu… 20 years ago, a photo from the same session was used on the Radio Times cover, and again referring to them getting nul points from the UK judges. It’s inexplicably gone up from 90p then to £4.50 now.

I can’t disagree! There was a sense that it was genuinely about the song (and who’s singing it). These days it’s too much about what’s going off on stage and what special effects they have. And 17 songs is about right - maybe they should have quarter finals as well as semi finals in today’s contest!!

I even enjoyed the Wombles bit. I remember the TV show more than the pop act, but in this it was fun.

I wonder… is the intro of Just A Notion on Voyage really a nod to Remember You’re A Womble? And is “No Doubt About It” a reference to what Katie Boyle said when she was announcing ABBA as the winner?

Moved some posts from the main 50th anniversary thread to this one, being as we already had a separate thread.

I watched More ABBA at the BBC last night. Thought it was OK. I noticed a mistake on the captions when they were referring to Glasgow and Super Trouper. It stated that Björn was missing Agnetha when he wrote it… it was his then future wife Lena wasn’t it?

For I Know There’s Something Going On, it mentioned she didn’t like Björn and Benny coming into the studio during the making of that album, and that they were making unnecessary comments that she was “fragile”. To be fair, they did show a 1982 interview with her promoting her solo album and she clearly wasn’t happy.

Not looking forward to When ABBA Came To Britain after Johnny’s review! I was hoping they’d got the message that no one really wants to hear celebrity talking heads (or indeed fans).