Thursday 31 July 2014

Abba Calendar - August

My 2014 Abba calendar has a nice group photo to celebrate the month of August...

 

Wednesday 30 July 2014

Collection Update - Voulez-Vous Remix CD

A couple of weeks ago I bought a fan-made "Voulez-Vous" remix CD from eBid. The CD includes 26 remixes of the album tracks plus "Lovelight" and "Dream World".

 

Tuesday 29 July 2014

Collection Update - Australian Single

The latest Abba 7" single to be added to my collection is the Australian release of "Knowing Me, Knowing You". The single (which included "Happy Hawaii" on the b-side) first appeared in the Australian singles chart on 7th March 1977 where it peaked at number 9 spending a total of 15 weeks in the charts.

 

Monday 28 July 2014

Collection Update - Saudi Arabian "Super Trouper"

The latest casette I have added to my collection is a Saudi Arabian version of Abba's 1980 album "Super Trouper" - as with the last Saudi casette I included on here I am not sure these are 100% official however I had feedback following the last entry saying that you could buy them in shops.

As usual with releases from Saudi the album tracks are never quite as you expect - for example "Elaine" is included which you can sort of explain as it was the b-side to "The Winner Taies It All" - however it also includes "Fernando" which is a little harder to explain.

Additionally there is a track called "All Your Love" - which I think it's safe to assume is "Lay All Your Love On Me".

The eagled eyed amongst you may also have noticed something slightly different with the picture - both Agnethan and Frida's outfits have been photoshopped to ensure that they are showing less cleavage - I guess this is something to do with Saudi customs or laws.

 

Sunday 27 July 2014

Australian Singles And Albums Chart Review

I just read this article on-line from an Australian newspaper which looks back at the countries biggest selling singles and albums which includes quite a few Abba entries. Click the image below to read the whole article....

 

Archive - Abba Albums Review

Here is another review for the box set of re-issued Abba albums...

 

Saturday 26 July 2014

Crosley Briefcase Turntable

As part of my birthday last weekend I received a Crosley Briefcase turntable which means that for the first time in around 20 years I have been able to listen vinyl.

However in a nod to modern times I have connected the turntable to my Sonos system so that I can have the music playing around the house rather using the built-in speakers on the Crosley.

In the picture below I had just finished listening to an Abba hits compilation picture disc from Brasil.

 

Abba Gold Back To Black Vinyl

This week I received a copy of the new Abba Gold "Back To Black" vinyl - I think of all the various releases of Gold this is the first one I have owned on vinyl.

 

Friday 25 July 2014

Abba Magazine #30

The 30th edition of the Abba Magazine was published during December 1980 and included the "Super Trouper" album image on the front cover. The editorial started with the news that Abba had recorded a video for their next single "Happy New Year" in English and Spanish together with a Spanish video for "Andante Andante".

The first main article tells the story of how the original plan to film the video for "Super Trouper" around Piccadilly Circus in London at 3am on a Sunday morning was halted due to a law stating that no outside entertainers or animals were allowed within a three mile radius of Charing Cross.

The second major article was a continuation of an interview with Bjorn for Capitol Radio from earlier in 1980. In the interview Bjorn discussed the groups struggle to loose the Eurovision one-hit wonder tag, their work in the studio and how he kept up to date with current music from America and the UK.

Thursday 24 July 2014

Abba Date - 25th July 1972

On the 25th July 1972 Abba's single "People Need Love" first entered the Swedish chart, although as you can see from the pictures below at that point they were still called Bjorn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. The single reached number 17 and spent a total of five weeks in the charts.

 

Wednesday 23 July 2014

Collection Update - "The Visitors" Sheet Music

The latest sheet music book I have added to my collection is for Abba's final studio album "The Visitors". The book contains the music and lyrics to all of the album tracks (including "Should I Laugh Or Cry") and various pictures of the group from the period.

 

Tuesday 22 July 2014

Collection - Frida 12" Single

Another Frida 12" I have in my collection is "Heart Of The Country" which was the second single released from Frida's "Shine" album in the UK in 1984. The track was written by Stuart Adamson from the group Big Country.

The b-side includes two tracks "I Know There's Something Going On" and "Slowly" which was written by Bjorn and Benny.

"Heart Of The Country" was only issued as a single in the UK ; in other countries "Come To Me (I Am Woman)" was released with "Slowly" as the b-side.

 

Monday 21 July 2014

Archive - Abba Revival Article

I recently found this article from the early 90's which was discussing the Abba revival - quite funny reading it now as Abba are as big as they ever were...