Ask Ian

14 August 2001

Whew! Here goes…

1)   As far as I’m aware, ABBA are reportedly the second biggest selling group after The Beatles. Though the emphasis is on “group” in this statement – depending on who’s telling the story, Elvis Presley has either outsold The Beatles or is number 2 on total sales behind them – I’ve seen both reported as having “over 1 billion record sales”.

2)   There are, of course, only 8 “original” albums – ‘ABBA Live’ was released 4 years after the group disbanded, and shouldn’t really be counted, despite what John Tobler wrote in the 1997 remastered CD booklets or how PolyGram promoted them. Aside from that technicality, I have no idea how many copies ABBA’s various albums sold worldwide. They were originally released by a variety of record companies around the world, and it’s only since the start of the 1990s that they came under the PolyGram umbrella worldwide. The only really known figures are that ‘ABBA Gold’ has sold around 20 million copies or so, making it ABBA’s biggest selling album, and ‘More ABBA Gold’ has sold around 2 million. Apparently, Universal Music is trying to collate more accurate sales figures. Yes, the earlier albums (up to ‘Arrival’) were all bigger sellers in Australia than the later ones – they all sold hundreds of thousands of copies during the peak years of “ABBAmania” in between late 1975 and early 1977 – especially ‘The Best Of ABBA’ and “Arrival’, which both sold over 1 million copies, and ‘ABBA’ which sold in the vicinity of 800,000 copies. After that, due to overexposure and a host of other reasons, ABBA’s popularity with the general Australian public dropped, though most of the later albums still made the top 10. For more on ABBA’s chart details, check out ABBA – The Worldwide Chart Lists at http://www.zip.com.au/~callisto/abba.html.

3)   I haven’t heard whether ABBA’s albums are going to be reissued on cassette, though that format seems to be dying out, so perhaps not.

4)   PolyGram no longer exists – the company is now known as Universal Music. I’ve not heard of any plans for any remastered re-releases of Agnetha or Frida’s solo work. Frida’s album ‘Something’s Going On’ was remastered and re-released in the USA by Chronicle Records (a subsidiary of Universal specialising in reissues) in 1999. Ditto there seem to be no plans on any video release of the girl’s solo material. There have been murmurs over the years that ‘Chess’ would be remastered, and at the ‘Mamma Mia!’ after show party in Melbourne in June this year, ABBAMAILer Matti Crocker asked Björn whether it was going to happen (because it currently “sounds like shit”) but no real answer was forthcoming. It’s surprising that PolyGram’s 1997 re-release of the original ‘Chess’ album on CD wasn’t remastered.

5)    A compilation of video clips from ‘Chess’ entitled ‘Chess Moves’ was released in 1985. It contained five songs from the 1984 “concept” album, with linking between songs specially filmed for the video by Tim Rice. It’s long since deleted. A one-hour television special of one of the performances from the 1984 ‘Chess in Concert’ tour was shown, but it has not been released on video.

There were at least five songs from ‘Chess’ with video clips: ‘One Night In Bangkok’; ‘Nobody’s Side’; ‘I Know Him So Well’; ‘The Arbiter’; and ‘Pity The Child’. All were on the ‘Chess Moves’ videocassette mentioned above.

The bulk of the songs on the new reissued CDs haven’t been remastered since the 1997 issues, which were also done in 24 bit. However, some of the new bonus tracks are remastered in 24 bit for the first time, while several sound faults in the 1997 versions have been fixed – most notably, the sudden and glaring rise in volume at 0.59 in ‘I Let The Music Speak’ on ‘The Visitors’. There are several bonus tracks that weren’t on the 1997 remasters (mostly on the earlier albums), and one that has never officially appeared on CD before.

The main attraction with the new reissues is that the packaging has been vastly improved. The original artwork parts were tracked down, so that all the covers could be redone from scratch to fit the format of the CD, rather than using scans of the previous CDs (or even LPs) as had been done previously. New liner notes have been written by everyone’s favourite ABBA author Carl Magnus Palm, which are authoritative, interesting to read and not full of Anglocentric inaccuracies as the notes by John Tobler were. Also included in the booklets of the new CDs are lyrics for all songs, and photographs from the appropriate years, many of which have not been seen before.

My recommendation: buy the new reissued CDs, and use the old ones as drink coasters, or perhaps turn them into a piece of modern art. Use the jewel cases to replace broken ones in your collection, and burn the old booklets ;-)

LOL!!! What a question! I guess at the time Frida was trying to appear more “independent” – she’d recently separated from Benny, and was planning resuming her solo career. It should be remembered that the short, spiky look was quite common at the time – many female stars went for it, from Olivia Newton-John to Pat Benatar to Belinda Carlisle. But you’re right – early on, Frida’s new shorter haircut was rather severe (and that’s an understatement! ;-) ), as in the ‘One Of Us’ clip, or even worse, ‘No hay a quien culpar’. It did improve though, around the time of ‘Something’s Going On’/’The Day Before You Came’. As for the purple and silver look at the end of 82, I’ve always been quite partial to it. But Frida always was rather experimental with her hair, from the big curl perm circa ‘Waterloo’, to the straight bob circa ‘Fernando’, the gypsy woman look (as I’ve always called it) of 1978, the poodle perm circa ‘The Winner Takes It All’… not to mention the pure white “unrecognisable as Frida/I want to be a private person now” look in the mid-80s.

Hello. I am trying to locate ‘ABBA -The Video Biography’ (1974-1982) in VHS format. I have found it in PAL format. Are you aware of any VHS versions? Thank you. Virginia

I’m assuming that you’re after the tape in NTSC. As far as I’m aware, this video has not been released in NTSC, and it appears to be no longer available (new) in any format. It’s not listed on the ABBF Record Service site, and on several UK video store sites that I’ve checked, it’s listed as “deleted”. Perhaps you’ll find a second-hand copy somewhere (like on eBay), but it would most likely be in the PAL format.

Hiya are the books in the merchandise Gallery for sale, example the ‘ABBA Gift Book’ and so forth if so where do you buy these as I can only see order forms for the CDs, videos and Australian tour Scrapbooks. Thank you Fred

I’m guessing that you’re talking about the Merchandise Gallery on my ABBA Phenomenon in Australia site (http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Studio/5073/), which is a separate entity to ABBAMAIL. No, none of the items listed or shown in my Merchandise Gallery are for sale – it’s just a listing of what has been available in the past for information only. ABBAMAIL has a range of merchandise for sale (which I guess you’ve found), some of which is authentic merchandise produced in Australia in the 70s.

I heard ‘ABBA The Movie’ is coming out in DVD. Is it also coming out in VHS NTSC? If not, why not? Can you and CMP push for it? I got a copy from ABBF a few years ago which I had to convert from PAL to NTSC, but the quality is not that great. I'm also thinking others would want this. Thank you, Bill USA

I really have no idea at the moment whether ‘The Movie’ will even be re-released on VHS (in PAL or NTSC) when the DVD is eventually released – it’s been reported that it “may” be re-released on tape. As for “pushing for it” – I’ve got no influence, and Carl Magnus Palm is working only as a “consultant” for ABBA releases for Universal. But I guess the suggestion could be passed on.

A BBC radio special from 1979 that I am aware of (aside from the ‘Live In Concert’ one played at the end of that year) was one made to promote ‘Voulez-Vous’, where the members talked about the songs on the album. This was distributed to radio stations in an “open-ended interview” format, where the local DJ would ask the questions, then play ABBA’s answers from the interview record.

I’m not familiar with that specific interview, but I have heard Björn make similar comments in other interviews, particularly when asked an extremely personal question, he’s answered “you’ll have to wait for the book”. I think it’s just another one of his lines to fob-off interviewers – I do not believe he has any specific plans to write an autobiography now or in the future.

I’m fairly certain that they were singing live. It doesn’t sound (to me) like the songs were re-recorded and then lip-synched, which would have been a lot of trouble to go to. It wouldn’t be the first time that ABBA performed “live” on a TV special (rather than lip-synch to their existing recordings or sing live over the studio recorded backing track) – in 1976 they performed two songs live for the special ‘ABBA-Dabba-Doo!!’ (a.k.a. ‘ABBA From The Beginning’). Naturally, as in all ABBA 'live' media appearances, the sound was 'enhanced' before broadcast.

ABBAMAIL is the first and foremost ABBA mailing list – click on the “Mailing List” link to the left of the screen for more details and information on how to join.

If you wanted something printed, then you should join the International ABBF Fan Club.

The new ABBA-remasters (‘Ring Ring’ up to ‘The Visitors’) are re-re-released by Polar, but this time with more bonus tracks and the booklets look even more beautiful with lots of photos - as you state on your website: the 2001-remasters. Now, it says in the computer at my local record store that they are available in a plain version (plastic box), but also as a digipak, but when I wanted to order them, they told me they weren't. The ABBF-site in Holland "has them on sale" (?), but they are on vacation for the next two weeks, so they can't answer me either if it's true or not. Would you happen to know anything about this? I mean, I definitely want them, but I always prefer digipaks, if possible. I really would appreciate your help on this. Thanks in advance for your answer/trouble. Regards, Edward - Amsterdam/Holland. 

The 2001 reissued CDs are indeed being released in digipaks (and have already started to appear in record shops in Sweden). But it seems that they’re probably not going to be released in all countries, so if you want to make sure that they’re added to your collection, it’s probably best to order them – there are many on-line stores that have them listed, including Pop Import and the ABBF Record Service (see ABBAMAIL's links page).

I’m sorry, but I really have no idea how to get in touch with either of them (or anyone else in the ABBA circle). Indeed, even if I did know, I would not supply the answer because I feel it is an invasion of privacy. I do not believe I have the right to give contact information about the members of ABBA and their close associates.

I've a question concerning ‘Chess pa Svenska’, the ‘Kristina’ tour and the English version of ‘Kristina’. Are there any CD releases of these planned? I guess that they'll make one of the yet going around ‘Kristina’ tour, simply because they made one of the ‘Chess’ tour in 1994 as well. But for the other events? Do you know anything about that? Greetings from Linz, Harry Ehler ABBA FOREVER 

I haven’t heard of any plans to record and release either the upcoming Swedish version of ‘Chess’ or the recent ‘Kristina’ concerts. But, knowing Benny, I am sure there will be some consideration given to either a studio or live release of the Swedish 'Chess'.

As for the "skyrocketing" sales I agree that only die-hard fans would care about their release, so why doesn't Universal release a Fan CD available only thru fan clubs? Do you think that the new ABBA Live CD will contain unreleased live material? The inclusion of ‘Get On The Carousel’, ‘I Am An A’ and ‘I'm Still Alive’ might be a good idea.

As for the question regarding an earlier version of ‘Like An Angel...’ asked by Darren Lloyd, there actually is a demo recording available which features the song ‘Another Morning Without You’ I think - the lyrics are not the ones from ‘Like An Angel...’- but they are incredibly difficult to make out since the song only runs in the background and Michael Tretow is groaning in the foreground. It's available on the bootleg ‘If It Wasn't for The Music Vol.2’ and is well worth the money. Many regards Toby Strebel

That’s a good suggestion to release a limited edition “live” or “unreleased songs” album through the fan club, and one that’s been mentioned many times before in fan circles. However, there’s the usual stumbling block – Björn and Benny’s attitude towards releasing what they consider “substandard” material. 

Interestingly, Universal Music is one of many of the major record companies that has a subsidiary label that releases “unreleased” material via the internet that’s not available to record shops, which would be the perfect outlet for this sort of thing – if B & B allowed it. I have no idea what might be planned for any future “ABBA Live” album – at this stage, it’s just been mentioned as an idea for the future. I guess it would depend on the condition of the recordings found in the archives.

I’d forgotten about that “strange” version of ‘Like An Angel Passing Through My Room’ that’s appeared on a couple of bootlegs when I answered that previous question. Apparently, it goes by the title ‘Ali ABBA’, and was Michael B. Tretow’s recording of drummer Ola Brunkert playing (and grunting) over the ABBA backing track, which was done as a bit of a joke.

Firstly is there a CD available of Gemini's first album? I have tried to get it but with no luck. Is it true that Agnetha has gone back in to the recording studio? Does Frida have plans to do another studio album? What’s the address of Agnetha and Frida's management? Thanks for your help “The Raven”

Gemini’s first album ‘Gemini’ was released on CD at the same time as it was released on LP and cassette in 1985. However, it’s long been out of print, though their second album ‘Geminism’ has been re-released on CD more recently. Best to try an auction site like eBay for the first album – it appears sometimes, but usually for an astronomical price!

Rumours persist that Agnetha is indeed recording a new album, but no confirmed news has appeared. Frida apparently had vague plans to record another album a couple of years ago, but more recently has said that music is no longer an important part of her life. I have no idea how to get in contact with either woman’s management.

Did they all stay friends or did they all go there own separate ways? Did the guys stay friends or the girls? Mark Carter

Benny and Björn have continued to work together on several projects since ABBA, including their musicals ‘Chess’ and ‘Kristina från Duvemåla’, Björn has written lyrics for songs appearing on Benny’s solo albums (including the most recent, released just a month or so ago). 

Both boys have remained on friendly terms with their ex-wives, and though they may not see each other for years, it seems that despite the gossip, Agnetha and Frida remain friendly. In fact, all four members have attended birthday parties for close friends over the past few years.

My name is Oliver and I live in Germany. I have a question concerning Frida's solo album ‘Something’s Going On’ from 1982. In many books it was mentioned that Frida made two videos in London in summer of 1982- one for ‘I Know There's Something Going On’ and one for ‘I See Red’. Do you have any idea why the latter track was never released as a single then although the video already existed? I always thought it was a strong song and could have easily been the follow up to ‘I Know There's Something Going On’. So maybe you can tell me why ‘I See Red’ was never released as a single.... Thanks, Oliver

This is evident by the making of the video for ‘I See Red’. Frida has always preferred that video over 'I Know There's Something Going On'.

However, record companies change their minds in accordance with what they think will suit the market at any particular moment in time. 'I See Red' seems to have been dropped as a serious contender for single release very early on.

Though it wasn’t released internationally, ‘I See Red’ was actually released as a single in South Africa!

I’m sorry, but I haven’t heard of any release date for South Africa, nor can I find a website for Universal Music for your part of the world. I understand that the new 2001 CDs are going to be released worldwide – I’d suggest you contact your local Universal Music office.

Remember, the 2001 CDs can be ordered from on-line sources quite easily.

 My company is going to Germany (head office) to represent Sweden. We are going to sing: ‘The National Song’, ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘Waterloo’ and ‘Ring, Ring’. One of the guys is going to play the guitar. Where can I get "guitar notes" for him? Do you have any idea? Would be happy for an answer, Barbro

That’s one of those “media myths” that make good headlines. As I understand it, by percentage of profits relative to the size of the company, Polar Music International was more profitable than Volvo in the late 1970s. 

However, Polar was a very small company, while Volvo of course was (and still is) huge. The truth of the matter is, Volvo made a lot more actual money than Polar could ever dream of.