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Of the many issues and re-masters, I’m referring to the ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ album that was originally released on 23rd June 1980 on the Septima label.

This album is a favourite of mine in the ABBA catalogue and maybe much to the dismay of many other ABBA followers, actually makes for easy listening.

Sometimes when I get tired of listening to the majority of my other ABBA CDs and feel like a breather, I play this album which I managed to acquire on CD a few years ago with the track listing and song arrangement that the original vinyl album was originally released with.

ABBA had a certain talent that not many artists have and may not achieve what ABBA did in their career. As I’ve written before, the combined voices of Agnetha and Frida were a musical match made in heaven, and this was carried across in no matter what language they sang and I feel that the manner in which they performed their vocals in Spanish came across so effectively and almost in a gentle way no matter which of their tracks were re-recorded for this set.

ABBA were renowned for recording quite a few of their hits in foreign languages, most notably Swedish, which is understandable given their roots, as well as French, German and a few Spanish recordings, such as ‘Ring Ring’ and ‘Wer im Wartesaal der Liebe Steht’, and despite many of these recordings being from the early stage of their career, they certainly knew how to keep their audience happy and target their market in the process all the while trying to establish themselves as recording artists to be taken notice of.

I can only surmise that this must have certainly been the foundation for their eventual recording of the ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ album, in yet again, a foreign language. Not many artists that were active at this time of the late 1970’s made use of this tool, and it seems that this production stood ABBA in good stead.

The ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ album was a big hit in Spanish speaking territories as well as Japan, and quite a few loyal ABBA fans, like myself, had to have the album in their collection!

A few years later, and in the early to mid 1980’s, groups such as Bucks Fizz tried to follow the same route with a few of their well known tracks being recorded in Spanish, as did Westlife a couple of years ago, but none of which managed to produce an entire album of their songs in a foreign language and having it being a success in the process. It seems that not many artists have managed to achieve what ABBA did with the ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ album.

However, there are some parts of ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ that smack of under production and no doubt many others will criticise me as this being throughout the majority of the album itself. Benny has been quoted as saying that he did not really care for the project and did not have much involvement in this album other than listen to it once for final approval just prior to it’s release, which I find sad. To me that type of comment merely confirms that this album release was a marketing ploy at the time to cash in on the Latin American countries after the success of the Spanish version releases of ‘Chiquitita’ and ‘I Have A Dream’.

I have tried many times to put that thought out of my mind and convince myself that this was not the case, but unfortunately, the activities of the last few years from the ABBA camp with the re-issues of the re-issues, the DVDs, box-sets and the rest, merely confirm my comments in the above paragraph, and it almost seems that it was a money making racket back in 1980 as much as it is now and let’s face it, even this album got given the re-mastered treatment in the form of ‘Oro’ and ‘Mas Oro’ in the 1990’s with all of ABBA’s Spanish recordings compiled on these two CD releases.

However, be that as it may, this album still means a lot to me. The ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ album became available in South Africa in mid 1981, and it was a good filler in between the ‘Super Trouper’ album from the end of 1980 and ‘The Visitors’ album at the end of 1981.

If I remember correctly, I obtained the original vinyl album of ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ halfway through 1981. It was about the same time that the 12” vinyl single of ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ was released in the UK, which I received around the same time, and both were played one after the other for many months on my record player despite my having had ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ and ‘On and On and On’ on the Super Trouper album for the best part of half a year!

I must admit that ‘Thank You For The Music’ in itself has never really been one of my particular ABBA favourites, and despite that, the song has a new meaning for me as Agnetha starts singing ‘Soy muy sencilla, y algo aburrida tal vez……….’, as does ‘Ya no hay mas sonrisas todo finaliza’ when Frida launches into ‘Conociendome, Conociendote’, they both, literally leave me cold, and maybe it was the lack of influence from Benny and Bjorn’s involvement with the production of the album that made the girls sound so different, but I honestly feel that the tracks chosen in 1980 that was to result in the ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ album, Agnetha and Frida pulled off very successfully on their own, and even if it was a ploy to keep them both out of mischief whilst Benny and Bjorn were away conjuring up what was to eventually result in the ‘Super Trouper’ album as well as to keep the ABBA machine rolling, it certainly worked very well indeed.

The lack of involvement from Benny and Bjorn on the ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ album is quite evident from the later Spanish tracks ABBA recorded after the success of ‘Gracias Por La Musica’. A notable mention is the beginning of ‘Reina Del Baille’, which on the ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ album is noted as ‘Reina Danzante’ as well as on the CD that I have. I’m pleased to note that on the new ‘The Complete Studio Recordings’ box set released a few weeks ago, this song is noted as originally being called ‘Reina Danzante’. The backing track simply does not have the impact that the introduction to ‘Dancing Queen’ originally had.

In the early 1980’s, ABBA gave us a few Spanish recordings of a couple of their songs from their new albums, notably, from the ‘Super Trouper’ album, being, ‘Felicidad’ and ‘Andante, Andante’ in 1980, and from ‘The Visitors’ album, ‘No Hay A Quien Culpar’ and ‘Se Me Esta Escapando’ in 1981, which no doubt went down very well with the Latin American audiences. The production of these recordings far surpassed those on ‘Gracias Por La Musica’, and it was evident that ‘the boys’ were more involved with the recording and production of these four tracks on ABBA’s last two studio albums. These four tracks were far more cohesive and well polished, which was typical of the ABBA sound throughout their career.

I still smile at the original choice of the 10 songs chosen for the ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ album, they certainly were quite a diverse mixed bag, but, as has been written, the choice was made in trying to retain the Spanish flavour of the album and not just the well known hits. There are others I would personally have preferred them to choose and would have loved to hear in Spanish, but then I suppose that was not my decision.

It has given me immense pleasure to write about this album. The cover is one I have always liked with the four members of ABBA smiling and seem to be having a good time together, being sent ‘via aerea’ to their fans, which we had not experienced on an ABBA album for a long time. They literally were saying ‘Gracia Por La Musica’ with this compilation and together the input from Michael Tretow, Agnetha, Frida, and the translators, Buddy and Mary McCluskey, they did not do a bad job at all!

Neil