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I was having a CD sort out the other night, not throwing anything away, but putting things back into a reasonable order in an effort to clean things up and alleviate some chaos!

In the process of doing so, I realised how many artists that I listen to have been releasing so much of their collection re-mastered and with bonus tracks. And, then there are even a couple of artists who have not released anything of their catalogue in the re-mastered fashion at all they simply re-recorded some of the biggest hits in a different manner!

All the same, some of these artists have been more generous than others with what they offer their fans in the hope that they will buy these re-issues of theirs and a minority seem to have adopted the attitude of, well the fans will buy it anyway, after all they’ve bought it before.

I must say, I very quickly realised that a group that I have enjoyed listening to for many years, and that have proven to be a force to be reckoned with, have in fact given the least back to their fans, and sadly I’m referring to ABBA. None of their re-masters with ‘bonus tracks’ are actually anything to write home about.

There have literally been a handful of occasions in the past few years where ABBA releases are concerned that have anything on them that are really worth buying. Yes, it’s nice to have the sound quality, but at the end of the day, the ABBA re-masters are simply just another version of the same album with a few non-album single releases or single b-sides added to the album from around the same time.

One of the best examples of a re-mastered series that I have personally purchased, are the Fleetwood Mac albums released in 2004, 1975’s ‘Fleetwood Mac’, 1977’s ‘Rumours’ and 1979’s ‘Tusk’. I don’t want to sound biased here as Fleetwood Mac are one of my all time favourite groups, but at the end of the day, they were re-releasing a product that was so successful in the mid to late 1970’s, that they gave something they’d never done before and each of these albums featured bonus material, demos, roughs and outtakes of songs that have charted the world over, along with a few other rare gems.

Now, to me that’s a re-mastered album with bonus tracks. Giving the fans what they actually want and are prepared to pay for a second time round, and in doing so, you get the quality of the sound from 30 years ago updated through today’s technology as well as the original progression of how the album we’ve been listening to for so many years evolved.

In my opinion, the only time ABBA have ever done anything special with their re-masters, was with the ‘Arrival – Deluxe Edition’ CD/DVD that was released last year. We saw a smidgen of them in the studio recording ‘Dancing Queen’, the ‘missing verse’ section, a couple of great interviews, the cartoon video for ‘Happy Hawaii’, and then an excellent package to boot. Now, why could the previous “re-mastered” ABBA releases not have been on a par with last year’s ‘Arrival’? After all, they were supposed to be an improvement on the 1997 re-masters that we all rushed out and bought and did so again in 2001, some of us twice as they were released in digi-pack form as well! There is something that happened in ABBA’s career each year that could have been documented and included on each CD release from that time in the same format that was done for ‘Arrival’. The same applies to the Agnetha and Frida re-issues of their English solo albums from a couple of years ago, which were welcomed and appreciated by many, myself included as they were extremely long overdue. The updated sound was awesome and for some of us we got to hear obscure b-sides, non-international releases and extended versions of some of their well know songs for the very first time, and this was great. However, there was something seriously lacking with these solo releases – a DVD with interviews and promotional video’s for the tracks released as singles pertaining to each album.

Let’s face it, the Agnetha and Frida re-issues were more than likely only bought by fans, and not for the first time either. Every Tom, Dick and Harry in the music industry is ‘re-selling’ their music by issuing compilation’s or albums with a DVD with extra goodies on it and it could have been done for the Agnetha and Frida re-mastered issues. I’ve recently been acquiring quite a few re-releases by artists whose albums I’ve bought before, some include bonus tracks and some have a DVD accompanying the CD. I wanted the extra stuff I’ve only ever had on video, some of which is no longer playable, so I really don’t mind paying for it again.

Now if so many artists can do this with their back catalogue, why can’t Universal Music do this with ABBA as well as the solo back catalogue? Why can’t we get an ABBA album with an accompanying CD of the particular album’s demos or outtakes? Why on earth do we keep on getting told about songs not released or other snippets that it was not good enough then, so it most certainly is not good enough now? What a load of codswallop! Why in 1993 was ‘I Am The City’ good enough to include on ‘MORE ABBA GOLD’ and why was ‘Put On Your White Sombrero’ included on the ‘Thank You For The Music’ box-set in 1994, when neither track were initially good enough for release at the time they were recorded.

If we had to believe all the bullshit we’ve been fed from the ABBA corporation over the years about them never being filmed recording, master tapes with demos having gone missing, interviews lost and so on, we’d all be a bunch of fools. Come on, ABBA were an active recording group for 10 years, I don’t for one second believe they were not ever filmed in the studio, there are photographs, so why no film? As for demos and outtakes, are we to believe that once the track was finished, the demo of it was thrown away? If so, that’s pretty bizarre.

You’ve got to believe that at the end of the day, the ABBA juggernaut from the 1970’s and early 1980’s is far from over and the people behind it are still coining it, and we know it’s mostly Benny and Bjorn at the end of the day despite what they both say. They’ve got to keep those millions rolling in, after all they wrote the majority of the ‘stuff’ as Bjorn refers to their songwriting these days, and they will carry on milking it for as long as fans like you and I continue buying it no matter what they try and lead us to believe. It’s so funny that you hear Bjorn refer to the songs in Mamma Mia! are no longer ABBA songs but Mamma Mia! songs. What a joke, more ABBA CD’s are sold worldwide than what Mamma Mia! soundtracks are.

It’s time the ABBA camp sit up and take heed of what their contemporaries are doing in the market place and start coming to the party with what they release, otherwise the real fans that have been around for years are going to stop buying what is released. I know I will I’m tired of buying the same bloody songs over and over merely for one extra unheard track or re-mix on a CD. We can only hope that the next time we get given something as a taster from the ABBA camp it will be done properly and along the lines of the ‘Arrival – Deluxe Edition’ release from 2006, if not, it’s high time someone at Universal Music looks into what re-mastered with bonus tracks means to the fan who they hope will be buying the product.

Neil