Last month I wrote my story about first getting 'Arrival' when it was released 25 years ago. Today is another auspicious anniversary - I don't know whether this one will actually make some of us feel even older than that one...

On this very day, 20 years ago, I got 'The Visitors' album. How's that for something to make us feel older - 20 years since the last all new ABBA studio album.

Like getting most of ABBA's records when they were released, this one's got a doozy of a story behind it.

Several months earlier, there'd been a couple updates from Polar published in the Australian ABBA Fan Club newsletters with what tracks ABBA were recording. The only track titles mentioned were 'Slipping Through My Fingers', 'Two For The Price Of One' and 'When All Is Said And Done' (hmmm, all rather clichéd titles, I thought). In the middle of 1981 we moved house, and for some reason, though we had our mail redirected, the post office would hold on to it all and then deliver a few months mail all at once. Weird. So I hadn't heard anything about the album being finished - there'd been nothing in the media here at all about it (or about ABBA at all really, not even much about Benny and Frida's divorce!).

The first I heard about ABBA having a new album out in 1981 was just the week before, when on the Monday morning (7 December) I heard an advertisement on the radio (2CA, for those who know Canberra radio stations) for a competition to give away "the new ABBA album". Oddly, they didn't mention the title, and the only music they played was the first line of 'Slipping Through My Fingers' (which, though I hadn't heard the song at all, I somehow guessed it *was* 'Slipping Through My Fingers'). I can't remember now what you had to do to win - probably phone the station or something. But they didn't play any songs from the album that week, or indeed *any* ABBA songs that I heard (and we listened to the radio all day at the place where I was working part time that week).

On Sounds (Channel 7 music show) the following Saturday morning, the album cover was shown briefly shown, which was probably the first time I learned what the album title was, and that it would be released on Monday (14 December). On Countdown the next day, they played 'When All Is Said And Done' announcing it was from "the new ABBA album" - they may or may not have mentioned the title. I don't remember whether the cover was shown or not. I was mightily impressed with the first song I'd heard from 'The Visitors', though.

That week, there was a bus strike in Canberra, so I had to ride my bike to the nearest record shop (at Woden Plaza, several km away). I rode all the way there Monday morning - no 'The Visitors'. I rode back in the afternoon - again, still no album. I did the same thing Tuesday, it still wasn't there. The same sort of thing had happened with 'Super Trouper' the year before, until it finally appeared in the afternoon of the third or fourth day it was expected. (yes, I know I could have phoned the record shop, but usually if one asked about ABBA records, you got laughed at. Just a couple of months earlier, I'd had eyebrows raised at a record shop I frequented regularly when I'd bought a Sex Pistols album - "but you always buy ABBA <snigger snigger>". So you can see why I didn't want to phone ;-) ).

Wednesday morning I went to get my bike out of the shed, but dad had locked it before going to work and had managed to take the only key with him! AAAARRRGGGHHH!!! So I was stuck at home with no way of getting out (I suppose I could have walked, but it was a bit *too* far to walk there and back in early-summer Canberra, and would have taken a few hours). I phoned mum at work to ask her to pop in to Woden Plaza on the way home.

Mum finally got home that afternoon at around 5.30, with Music Market bag in hand - they finally had 'The Visitors' in stock! (typically, on the day that I couldn't get there myself - I could have had it hours earlier!!!!). So I disappeared into my room to immerse myself in "the new ABBA album".

During that year, I'd been getting into new music. For quite a few years, the only music that I ever listened to was ABBA, until around 1979 when I started getting right into The Beatles. But during 1981 I really started getting into the stuff that was coming out of England - The Human League, Duran Duran, Ultravox, Visage, Toyah, etc etc (you get the picture). I wasn't sure what to expect from a new ABBA album - would it be like 'Super Trouper'? I didn't really have much to judge it on - I'd only heard one full song (once) and one line of another.

So now I had 'The Visitors'. I pored over the cover, which I loved, though there was one thing that pissed me off - like 'Super Trouper', we could barely see ABBA. They were so small, and having not seen any photos of them for months (probably the Dick Cavett shots in the ABBA Magazine were the most recent), I wanted to see what they looked like now. About the only things that were obvious were that Björn had grown a beard and Frida had a new hairdo, though it was hard to tell - she may have just had her hair pulled back for all you could tell in the photo.

So I plonked the record on the turntable of my super cheap record player, side 1 first of course. And was astounded at what started coming out of the speakers - here was ABBA sounding like something on an Ultravox album, all swirling synthesiser sounds, treated vocals, odd melody lines (for a couple of minutes anyway). Then came a chorus that sounded highly reminiscent of 'Summer Night City'. Hmmmm. But I instantly loved the song 'The Visitors', and it's still among my top favourite ABBA songs.

Then came 'Head Over Heels'. My first thought - with that "circussy" keyboard sound, it sounded like it should have been on 'Super Trouper'. Not bad, but not great.

Next of course was 'When All Is Said And Done', which I'd already heard (once anyway). Loved it, and still do - it's probably my favourite ABBA song. And I instantly recognised its origins as B & F's 'The Winner Takes It All'.

Then 'Soldiers' - wow! Never before had ABBA sung anything as "current events" as this. And being the "tree hugging hippy" that I was at the time, I really loved the anti-war sentiment of the lyrics.

Time to flip the record over for side 2. 'I Let The Music Speak' was an odd beast. I thought it really sounded like something that should have been in a musical - it had that theatrical feel about it. Clever lyrics, though not really original (all that "hearing images, seeing songs" stuff). Still, fabulously different.

Then bitter disappointment - 'One Of Us'. I think I must have heard by then that it was to be the single from the album. What a pisser, what a weak song compared to 'When All Is Said And Done', which I thought just *screamed* "I am a single!!". Agnetha moping around the house again, all sad and lonely. I think this was the start of my "conspiracy theory" that they gave Agnetha all the singles in the later years (baring 'Super Trouper') just to keep her in ABBA. I'm sure my hatred of this song stems from the fact that it *was* "the single" - if it had just been an album track, I'd probably think of it as a benign nothing, like 'Slipping Through My Fingers'.

'Two For The Price Of One' was a strange song then and still is. In a way, it's like they were trying to be "too clever by half". Today I don't mind it as much as I really didn't like it then.

I didn't like 'Slipping Through My Fingers' at all. It was more "Agnetha moping" to me. And I wasn't a fan of ballads at all at the time - in a way, I'm still not.

'Like An Angel Passing Through My Room' was quite a surprise after all of that. From the big, bombastic opening track, through all those "clever" songs (Soldiers, I Let The Music Speak, Two For The Price Of One), plus some of the usual ABBA sort of thing (When All Is Said And Done, One Of Us, Slipping Though My Fingers) was probably the most unique thing on the album. I can't really remember my initial reaction now, except that I probably thought it was a perfect song to end an album (and, quite likely, thinking it was the perfect "final ABBA song").

Somehow, after listening to 'The Visitors', I knew that ABBA were over it. Even with the excitement of getting "the new ABBA album", somehow the excitement wasn't in the music. It was bleak, it was stark, and nothing at all like they'd done before. By then of course Benny and Frida had divorced, and Björn had done his infamous "we probably have three albums left in us " interview, which came out before 'Super Trouper'. I just had that feeling then that this would be the last we would hear from ABBA. And to me, it was a perfect send off - if they'd just release 'When All Is Said And Done' as a single, and then say goodbye. But as we know, they dragged on for another year and managed to get 6 songs together, in what I call "ABBA's post script year" - when it was pretty obvious that the game was up.

At the time, 'The Visitors' became my favourite album, because it was "progressive", some songs sounded like the other music that I was into at the time, and it was so different to anything that ABBA had done before. I would play it for anyone who thought that ABBA was all 'Mamma Mia' 'Ring Ring' 'Dancing Queen' 'Money, Money, Money' 'Fernando' etc. Some were impressed, but quite a few thought it was "boring". In hindsight, I can see why they might think it - there's no really "up" songs as there were on every other ABBA album (in fact, in Graeme's review in the AAFC newsletter complained that there were "no 'fast' songs", like 'Does Your Mother Know' or 'On And On And On'. Though he did end his review with "All is not said and done for ABBA". Famous last words ;-) ).

Today 'The Visitors' is not my "favourite" album, but probably number 4 (after 'Arrival', 'ABBA' and 'Super Trouper'). And it does contain 2 of my favourite ABBA songs, 'When All Is Said And Done' and 'The Visitors', though it also contains a couple among my least favourite ABBA songs - esp 'One Of Us'.

As I write this, I'm listening to the album again - the 2001 digipak version, of course. In fact, at this moment 'I Let The Music Speak' is coming in for the second time, it's taken me that long to write this. And I have the LP sleeve propped up next to me so I can gaze upon the cover as it was originally designed, in its full sized 12 inch glory. Maybe I should have dug out the Scandecor poster and stuck it up on the wall too - one day I *have* to get that one framed.

And of course, coincidentally, it happens to be the fat, grumpy man's birthday! ;-)

Ian Cole "standing calmly at the crossroads" in Sydney Australia

December 16, 2001