ABBA: The Studio Albums (Coloured Vinyl Set)

I love this new set, all the LP's finally on coloured vinyl.

Damn... I was doing so well... I’ve just re-ordered it from Amazon as the price had dropped to just 23p more than I would have paid for it last week. gamleman’s photos of the red vinyl, and confirmation that all text had been re-done, helped swing it. The fact they’ve made some effort with this, even if the fonts aren’t exactly right and the artwork reproduction isn’t that good, was enough.

I’ll never understand Amazon’s price fluctuations. My order presumably triggered a slight price increase, but only by about £1.20 more than what I’m paying. It could, of course, go down lower but I’ll have to take that chance and never check it again!

There are already broken-up sets on eBay. Someone’s trying to sell Ring Ring for £35 (plus another £4.70 postage). I’m assuming they’re offering the other albums for a similar price.

So one of the main things is that the vinyl discs themselves are 'perfect'? It's hard to see how bad pressings would matter that much, if the box is going to function as an ornamental item. Would it be a problem to someone who's never going to give these any turntable time if the 'Side One' and 'Side Two' labels were stuck to the wrong sides? Which would be more of a deal-breaker: completely immaculate labels perfectly centred to the spindle holes of the wrong sides, or slightly imperfect labels slightly imperfectly centred to the right sides?

(Edit: I know I shouldn't really be sticking my oar in here, but this is the only thread seeing any decent traffic at the moment!)

I think you get me wrong... I was talking about the sleeves. What I meant is that every modern reissue looks worse than the original albums. And with the technology available today I think it should be the opposite. Why stick to the "replica" pattern? Let them create the picture sleeves from scratch, using original negatives, where available or alternate shots and recreate texts, using original fonts if their available.... in other words - make the new sleeves as close to the originals as possible but not for the price of compromising quality of pictures.

As for the vinyls... I don't see a reason why they should not be perfect. They should always aim at the best possible sound.

Not necessarily the Polar originals though. I never had any of them on vinyl apart from Ring Ring. It’s bias mixed in with nostalgia but I much prefer the UK artwork. Waterloo, ABBA and The Album had major differences (the others only minor ones). I never liked the titles for Polar’s Waterloo. Titles and names all running along the top in the same size, nothing stands out.

The UK edition of Waterloo managed three different fonts on the front, against the official one used on the back, but at least the ABBA name and album title were prominent. And I do quite like the yellow border that the ABBA album had. It’s therefore those three albums that I’m least bothered about in this set, though again, the orange vinyl does look nice.

I wish we knew more about the artwork. We know that clean versions of it (without text) exist for all albums but that the negatives for The Visitors and Waterloo are lost. If the 2001 (and deluxe issues) CD artwork used the negatives to reproduce the photos and then enhance them (using alternate shots for those two albums), why couldn’t they use them for vinyl issues?

I looked at Carl Magnus Palm’s site earlier, and in particular the page discussing the 2001 remasters. It mentions that vinyl versions of these (using the 2001 artwork) were issued. These are obviously quite rare but it would be interesting to know how they compare to modern issues. I imagine they’re vinyl cover sized versions of the 2001 CDs but I wonder what the photos look like blown up to that size?

I can vaguely remember seeing some of these vinyls on sale (somewhere in Europe during the 2000’s) so I know they existed. At the time I wasn’t interested - seemed an odd thing to do. Who wants the vinyl with new artwork?

I wasn't going to report on playing the "ABBA" album but feel compelled to...

On the negative side, the grey vinyl has lots of embedded swishy marks and I also had to remove some hairs of vinyl from the record edge before playing it. IMO, this one should have been yellow - no ABBA album should have grey vinyl, but I guess they got the colour from Agnetha's dress on the cover.

On the positive side, it sounds very good indeed. I don't have an original Polar copy of this album but the UK edition has an edginess/harshness to the sound which is probably at its peak on "Bang-A-Boomerang". This edginess is largely absent from this new pressing, with much better high frequencies.

Even though they may have re-created the album covers in this box-set, it's interesting that they have left in "Agnetha by courtesy of CBS-Cupol AB", as I imagine there is now no real need to say this. I have to say that this is my favourite cover of all the ABBA albums, especially the back-cover of them hanging around a hotel lobby. When this album first came out in the UK in Spring/Summer 1975, it was still a bit of a novelty to see them out of their Waterloo costumes.

P.S. I wonder whether they will ever get around to releasing this album, "Waterloo" and "Ring Ring" as half-speed masters with gatefold sleeves. Or will they stop with "The Visitors".

Surely it would make more sense for ABBA (1975 album) to be released in 2015 as it would be the 50th anniversary. It would really bug me if it‘s going to be released before that.

That’s what I thought about the deluxe CD. I think they wanted to finish with Waterloo to mark the 40th anniversary of Eurovision. I could be wrong, but I imagine it will go the same way for the 50th. The deluxe ABBA CD appeared unexpectedly in 2012.

2024 might be a big year for releases (though not quite sure what else they can do with ABBA’s catalogue, it’s all been done) so it will probably be a quiet 2025.

gamleman, I think Agnetha’s Cupol contract officially ended with Elva Kvinnor. She was then fully signed to Polar from the start of 1976 and managed by Stig. I imagine the 1979 new song was a contract obligation as part of the 1975 severance agreement, one which she was more than happy to fulfill.

Meant 2025 (50th Anniversary). Can’t believe I made that mistake

I've now finished playing all the albums in the box. Here's a brief verdict on sound quality:

RING RING: Good - an improvement over the original Polar
WATERLOO: Poor - not as good as the original Epic
ABBA: Great - a distinct improvement over the original Epic
ARRIVAL: Very good - possibly better than the original Epic
THE ALBUM: Excellent - possibly better than the original Polar and certainly better than the Epic
VOULEZ-VOUS: Not great - edgy sound and comparable to the original Epic
SUPER TROUPER: Good - probably better than the original Polar but perhaps not quite as good as the Epic
THE VISITORS: Disappointing - clear but sounds a bit thinner than the original

As can be seen, this box is a bit of a mixed bag in terms of sound quality.

Michal, the reason I haven’t given my thoughts on the box is because I only opened it tonight!  I’ve had it for a month but, aside from opening the Amazon packaging to check the box was undamaged, I haven’t touched it.  I changed employer this week, so this was sort of a leaving / starting present to myself!

Anyway, after opening the cellophane wrap (undamaged, thanks to the opening being on the side and fully exposed), I did a thorough investigation of the contents.  As others have mentioned, the re-created text is a big improvement on what’s gone before, but it’s been severely offset by the poor quality of the artwork reproduction.  They still feel like facsimiles of the originals.  I’m not sure the matt finish helps - were any of them glossy originally?  A gloss finish might have helped to hide some of the imperfections.

I’ll review each one individually:

RING RING - the titles and members’ names still appear to be scans, as they aren’t as sharp as all other text, which has clearly been re-done.  The red vinyl is nice, perhaps my favourite of the set.  

WATERLOO - again, a nice solid colour for the vinyl (orange).  This album always had grainy artwork, but the scan quality makes it even worse.

ABBA - nice to see all that script text looking nice and sharp.  As with the previous two albums, even the text advertising other Polar albums of the time has been re-done.  The photos of the releases in question though, are in very bad quality.  As with Super Trouper, the marble-effect vinyl is horrendous.  It honestly looks like two transparent coloured vinyl halves with very creased paper in the middle. Also, grey is a very boring colour. Someone suggested it was picked out from Agnetha’s dress, but I always saw that as a green-ish colour. I’d have gone with the yellow of the lettering, and perhaps used a light brown for The Visitors instead.

ARRIVAL - a slightly boring choice for the vinyl (white) but after the shock of the marble ABBA, it’s a relief to see a solid colour again (yep, I know white isn’t actually a colour). Presumably the white is because of the costumes worn in the photos.

THE ALBUM - as with Ring Ring, the titles on the cover still appear to be scans as they aren’t as sharp as other text. The giveaway is that “The Album” title on both the inner sleeve and labels is rendered in a different font that gives more spacing between each letter.  The cover titles, however, look much more like the originals.  The (R) of the registered trademark indicator is way-off the sharpness of the other text, suggesting that even the ABBA logo is a scan.  The green vinyl is much darker than I expected.  It does not contrast well with most of the other, much brighter colours.

VOULEZ-VOUS - nice solid blue vinyl.  As with the others, the artwork is otherwise disappointing.  The “frame” design of the inner sleeve is in a very different shade of blue to what I remember.

SUPER TROUPER - as with ABBA, the marble effect is appalling.  My theory about it being very thin creased paper (I’d term it tracing paper) between two transparent coloured pieces of vinyl is strengthened - where the “marble” bubbles up on one side, there is a corresponding indentation on the other (not the vinyl itself). It’s as though the thin paper is slightly too big for the vinyl, so to compensate it’s having to ripple up inside. This is definitely the worst of the eight records.  It’s a very unattractive finish and should have been done better.  I have other marble-effect vinyls and they look nothing like this.  Truly awful.

THE VISITORS - yet again, it’s a relief to see a solid colour (yellow) after the travesty that is Super Trouper.  As someone else noted, the bright yellow does not suit such a dark album, but does go well with the three other bright colours in this set.  One positive about both this and Super Trouper is that the plain design of the inner sleeves means no nasty scans.  These two albums therefore have the best inner sleeve reproductions (effectively entire recreations) of the eight.

All in all, there’s a feeling of dissatisfaction.  Even though others on here had prepared me for what to expect, meaning I shouldn’t have felt disappointed, somehow I still do.  It should have been so much better than this.  Coloured vinyl remains a novelty for me - seeing a record that, in my mind, should still be black but isn’t, is still fascinating.  I don’t feel the same about picture discs, and not sure I ever really have, but coloured vinyl still does it for me.  Well, apart from ABBA and Super Trouper anyway.

Thanks for that post, Alan . It feels so much like a missed opportunity. Those of us who like to collect these things could probably be persuaded to pay some more for more careful productions. Am I wrong? I get that faithful recreations of the sleeves are challenging. There is a debate, I'm sure, about whether close-as-we-can-manage recreations are better than super-careful high grade* scans of the originals. (*I get the impression that these scans are not high grade?). So there may be some bitter pills to swallow when it comes to the artwork. But the vinyl? No siree bob. 

I've been looking at vinyl options for my own album and from what I can see, coloured vinyl is the same price as black, whether solid or translucent. And the range of colours available is MUCH bigger than these releases would have you think. I think they got the colours right for Ring Ring, Waterloo and Voulez-Vous. Personally, I think yellow would have been better for ABBA, clear or baby blue for Arrival, and white for The Album. Super Trouper and The Visitors present challenges because of the predominant brown hue of both sleeves. Maybe a translucent maroon for ST and a translucent amber for TV?

I'd like to think this set is premature. I'd like to think that a ten disc set could be in the works: disc No.9 containing all the new material (a 12" EP if there isn't a whole album), and disc No.10 containing the five non-album singles and the six studio recorded B-sides. That could be topped up with an extensive album size booklet with essays for each disc by, say, CMP. I'd pay (reasonably) big bucks for that. Ditto a CD equivalent. Dare I dream?

Haha. Let this be a warning to anyone who gets complacent about middle age! So you are completely right: the B-sides need a disc of their own. In view of the running time limits on vinyl, and given the cumulative running time of the five non-album singles, the inclusion of the four waifs and strays could make a decent 9-track disc.

It's the sort of thing that should come out on 6 April 2024, a proper career retrospective, beautifully packaged, highly desirable. Ideally, it would be matched by a music-focused documentary that looks at the albums beyond the glossy hit singles. All four members could contribute to that, plus any musicians and studio personnel that are still in a position to do so. Ban Pete Waterman from the set. Devote no more than 5 minutes to Mamma effing Mia unless Chess, Kristina and Hjälp Sökes get attention too. Treat the audience with intelligence. The kitsch angle has been done to death.