Yeah Google is your friend Let's face it the ABBA discography is cheap - their boxset can be bought for £15 at the moment. It's just a shame they aren't audiophile versions. So if I get all polydors and the thank you for the music set, I have all the main stuff part from the Spanish songs and "Just Like That"
Pretty much just nabbed all of them except the last one in W. Germany Polydor CD form. Not sure if they're from '95 or the 80s. I really like to crank ABBA and I just can't with any of the 2000s/2010s CD versions. As far as The Visitors go I've never heard a bad CD version. The last version from a few years back is as quiet as the 80s CD version!
I saw a Waterloo cd in a second hand shop recently from the Spectrum (or Karussell?) label. I wondered if I should grab it but then I thought it might be just the old Polydor mastering reissued on a sublabel...
According to Abba Plaza, it’s a clone of the ‘92 Polydor. ABBA Plaza - albums - waterloo - audiophile
I thought the Polydor Waterloo CD was from 1990? Is the 1988 Swedish Polar CD significantly better than the Polydor?
You are right - I had both versions (Polydor + Karussell) and they share exactly the same mastering. I think it sounds nice !!! Same for RING RING - the Polydor mastering sounds so much better, compared to the original POLAR CD from 1988.
Swedish POLAR for WATERLOO is the way to go, but the POLYDOR is a nice 2nd option if you don't want to spend lots of money. The Polydor CD doesn't include the swedish version of the title track, if you are looking for it.
The only POLYDOR CD to avoid is the 1975 album ABBA. It has boosted treble range and lots of hiss. You have to go either for the original POLAR CD or the Deluxe Edition.
I have it and remember thinking at the time how great it was to have all those extra bonus tracks! But the sound is pretty harsh yes!
I have Ring, Ring from Polar 1988. The rest Polydor, except The Visitors (The 2012 Deluxe is fine). Of course I have all of them in 2003(?) and Deluxe remastering but they kinda suck (Except Super Trooper and The Visitors which are good in the deluxe editions). The self titled album on Polar is quite expense and rare. I'll have to keep my eye out for it.
Do the issues that you find with the first disc of The Singles: The First Ten Years CDs (i.e. congested sound, EQ) also appear on the second disc as well in your opinion? I finally acquired the Greatest Hits (Atlantic) CD, and while the common tracks between it and The First Ten Years do sound different, it's not as clear-cut to me that the Greatest Hits tracks sound superior across the board (with the exception perhaps of "Mamma Mia"). I'm wondering if it's as worthwhile for me to seek out the Greatest Hits Vol. 2 CD if the gap in sound quality between it and disc 2 of Singles: The First Ten Years is even smaller. My favorite tracks that appear on Greatest Hits Vol. 2 are from Arrival, and I already have that taken care of through the Japanese Polydor CD of that album. Thanks.
I bought the first Sade "Diamond Life" CD (1984) the other day and this intriguing page was in the booklet. Notice all of those UK Epic CD catalogue numbers for ABBA? What was going on here? Did Epic import the German Polydor pressings and attach stickers? Do these even exist?
Not as much as the first disc and Side 1 in particular. I know a lot of people love the sound of that collection so maybe it's just that I don't like the sound of it. It has a few noticeable tape glitches too (I Do, I Do, I Do... Money, Money, Money and Summer Night City) As I mentioned earlier, GHV2 lives on the interwebs in lossless form if you want to check it out before you track it down -all issues, Atlantic, Polydor and Polar use the same mastering. The 1977 tracks from ABBA The Album sound better on GHV2 (save for the unfortunate exception of The Name of the Game)
It's the full version of the song and it came from the LP cutting tape, meaning it contains the tape distortion. As you already know only the Astley remasters don't have it because they came from the mixdown. I remember reading somewhere that Astley found the missing verse and chorus spliced at the end of the mixdown when he was transferring the tapes in 1997 so he edited it back in, probably digitally. "The Singles - The First Ten Years" appropriately contains the single version which came from the mixdown, but without the missing verse and chorus edited back in. It's still a mystery why every remaster since the 1997 and 2001 Astley remasters used the LP cutting tapes which everyone knows has the horrible tape distortion.
A little late, but the SPECTRUM CD shares exactly the same mastering as the old POLYDOR CD - sounds nice !!!
