ABBA - The Albums on CD - The very best sounding versions :) FINALLY !!!

They didn't. Under Attack sounds horrible on the PickWick label.

 

Benny left Abba in his rear view window a long time ago. He's clearly not interested enough for such a project, he does his own thing. He might use music he wrote for Abba as part of a solo project, but he rarely seems to get involved with any sort of new Abba thing. Even Live at Wembley, he let his son do that project.

Bjorn, who knows. He was interested enough to be the main driving force of the MamaMia play and movie, but since then? He might be spearheading the 3D hologram abba "live" project. Friends of mine in Sweden who dont know him personally but know some of his "friends" in Sweden and London, say Bjorns memory loss comes and goes and he rarely even plays guitar anymore. Grain of salt and all that.

Agnetha has sunk back in obscurity, holed up at Ekero for who knows how long this time around.

Frida has long since retired from any kind of music and lives mostly in Zermatt now.

I do not know them and cannot read their minds, but, from what little they've all said in the press for many years now... they have no intention whatsoever of releasing any kind of masters to the public or the super fans. You arent even going to get Just Like That anytime soon.

 

This is very speculative... As recent as 2012 (wow - has it really been that long) Benny assembled the special From A Twinkling Star To A Passing Angel with different versions of Like An Angel Passsing By My Room (incidentally my number one favourite track from ABBA).

Bernard Löhr mixed the ABBA Live At Wembley Arena album - and indeed Bernard Löhr has mixed a lot of live tracks - he mixed the 5.1 mix for the Dick Cavett live tracks (well those they included on the dvd anyway) in the blue box set in 2005 and before that the 5.1 mix for the ABBA In Concert DVD and also the ABBA The Movie 5.1 mix.

Excerpt from ABBA – The Complete Recording Sessions (Revised and Expanded Edition):
“The recordings were then mixed at Benny’s Mono Music Studio, located in the same building as his offices, probably in the spring and summer of 2014; the mixes were handled by Mono Music Studio house engineer Bernard Löhr, assisted by Filip Lindholm, with Ludvig credited as producer. Naturally, Benny also kept an eye on things. Said Ludvig, “We played every track for him during the mixing process and he offered his thoughts: ‘Maybe some more kick drum there’, or ‘reduce the vocals there’.”

As for Agnetha she released the A album in 2013. I think the press has treated her really badly and made up this whole store about her being a recluse. The fact is that she has been taking part in various events with the three other members of ABBA as well as Frida - there's plenty of YouTube material to enjoy. She also performed with Gary Barlow in London and even went to the G-A-Y club in London.

Frida: The new album by jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval will include a new recording by Frida of ABBA's 'Andante, Andante'. To my knowledge it has not been released yet though it was scheduled for February 2017.

Björn - provides occasional lyrics to Benny's new songs. Seems to be more interested in the business part rather than the music part.

 

Nice collection Geoff, I still need to track down an old Polydor of Arrival and The Album and I think I'm set. I'm good with the old Pickwick box for the hits, I really enjoy that S/T 1975

 

Just for the record is the song 'The Piper' on any pre loudness wars CD comp or only available on the 'Super Trooper' album?

 

It's on ABBA - The Hits 3 from Pickwick
But why do you ask? The regular Polydor version of Super Trouper (i.e. anything before 1997) includes an excellent version of The Piper.

 

I wanted to test out some of the comps first for comparison before trying to track down all the albums again. I already have two different sets of remaster for each album. I recently got the Single 10 years comp. Haven't been able to compare yet but if they're at least crankable I should be fine. I know better sources would be ideal, but I'd rather have crankable from less good sources than compressed master tapes.

 

On comps, I highly recommend the Atlantic Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits Volume 2 CD versions highly. They're smooth and crankable. Sound much like good Atlantic LP and 45 RPM vinyl.

 

One would think that Universal & ABBA would want the additional money made from official hi-res downloads. As far as I have seen, thee are no official hi-res ABBA downloads available.

 

That would ne nice...!!!

 

it may well be. Note that Aggie hasnt done a thing in a years and her mantle of being a recluse is, according to many, well deserved. I'm not some super-fan that refuses to see the less than spectacular elements of these people. They're human after all. Benny's involvement with Abba live at wembley wasnt very hands on, more like a producer. Frida - one track, (I think, might be wrong), since Jon Lord died. Bjorn hasnt performed any music since the very brief Hootenanny Singers reunion several years ago.

Come on. Abba is a dead band. I love their old music, unabashedly, but attempting to categorize any of them except Benny as "active musicians" is a stretch. And Benny isnt exactly fronting an Abba tribute band. 99% of his prolific music output has NOTHING to do with Abba.

You're probably not going to get these hi rez masters any time soon, nor are you going to get Just Like That.

Those are my opinions and I may well be wrong .. but this time I dont think I am.

 

The Albums box set without the digital compression would be perfect, in my opinion.

 

No, it is incomplete. There are some songs missing. I want the Blue Box with a proper mastering

 

A Dream would be in hi-res :i prefer HDtracks.The 96khz/24Bit flat transfers by Astley would
be perfect for that site.This is what i also wrote to Universal.
I like this site I downloaded the new 2012 Remaster from Green Day - American Idiot
and 21st century breakdown and uno,dos,dres these new masters sounding so much better
than on CD.Also the ACDC - Rock or Bust sounds much better and more Dynamic on HDtracks than
on the offical CD.

 

Can you please give CD numbers for Polar and Polydor so that we can easily identify these versions on Amazon or Discogs. Thanks.

 

There are no different options, cause there was only one pressing of the old POLAR CDs, but here we go:

ABBA - ABBA

ABBA - Waterloo

Björn Benny & Agnetha Frida* - Ring Ring

ABBA - Arrival

ABBA - The Album

ABBA - Voulez-Vous

ABBA - Super Trouper

ABBA - Super Trouper (same mastering as Polydor Germany, but without the dropout in the title track)

ABBA - The Visitors

You can also buy a full set of the 1995 USA Polydor CDs. They have original cover artwork, share the old and original mastering and look great !!!
Here is one example:

ABBA - Arrival

I hope that is enough information to find the right ones. If you are looking for the Japan CD pressings I mentioned, simply check Discogs and type in "POCP" or "P33P".

 

Thanks very much. Already have few versions of each, so wanted to be sure.

 

Benny's contributions to ABBA only account for 1% of his life's musical output?

 

And good luck to them. They earned their rest. Much like Genesis, I'm happy to have seen them, enjoyed their music, but can let them go to enjoy their retirement. So it should go with Abba. They owe no-one anything.

 

I absolutely agree with all of this. On another forum there were people moaning and wailing that Bjorn and Benny dont care about their fans, because their fans DESERVE to have all this stuff released.

I always countered with, they worked their butts off non-stop for roughly 10 years, and as solo acts for longer than that, and gave us several great albums to listen to... and that should be enough. They dont owe the fans a damned thing. They gave it their all. Anybody with a lick of sense should be satisfied with that.

 

no his CURRENT output. His output from the last several years as well.

 

I have the ABBA 1975 USA polydor without all the bonus tracks.Its sounds very similar with the polydor 1992 to my opinion.

 

1995 US Polydors share the same masterings as the old european Polydors.

 

A small correction: the POCP ones to look for are the POCP-22xx numbers. Later, in 1997, these POCP-22xx CDs were replaced by the Jon Astley remasters with catalogue numbers POCP-25xx - avoid those (or buy the cheaper European CDs).

 

I have never thought the ABBA releases have had good sound quality. Love the songs and have played them to death since first buying them on vinyl upon initial release.

I was an early CD adopter and picked up the German releases including Ten Years On. Since I already had them all on CD, I skipped the initial US releases thinking at that time all CDs sound the same. Who knew?

Since then I've picked up the various US re-releases and grabbed the beautiful 30th anniversary Japan CD box and the follow up mini-sleeves. (I openly admit all the Japan ones were bought for the packaging.) Since I had those I skipped the big blue box that came out a year later.

I bit on all the deluxe editions. Because of these boards I finally got the Atlantic GH1 and GH2 CDs. I also have two copies of Thank You For the Music, one of the initial "limited" numbered ones and the later US release. I have a few other comps. I've started to do rips of my vinyl.

With all that, my go to is the Ten Years On CD. For individual albums, the early German ones. Ultimately, I'm still left unimpressed with the audio quality but accept it as part of the sound. And I still love the music. I feel we got what we got in regards to ABBA. I can live with it.