Atlantic ABBA Super Trouper

Could anyone please attach actual pictures of the various of Altantic Super Trouper pressings? (like the Greatest Hits Vol. 2 there are 3 different Atlantic pressings).

Cheers

 

There should only be two: the American one and the Canadian one. What's the third? Anyway, go to http://www.abba4therecord.com and you'll find all the pictures you want there.

 

Are we talking CD? I have not seen a Canadian CD pressing. The only one I have seen is the U.S. WEA pressing (SRC, Specialty Records Corporation). That is the only pressing shown on abba4therecord.com.

 

I am assuming that there was a Canadian one - Canadian ones exist for Greatest Hits 1 & 2 and Atlantic Canada continued to put out Abba CDs after the US gave up.

 

I bought mine when it was released. At the bottom of the disc it says 'Made In U.S.A. By WEA Manufacturing, Inc.' I seriously doubt that there was any other pressing of this.

Atlantic Greatest Hits 1 had 3 designs-what I wrote above, Made In USA By Sanyo and the target design.
Greatest Hits Vol. 2 had the target design, WEA and made in USA by PDO

 

Thanks guys.

 

Are there any other Abba albums released by Atlantic?

 

Yes - see abbaoncd.wordpress.com for details.

 

Why would Atlantic only release one Abba studio title in USA? Weird.

 

I honestly don't know. Their US licence may have expired quicker than their Canadian one and I suspect that they wouldn't have been that inclined to renew it.

 

How about this reason: little or no interest?

These early CDs would have been in the early-mid 1980's timeframe, only a few short years after SUPER TROUPER was a "current" album. Possibly it was selected as a title still in print on LP and cassette. I'm not 100% sure of that.

What I am sure of though is the total negative image of groups like ABBA, especially in that time frame in the US. They were looked down on as "disco", passe, last-decade's news, out of sync with the current times.

Atlantic was probably just tuned in to that fact and was satisfied with releasing a couple of greatest hits albums and this particular one that slid through the cracks.

At that point in time, not everything was immediately available on CD. One had to wait for these older catalog releases to wait their turn if one wanted to "upgrade" to the newfangled format.

It wasn't really until GOLD was compiled that ABBA sales took off - this time on CD.

Harry

 

I have to agree with Harry. Also, ABBA left Atlantic early in the CD era. In the early days, not all artists saw their entire catalog released at once. An artist's catalog was often released piecemeal due to manufacturing limitations and lower demand relative to cassettes and LPs. Licensing was also likely a rate-determining step back then.

 

The Visitors would have been the 'current' studio album at that point - the Super Trouper CD didn't come out until 1986!

The release of Abba titles really depended on the licencee: PolyGram had already released a huge chunk of their back catalogue on CD by mid-1984 but Abba were always a hugely important artist for them.

But the rest was then released piecemeal over a five-year period with some titles never seeing a European release.

In Japan, pretty much everything was out there by 1986 with a couple of exceptions.

RCA in Australia and Atlantic in the US didn't really bother though.

 

My point was largely that ABBA was not an important item in Atlantic's catalog in the '80's. They were at best an afterthought, a novelty act, and yesterday's news.

That all changed big time with the worldwide release of GOLD, the box sets, the Mamma Mia phenomenon, etc. But back in the '80s, no-one in their right mind was touching ABBA with a 10-foot pole. Anyone's research at that time would have showed that.

Why Atlantic chose SUPER TROUPER for a release on CD in addition to the two Greatest Hits albums is really unknown. Who knows - maybe someone's daughter really liked the album!?

Harry

 

I'm glad I picked it up then! Just ran across it for $4.49.

 

I have ST on vinyl. Is the OP asking for information on vinyl pressings or CD?

 

CDs. Basically, Super Trouper was the only original Abba album released on CD by Atlantic in the US.

 

Ahh, OK gotcha.

 

Harry is quite correct! A number of their 70's singles that were huge hits in other parts of the world were flat out "stiffs" in the US. I still don't quite understand why.

This "attitude" actually continued after Polydor got the rights to them here in the early 90's. I can recall my PGD rep telling me that the decision to NOT include a photo of the group on their release of the Gold CD was deliberate. They felt that a picture of the group would actually turn people off! They were worried about the whole polyester/white jumpsuit/disco thing. Seems silly today. And what seems sillier is the fact that the original artwork on Goldhas never been changed, despite the fact that it's part of a huge series of "Gold" CDs that has a distinctive style! (Plis, it's never been expanded to 2 discs!)

Dexter

 

True. The title, GOLD, has been re-mastered and reissued several times since the 1992 original, however, the US issue is still that original 1992 mastering.

In spite of the "error" of including only the edited single of "The Name Of The Game" (which was fixed on the subsequent worldwide re-releases), GOLD still contains that old Atlantic short version.

Harry

 

The reason why Gold has never been expanded is that there's already a 2CD Abba compilation on the market - The Definitive Collection. It's basically a very heavily expanded The Singles: The First Ten Years with all their international singles.

It would actually be the essential Abba compilation but for the fact that it was mastered by Jon Astley.

 

So, aside from the two Atlantic compilations (GH & GH 2), is there a good sounding Abba compilation out there right now? Is there a collection readily available in 2009 that has good sound quality? I have the two Atlantics & I do like them, but I don't think they are "to die for"...

Just wondering if there is something else I should look for....I'm not really interested in the group enough to get all their albums, or a "complete works" set.

Dexter

 

Isn't the first mastering of ABBA Gold considered pretty good?

 

It kind of has - More Abba Gold which was remastered and reissued in the wake of the Mammia Mia DVD furore.

I personally prefer the sound Jon Astley's mastering on The Definitive Collection to the first Abba Gold, although there are errors on it. IIRC there's a glitch on Knowing Me Knowing You which sounds like the CD has jumped a tiny bit, but it's actually on the disc, also the first note of Winner Takes It All is still getting up to speed as it starts!

I have no idea what the most recent mastering of Gold sounds like, but I do like the vinyl edition of Gold which appears to be mastered differently to the initial CD as it has some drop outs on a track that don't appear on the CD.