ABBA - Voulez-Vous 40th Anniversary (7th June 2019)

All the details of the 40th anniversary ABBA releases were briefly uploaded to the Universal website earlier before being taken down. Presumably they didn't want the fanfare/PR to clash with the recent breaking stories this morning about the ABBA reunion.

Anyway, what we have is as follows:

1. 2LP 1/2 speed remaster of the Voulez Vous album

2. Singles picture disc boxset:
- Summer Night City b/w Medley: Pick A Bale of Cotton/On Top Of Old Smokey/Midnight Special
- Chiquitita b/w Lovelight (single mix)
- Does Your Mother Know b/w Kisses Of Fire
- Voulez-Vous b/w Angeleyes
- Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! b/w The King Has Lost His Crown
- I Have A Dream b/w Take A Chance On Me (live 1979)
- Voulez-Vous (Extended Dance Remix) b/w If It Wasn't For The Nights

Release date is set as 7th June 2019. More details to follow.

 

Great underrated album. It’s the ABBA album no one talks about much. Despite it being very successful. I did a celebratory thread of my own last year.

Abba - Voulez-Vous. Is it an underrated album?

Not really interested in the vinyl reissues. The original WG CD sounds wonderful and the deluxe edition from a few years ago is pretty good too. Excellent bonus tracks and DVD.

 

I've got photos of the releases, but I sure as hell can't seem to add them to this forum! If anyone can advise, I'll share them.

 

I always liked "Voulez-Vous".

 

This is a great album! “As Good as New” feels like a lost hit to me. I wish they’d put it out as a single in most markets. I think it went #1 somewhere where it was released.

Definitely hunt down the deluxe edition if you’re interested in this album. The extended version of “Summer Night City” is vastly superior to the original, which starts too abruptly, IMO.

 

The Voulez-Vous album does have some promise WRT quality. Some of the albums are a little 'rough' (e.g. Arrival.) Amazingly, a properly decoded SOS or even Waterloo sounds nice.

I wish they would have waited for the DHNRDS (decoder for DolbyA encoded material) to be fully available. This is the result of decoding 'As Good As New' from commercially (legally) leaked DolbyA. I just did a comparison with the original Polar CD and the original vinyl release, and it seems to be favorable. I don't know about the new album, but if they started with the pre-DolbyA master, it would blow away my decoders' result. However, comparing a normal DolbyA HW decoded version with the clarity of the DHNRDS might be interesting... (The decoder follows the rules like freq resp, freq vs gain, gain vs time, etc (mostly), but uses more advanced techniques than the original DolbyA HW.) The DHNRDS design/work was VERY difficult, but have been getting good feedback.
I thought that maybe the result might be intriguing to people who like ABBA (I cannot play the whole piece, of course -- but provided two snippets that give SOME listening experience.)

(I do WISH that I had leaked DolbyA versions of a few of the uncommon songs, like the 'Thank you for the music", Doris Day version.) My decoder DOES do a reasonable job on 'DreamWorld', but that is damaged beyond recovery.) It'd also be VERY nice to be able to test using proper (totally virgin/with tones) DolbyA master, rather than the potentially molested commercially leaked stuff (sold as mastered, but just EQ and send to the unsuspecting customer type thing.)

Two (limited length) snippets:

Dropbox - GoodAsNew1.flac
Dropbox - GoodAsNew2.flac

(Mp3 if you want to play online -- it seems like Dropbox player is a little 'swishy' though):

Dropbox - GoodAsNew1.mp3
Dropbox - GoodAsNew2.mp3

John

 

This was the first album I even brought with my own money as a teenager
Still love it to this day

 

If it’s a picture disc box set for the singles it will be inconsistent with the Arrival and Album 40th issues, not great for collectors

 

???

 

Not so breaking actually....
ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus says group plan to reunite this year and will release album

 

I love Voulez-Vous .... only got it for the first time about 3 years ago .

As a kid I only ever really heard "Does Your Mother Know" .... and that was pretty much the last ABBA single to register in my life .... then they fell off my radar for decades .

 

The singles box has now been posted on The Sound of Vinyl in the UK for 70 GBP. It's already sold out.

 

What a cash-in !!! Original ABBA records are so cheap and easily available...

 

I'll be buying this one.

 

What else did you expect?

Anyway, this album is fantastic from start to finish. Other tracks from this era are pretty good too, "Summer Night City" and "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" especially. Dream World, however, is not a favourite of mine. That track's alright, but that's about it.

 

I love "Dream World" !

 

I love the whole 1978-1979 recordings...but I would never spend so much money to buy that album and / or the singles again and again...the prices are unreasonable !!!

 

This is tempting, but saving my cash for the inevitable Super Trouper and Visitors sets. I will not be able to resist collectibles for “The Winner Takes it All,” “When All is Said and Done,” and “The Day Before You Came.”

 

If It Wasn't for the Nights is a lost ABBA classic.

 

Definitely!! It’s one of my fav tracks on Voulez-Vous.

 

Totally agree!

If one is ever in need of a smile,view this video from a Japan performance.I never get tired of it or Frida's footwork.And those kick-ass boots!!!!

 

Abba - Voulez-Vous. Is it an underrated album?

 

I like Dreamworld also. There is some kind of technical problem with every copy that I have. I think that I am close to recovering it.
John

 

Got some new cleaned up ABBA & others. Sorry, only snippets... Much better DA decoder algorithms (smoother sound -- closer attack/decay emulation.)

Dropbox - AudiophileStyle Demos - Simplify your life

 

More on topic about Voulez-Vous -- I just decoded a copy of 'Lovers Live a Little Longer'. I left a short full quality .flac version, an .mp3 version (lame --preset insane -q 0), and the CD Polar music version. Darn -- gotta chop them off though.
If you listen to the .flac version that I created, I'd expect that the remastered version should sound pretty close to my .flac version.
Also, it might be instructive to compare the .mp3 version with my (not the CD) .flac version. There is an interesting loss of detail in the percussion impact.

John