ABBA Happy New Year
Pick up some great value ABBA deluxe sets and collectibles issued in the last 18 months…
Ring Ring / Deluxe Edition CD+DVD
Amazingly ABBA’s first album (originally issued under the Björn, Benny & Agnetha Frida moniker) wasn’t issued in the UK until 1992. This 40th anniversary edition issued in autumn 2013 includes quite a few interesting early versions of songs from embryonic versions of the band including the 1970 recording There’s A Little Man, featuring Agnetha on backing vocals (her first contribution to a recording written and produced by Björn and Benny) and Man vill ju leva lite dessemellan, a 1972 hit single for Frida featuring backing vocals by her fellow ABBA members. The DVD is perhaps a little thin and comes with the now obligatory (and boring) ‘International Sleeve Gallery’ but still worth picking up for less than £7.
- • Order Ring Ring (Amazon UK)
Waterloo / Deluxe Edition CD+DVD
Released earlier this year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the band winning the Eurovision Song Contest, the CD element of this Waterloo deluxe has lots of familiar foreign language versions as bonus tracks, but unlike Ring Ring boasts a really good DVD packed full of clips and interviews including the iconic Eurovision performance. Again this is a no-brainer for under £7.
- • Order Waterloo Deluxe Edition (Amazon UK)
Waterloo / Seven-inch single picture disc
This was issued around the time of Record Store Day in Spring this year, although it wasn’t actually an RSD-only release. The A-side has the Swedish version of the Eurovision-winning single while the flip-side sports the familiar English language recording.
ABBA The Essential Collection (2CD+DVD)
This set was issued a couple of years back (see our review) and by all accounts was something of a flop, probably because EVERYONE IN THE WORLD already has ABBA Gold. That said, you do get all the promos on a DVD and this comes in decent ‘bookset’ packaging. Even better it was over £20 originally but can now be yours for under £7!
- • Order The Essential Collection (Amazon UK)
Agnetha Fältskog / A Deluxe Edition (CD+DVD)
Agnetha’s 2013 ‘comeback’ album was very well received and includes the very good, but creepily titled, I Should Have Followed You Home Gary Barlow duet. This CD+DVD deluxe feels like a future collectible but has never been particularly cheap UNTIL NOW – you can pick it up for under £9 at the time of writing. The DVD includes a promo video and a really good, hour-long BBC documentary about the making of the album.
- • Order A Deluxe Edition (Amazon UK)
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I bought Super Trouper (favorite album), and will still try to grab a few others. But after buying the same stuff over and over (no wonder they’re so rich if so many of us do that!), I was more than a little miffed when “The Visitors” CD deluxe still doesn’t have “Just Like That,” and the DVD doesn’t have the complete Dick Cavett interview and performance.
Never had much interest in Ring Ring or Waterloo. So I can’t name what are the best versions out there, but the 2014 DeLuxe Editions are said to be good.
For Abba, Voulez-Vous and Super Trouper I would go for the recent DeLuxe editions. Not too hot mastered, rather warm sounding. Enjoyable.
For The Visitors, the 1980s original Polydor is still the best. The 2012 DeLuxe is slightly inferior (a certain muddiness is present), but worthwile for the bonus tracks. The real fan wil need both.
Not recommended are the DLE für Arrival and The Album, which duplicate the loud 2005 remasters. For Arrival, the 1980s Polydor or the 2014 mastered for iTunes download are recommended.
For The Album, the only choice is the iTunes download. If you want a physical disc, you have to choose the lesser of three evils: The distorted 1984 Polydor, the 1997/2001 remaster full of Astley “magic” or the 2005 remaster, which is overly loud AND distorted. Pick your poison.
Can anyone recommend what versions of the ABBA studio albums are the best ones to get?
My favourite is The Visitors, but Super Trouper is good too. The later albums tend to be better ‘albums’. Both of those deluxe editions are very good too.
If you are looking for a budget album collection try this. http://www.discogs.com/ABBA-The-Albums/release/1544074 It is a slimmed down version of the blue box Paul mentions in this post. It has a bonus disc with the single only releases and a very basic booklet with disc contents and no lyrics. Aside from that the deluxe editions are a mish mash of different mastering engineers and is the most expensive way to pick up the groups catalogue (apart from the vinyl box). The deluxe edition booklets also have no lyrics. The standard single disc cd albums are still using the masters from the 2002 reissues. Their booklets are the best of the bunch as they have a four to six page story for each album and the lyrics for each song on the respective disc. They are currently around £6 ea online. Hope that helps.
The West German CDs from the 1980s.
Interested by the comment about the “overstuffed archives”. Is there evidence for that because I was under the impression there was almost nothing of any merit unreleased now?
All deluxe editions were originally digipaks. They’ve been re-released in cheaper 2 disc slim jewel cases. Not everyone hates the mastering in the “blue box”. They seem to play beautifully on my Sony SACD player.
That’s a confusing post, I meant not everything on the csr DVDs had appeared elsewhere that I know of. So many reissues!
Yes, the complete studio recordings is slowly being made obsolete, replaced in most cases with superior mastering and a handful of extra tracks. Not all the video material had appeared elsewhere as far as I know. Some alternate versions of tracks on the DVDs in the deluxe sets.
Everyone hated the mastering on that blue box, didn’t they? Having said that I still wish I’d picked it up when it was affordable.
I will not hear anything about a ABBA re-issue or Box Set
if they’re not willing to release unreleased material from
their overfilled archives.
Sleep well ABBA…
Snore.
I don’t catch the whole thing about the ABBA reissues…
– First , there was a reissue of all albums with bonus tracks as beautiful digipacks…
Then there was the complete box set with all the albums (as deluxe but in cardleeve) and bonus CD of rarities..
This box has now disappeared and have been replaced by a “standard album” box + 1 Cd of raities (that means that loads of the bonus tracks have disappeared from it !!!)
Now there are deluxe editions (CD+DVD) of the albums being reissues, but some a digipack and some as jewel case?!
There’s something going on in here… does these “new” deluxe editions hav a real purpose ? Does it really have new contents ?
I guess these versions are _not_ new – just rather inexpensive at the moment.
Dvd for The Essential Collection full of encoding errors and songs at the wrong speed. Not worth the money.
I picked up the deluxe Waterloo for 6.99. Nice enough sound although a bunch of the bonus tracks have more compression but are volume reduced.
Or A is 3.98 on amazon marketplace new plus post.