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ABBA Gold / 3CD anniversary set

By Paul Sinclair

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ABBA‘s 1992 greatest hits album ABBA Gold will be reissued in April this year as part of the band’s 40th anniversary celebrations.

There have been various versions of this evergreen compilation over the years, including a 2CD edition and a CD+DVD offering. This new edition will actually be a three-CD set, presented in a digi-pack, and will feature the standard 19-track compilation on disc one, the More ABBA Gold set on disc two, and a third CD made up of B-sides (see full track listing below).

Around the same time a limited edition Waterloo seven-inch vinyl picture disc will be issued and as previously reported a deluxe edition of the Waterloo album will also be released.

It’s going to be a busy year for ABBA fans with a singles vinyl box coming up later in the spring and the autumn promising a Live At Wembley release.

ABBA Gold 40th Anniversary Edition will be released on 7 April 2014, and can currently be pre-ordered from Amazon in Germany. This post will be updated when it’s available elsewhere.

ABBA Gold 3CD 40th Anniversary Edition

Waterloo Limited 7″ Picture disc

Track listing:

Disc 1 ABBA GOLD

  • 1. Dancing Queen
  • 2. Knowing Me, Knowing You
  • 3. Take A Chance On Me
  • 4. Mamma Mia
  • 5. Lay All Your Love On Me
  • 6. Super Trouper
  • 7. I Have A Dream
  • 8. The Winner Takes It All
  • 9. Money, Money, Money
  • 10. SOS
  • 11. Chiquitita
  • 12. Fernando
  • 13. Voulez-Vous
  • 14. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
  • 15. Does Your Mother Know
  • 16. One of Us
  • 17. The Name of The Game
  • 18. Thank You For The Music
  • 19. Waterloo

Disc 2 MORE ABBA GOLD

  • 1. Summer Night City
  • 2. Angeleyes
  • 3. The Day Before You Came
  • 4. Eagle
  • 5. I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do
  • 6. So Long
  • 7. Honey, Honey
  • 8. The Visitors
  • 9. Our Last Summer
  • 10. On And On And On
  • 11. Ring Ring
  • 12. I Wonder (Departure)
  • 13. Lovelight
  • 14. Head Over Heels
  • 15. When I Kissed The Teacher
  • 16. I Am The City
  • 17. Cassandra
  • 18. Under Attack
  • 19. When All Is Said And Done
  • 20. The Way Old Friends Do

Disc 3 ABBA GOLDEN B-SIDES

  • 1. She’s My Kind Of Girl (B-side to Ring Ring)
  • 2. I Am Just A Girl (B-side to Love Isn’t Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough))
  • 3. Gonna Sing You My Lovesong (B-side to Waterloo French Version)
  • 4. King Kong Song (B-side to Honey, Honey)
  • 5. I’ve Been Waiting For You (B-side to So Long)
  • 6. Rock Me (B-side To I Do, I Do, I Do)
  • 7. Man In The Middle (B-side to S.O.S.)
  • 8. Intermezzo No.1 (B-side to Mamma Mia)
  • 9. That’s Me (B-side to Dancing Queen)
  • 10. Crazy World (B-side to Money, Money, Money)
  • 11. Happy Hawaii (B-side to Knowing Me, Knowing You)
  • 12. I’m A Marionette (B-side to Take A Chance On Me)
  • 13. Medley: Pick A Bale of cotton.. etc. (B-side to Summer Night City)
  • 14. Kisses of Fire (B-side to Does Your Mother Know)
  • 15. The King Has Lost His Crown (B-side to Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight))
  • 16. Elaine (B-side to The Winner Takes It All)
  • 17. The Piper (B-side to Super Trouper)
  • 18. Andante, Andante (B-side to Happy New Year)
  • 19. Should I Laugh Or Cry (B-side to One Of Us)
  • 20. Soldiers (B-side to When All Is Said And Done)

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52 Comments

52 thoughts on “ABBA Gold / 3CD anniversary set”

  1. Paul – Perhaps you’d like to add this, (June 2017), ABBA release to this Site? In September it is the 25th Anniversary of ‘ABBA Gold’ being released. For some reason, it is being commemorated in June – with the release of a Double Vinyl Set. As usual, (due to Benny & Bjorn’s stubbornness), there is nothing ‘New’ in the release – even though there are many ‘Alternative Versions’ of ABBA Singles in Benny & Bjorn’s ‘Vaults’. Here is the Link, to show you the ‘New’ ‘ABBA Gold’ release – and you can see how dismissive of it the Fans are. For a very long time, many ABBA Fans have felt that Benny & Bjorn have exploited them…..
    it is not the fault of Universal Music. They’d love to be able to add ‘Bonus’ Tracks to ABBA releases. It is Benny & Bjorn, who refuse to co-operate.

    Link:

    http://abbachat.com/thread/813/gold-album-25th-anniversary-release

  2. Benny recently gave an interview in The Netherlands. He made it quite clear that ABBA Fans are never to get an ‘Official’ release of ‘Just Like That’. He said that Gemini did the definitive version, & ABBA Fans can listen to that. He also said that ABBA now have ‘very little’ unreleased material. That what they do have they are not willing to share with ABBA Fans. They plan to keep it to themselves. He added that he knows that there will be more ABBA ‘Hits’ Albums in the future, as Universal will want to keep ABBA’s name alive. So – that’s it. We can’t have ABBA’s ‘Just Like That’, ABBA will not ‘share’ anything else with the Fans, & we will be getting more ABBA Compilations in the future. Basically – ABBA do not feel that they owe their Fans anything. Compare that to Queen, who go out of their way to work on unreleased Tracks, so that they can be put on Albums such as ‘Made In Heaven’ in 1995 & ‘Queen Forever’ later in 2014. Bear in mind that ABBA do not just have unreleased Tracks. They also have ‘Alternative Versions’ of several ABBA Songs. And Benny says we can’t have any of them……

  3. What a rip off ,Nothing new here There must be lots of snipets that we have not heard laying around in the Polar music vaults
    How about the full version of Just like that this recording would go straight to the top of the charts.

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  5. This 3 CD Gold has done very well in several Countries – but not in the UK & Ireland. In the UK it has taken a Month to sell about 2,700 copies. It is ABBA’s poorest selling UK Compilation in Decades. It did this in the UK Top 200 – In at No.59 – then a fall to No.132 – then Out. They have had lower Charting Compilations, but they sold far, far more than the 3 CD Gold. For example the 9 CD ‘The Albums’ Box Set, (2010), got no higher than No.89, but it stayed in the Top 200 for a while & is on over 70,000 UK Sales. In Ireland the 3 CD Gold stalled at No.51. It has done far better elsewhere – No.2 in Austria, No.3 in Germany & Switzerland, No.6 in Belgium, No.9 in Australia, No.21 in New Zealand etc. There seems to be very little interest in ABBA in the UK at the moment. It is time that Benny & Bjorn let have ‘Alternative Versions’ of ABBA Songs, that they keep hidden away in Sweden. After all, they have accidently, (or on purpose), put a previously unreleased version of Andante Andante on the B-Side of Happy New Year in the 40 Singles Box Set. It is very beautiful too – the backing track is more complex than the version we’ve had since 1980. The ‘Alternative Version’ can be heard/found on YouTube.

  6. Here’sanidea…if u don,t like what is on their releases do not buy them believe it or not some people don’t have Gold yet and as for Just Like That It is NOT being released no matter what people beg for…not happening…”milking the cash cow”? why shouldn’t newer fans have new releases It is no different than the Beach Boys, Beatles or Who have done. The industry is about making money but if u don’t want it don’t buy it,

  7. I am looking forward to having the 40th Anniversary Edition of ABBA Gold in my collection and I am really looking forward to the Gracias Por La Musica Deluxe Edition being released in 2014/2015. I have enjoyed and own all 8 Deluxe Editions so far with every album sounding the best I ever heard them sound, Arrival & ABBA The Album were remastered for their Deluxe Edition releases its obvious that the sound is much better than the 2005 remasters.

    I am slightly disappointed that ‘Nina Pretty Ballerina’, ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ & ‘You Owe Me One’ weren’t included on disc 3 , when I finally get the 40th Anniversary Edition of ABBA Gold I will have every version of ABBA Gold that has been released. I am extremely disappointed that the Singles box set is not being released on CD as I feel it should be. I am looking forward to the Live at Wembley album being released in September.

    As I said earlier the Gracias Por La Musica Deluxe Edition is what I am looking forward to the most and it will complete the Deluxe Edition series having 9 albums in this format and I would love to see The Singles: The First Ten Years re-released on CD in the style of the 2006 Greatest Hits Volume 1 release

  8. Stephen – She’s My Kind Of Girl was a Japanese Hit in 1972, so it isn’t surprising that Japanese Fans see it as an ABBA Track, & voted for it to go on the ’40/40′ CD. However, it is nothing to do with ABBA in reality, & it certainly should not be on any Editions of ABBA Gold. It is as silly as re-issuing The Beatles ‘1’ Album with a 2nd CD added, & making one of the Tracks on CD2 ‘Back Off Boogaloo’ the old Ringo Starr Hit, from the early 1970’s. Also, if Universal want ‘casual fans’ to explore ABBA’s Studio Albums, when they hear the B-Sides on CD3 of the 2014 ‘Gold’, I hardly think that weak songs like ‘Crazy World’, ‘Man In The Middle’, & ‘King Kong Song’ would achieve that aim. If ABBA’s Music was all of that poor standard they would have been lucky to win a local Talent Show in Stockholm, let alone the 1974 ESC! And a great many Fans will always complain about the re-issues of ‘Gold’ etc., because we know that Benny & Bjorn will not let us have alternative versions of the Hits etc. Always it is the same old songs, (mainly Singles), that are re-issued. Some Fans are fine with that, & never complain, but those who are not happy about it have every right to complain. We are all entitled to our views.

  9. Seems that there is a lot of complaining that this is something it didnt set out to be. During the 40th Anniversary there are a lot of things being released. First up, we all have to accept that it is incredibly unlikely at this stage that Bjorn and Benny are going to allow anything unreleased to be part of these releases. I realize that we dont have to like it, but we do have to accept it. At least if we accept this from the beginning, if they ever should do it, then its a very pleasant surprise. The constant moaning that it didnt happen, however, gets very old, since its what we should know will happen.
    As for the track listing for disc 3 of ABBA Gold – well, its a b-side theme, but perhaps they didnt want to put everything on it, or even the very best of the b-sides on it for two reasons. First, if you start parcelling out the best songs that were b-sides, why would people who dont already own the stuff go and buy it. Where is the incentive for people to explore further. This isnt a Complete Abba. Second of all, you dont want to cannibalize the sales of ABBA The Singles vinyl set. Its also worth remembering that ABBA Gold 40th Anniversary edition is really for the casual fans. Theyre the main target audience. The ABBA obsessives who are going to buy it just to make sure their collections are complete are irrelevant to the planning of this set. First, because they have everything, and second, cos there is no way you are ever going to make them happy.
    Lastly, just as an aside, while She Is My Kind Of Girl may well have been just an old Bjorn and Benny song, but a lot of people know it from the international edition of Ring Ring, so for them it is part of the original album, and second it obviously was popular enough for Japanese fans to vote for its inclusion in ABBA 40/40 as voted by them.

    1. I don’t think the release of a hits compilation will ‘cannibalize’ of a ultra-expensive vinyl singles’ box set. Only die-hard fans will spend money in that, while a casual listener will never buy such a expensive stuff if they just want to ‘explore’ further into the ABBA catalogue.

      I think having the 8 original studio albums with bonus tracks + 8 deluxe editions (CD + DVD) for those who want to spend a little more money + a good 1-CD compilation (Gold) for the casual listener who’s not intersted in the whole discography but the biggest hits + a more complete 2-CD compilation is enough. That’s all we need. Nobody needs a miriad of different compilations (Essential Collection, Definitive Collection, Gold, More Gold, 18 Hits, Number Ones, etc). Flooding the market with so many different titles and covers (even if they always have the same songs) is confusing and pointless. I don’t understand the logic behind their market strategy.

  10. It looks like the Deluxe Albums Box Set, (November), will contain
    much better, (& new), Re-Masters of those ABBA Albums. We will
    see. I’m not very good at noticing the differences between Re-masters, & it is matters of editing that bother me. Like that awful edited Eagle that is used on ABBA Compilations. I think that they should always use the complete Track.

  11. For some reason Universal are releasing this 3 ‘Gold’ Set again – in November. This time it will be in a metal box. They are calling it a ‘Steel Book’. In June they are re-issuing the ‘Deluxe’ version of the 2012 ‘Set’, The Essential Collection. It has 2 CD’s + a DVD in it. Goodness knows why it is being re-issued. It flopped in 2012. And it turns out that the ‘Career Spanning Box Set’ in November will just be the 8 ‘Deluxe’ Studio Albums in one Box – unless Benny & Bjorn allow Universal to add anything ‘new’ to it. So everything revolves around the same old ABBA Music – as usual.

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  13. Amazon.uk are now selling this 3 CD ABBA Gold for just £11.50. This is very reasonable considering that they have just raised the price of their best selling 1 Disk Edition of ABBA Gold from £5 to £11.99. It means that it is actually 49p cheaper to buy the 3 Disk Edition!
    Also – It has now been announced that some kind of retrospective Box Set of ABBA’s entire career will be released in November. Hopefully we will get some ‘new’, (unreleased), ABBA Tracks in that!

    1. “Also – It has now been announced that some kind of retrospective Box Set of ABBA’s entire career will be released in November. Hopefully we will get some ‘new’, (unreleased), ABBA Tracks in that!”

      I bet we won’t. What we’ll surely get is the third, fourth or fifth generation of mediocre ABBA remasters. Of course – if they were perfect, who’d buy all those future remasters?

  14. What a missed opportunity. The B-sides is a kind of tired idea, and like many have said, ABBA aren’t necessarily at their best with a few of their B-Sides. I will never understand why Björn and Benny are so adamant of not letting Universal release more alternate versions that have been previously “unavailable” to the public, but have shown up on many bootlegs. I’ve heard an alternate recording of “When All Is Said And Done” which has a refrain of the first verse sung by Frida in a more dynamic, somewhat unrestrained way this is just stunning. I have heard recordings of “Just A Notion” and the three different versions of the legendary “Just Like That.” Björn and Benny tell us they are not perfect, and yes, listening to the clunkiness of the chorus/sax line of JLT merging into the verses is proof, but that’s what makes it so charming. The new version they wrote with Gemini releasing sounded way too bleak and devastating compared to the slight optimism that Agnetha sings in the original… I think it is great for these band who wrote most of their material to release versions of them that aren’t quite “done” or “up to par” because it shows what had to be overcome to get it right, or divide parts of songs up to make newer songs. I’ve also heard rumors that ABBA actually did record vocals for “Slowly” and “Another You, Another Me.” IF they truly haven’t surely those backing tapes are still somewhere around to the Gemini versions… Why not get the group to sing over them?

  15. John – I too find it very strange that ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ has not been added to the 3 Disk ‘Gold’, when a lot of people heard it for the first time in the ‘Mamma Mia!’ Film, & they liked it – as I saw via YouTube comments at the time. Also, it is sad that ‘Happy New Year’ is not on CD3 either. That Track has been a Hit in various Countries, since 1999 onwards. It became ABBA’s 24th Top 10 Hit in The Netherlands in 2011, & it was a Top 5 Hit I Sweden & Norway. On New Year’s Eve 2013 it became Spotify’s most streamed Track. So, it is incredibly illogical that someone at Universal decided on the Tracks for CD3, & because they stuck to a B-Sides ‘Theme’ those other 2 Tracks were not included. I’m at a loss as to who decided upon some of the Tracks on CD3, as at least 5 of them are so weak that they are not even ABBA’s best B-Sides. ‘She’s My Kind Of Girl’ should not be on CD3 at all, as Agnetha & Frida are not on it. It is a 1970 Benny & Bjorn Track, that somehow ended up on the B-Side of the Swedish language ‘Ring Ring’ in 1973. You only have to listen to it to see that it has nothing to do with ABBA. It was quite foolish to add it to CD3 in ‘Gold’. Also, John – Benny & Bjorn have no intentions of ever letting us have the full version of ‘Just Like That’. They feel it is not good enough. Likewise for the various ‘Alternative Versions’ of several ABBA Hits that were made. For some reason, they never seem to think:, ‘We’ll do it for the Fans’. Always, they decide these things purely on their own personal ideas as to what may or may not be ‘Good enough’, to release. It is very sad really.

  16. The handling of ABBA’s 40th Anniversary by Universal has not been the best. disc three of the new ABBA Gold is horrendous, several important songs are left out (Slipping through my fingers) anyone? Honestly Benny and Bjorn need to relent and release some unreleased recordings for this 40th anniversary because it feels lackluster just repackaging the same songs over and over in a new compilation. #RELEASEJUSTLIKETHAT

    1. Hi everybody!!! i most agree with all of you here with this Gold release. I am not gonna buy it,but i bought the book and it”s beautiful,and we got all four to have something to say in it and that for me is a celebration.BUT i want to share another thought,and that”s the De Luxe Version of ABBA Live in the autumn. Let”s think of al those unreleased songs that they did live. I want a De Luxe Version of one disc from a evening with ABBA live in Pearth,Australia,77,with ALL the songs+the great mini musical,and disc two like it is said now,a night at Wembley,and in this i don”t want the BBC radio spesial because it”s so edited,and if only the wembley consert does not includes As Good As New,If It W FTN,Im Still A,Rock Me,Gimmie in full version im being so disapointed. Universal!!!! You have the Live tracks in the basement,so just be brave and ask BB to give us fans a REAL Live CD!!!

  17. Mike – Too many ABBA releases are not thought out very well. Had the Fans been consulted we’d have come up with a far stronger Track List for CD3 than the one that has been decided upon. It is a similar situation with the 40 7″ Vinyl Single ABBA Box Set, due in May. Universal want 200 Euros for it, (164 pounds, 276 USA Dollars, 309 Australian Dollars). Yet they have struck so rigidly to how they were released in the first place that several Tracks have been repeated – Watch Out, Lovelight, & Does Your Mother Know. At that price they should have made sure that no Tracks were repeated. DYMK is only repeated because they have stupidly made it the B-Side of Estoy Sonando, (the Spanish I Have A Dream), & that was not even the correct B-Side to that Single. It should be As Good As New. So, with that, & CD3 in the Deluxe Gold, I’m not very impressed with Universals ‘celebrations’ of ABBA’s 40th Anniversary, so far! It all comes across as rather messy to me. As if amateurs are organising it.

    1. Colin, just a little correction: “Does Your Mother Know” WAS, indeed, the B-side of “Estoy soñando”. At least in Argentina. “As Good As New” was never released on single form (A or B-side) here. Regards.

  18. All this “wonderful” input is proof once and for all that we fans are either overtly passionate about everything ABBA or really have way to much time on their hands!
    Listen, no re-release/re-issue of any sort will satisfy all fans all the time.
    In the case this 40th year re-issue, not all b-sides that were issued in every territory over all the years could be included, it would mean issuing a 4 0r 5 cd set. Who’s going to buy that?
    Remember Benny and Bjorn always final approval on any/all content for any re-issue that might be proposed by Universal Music Corp.

    1. Mike – I’m aware that the Deluxe Gold would need 4 or 5 Disks if it were to contain all of ABBA Global B-Sides. However, that does not alter the fact that CD 3 should have been stronger than it is. Instead of the extremely weak B-Sides, (She’s My Kind Of Girl, I Am Just A Girl, Crazy World, Man In The Middle etc.), it should have had B-Sides that could well have been Singles. Such as Tiger, (B-Side of the Japanese Dancing Queen), If It Wasn’t For The Nights, (B-Side of the Japanese Super Trouper), As Good As New, (B-Side of the Spanish I Have A Dream), & Bang-A-Boomerang, (B-Side of the French SOS). Now I know that Bang-A-Boomerang may be ‘silly’ to some Fans, but it is far catchier than Man In The Middle & Crazy World. There is no reason why CD 3 has some poor choices on it, except that someone seems to have not wanted to think very much, & they just shoved on any B-Sides that they came across – probably without even listening to some of them. All that CD 3 will show is that whilst ABBA wasted some great Songs on B-Sides, (I’ve Been Waiting For You, Kisses Of Fire, That’s Me, The Piper etc.), they also had some pretty dire Songs on their B-Sides. It is a shame, as all of CD 3 could/should have had strong B-Sides on it. A wasted opportunity to give ABBA’s stronger less well known Songs a ‘window’ to be heard by a wider audience. These days the vast number of people who bought Gold only know ABBA by those 19 Tracks & a few Tracks on More Gold. A great many of their Album Tracks are not known by most ‘modern’ people. CD 3 should have been a way to counter that. Instead, it does little for ABBA’s reputation when it has Songs such as King Kong Song on it! Benny & Bjorn allow feeble Songs on it, but say that we can’t have Just Like That as it is not good enough! It is a ridiculous situation…..

      1. Colin,
        I agree that the 3rd cd is far from perfect. It certainly would have benefited had other choices been made, I only meant that no matter what content formulated it will never satisfy all the die hard ABBA fans.
        I say again, Bjorn and Benny, for better or worse, have their criteria and final say when including and/or excluding material on re-issues.
        Cheers.

  19. Also bear in mind that this is being released by Universal, who apparently feel they have zero care or accountability to customers as their attitude the mastering/noise error on the last Tears for Fear deluxe showed. The didn’t seem to care at all and didn’t offer any replacements. Universal appear very happy to sell known defective products. Beware.

  20. Basically, even though tax problems forced ABBA to sell off their “Polar Records” recordings to Universal Music, the group retains veto power over the release of vault material, so don’t expect any significant vault releases(excepting a possible live album), until sales of pointless, redundant compilations fall significantly………and the group might not relent, even then.
    The last of the albums to be given the expanded 2-disc treatment(“Waterloo”) will get the expanded treatment soon, but(as usual) with unreleased video material, but no unreleased audio material. Barring the release of a new live concert CD compilation, this would seem to be the end of the road for collecting ABBA music.

  22. Walter – Benny & Bjorn do not like Åh, Vilka Tider, which is why they did not let Universal put it in the Ring Ring Deluxe Edition. (It having been the B-Side of the Swedish language version of Ring Ring in 1973). There were some other interesting ABBA B-Sides from around the World. In France Bang-A-Boomerang was the B-Side of SOS. In Japan they put Tiger on the B-Side of Dancing Queen. As Good As New was the B-Side of Estoy Sonando, (the Spanish I Have a Dream), in several Countries. And As Good As New was actually a Single in Mexico, (their 9th No.1 Hit there), Argentina, & Bolivia – with the English version of I Have A Dream as the B-Side. Ring Ring was the B-Side of Honey Honey in Germany. (It had flopped as a 1973 Single). Honey Honey got to No.2 for 5 Weeks.

  24. Like previous “Gold” editions, this is a nice item for the casual listener / fan.

    Hardcore / long-term fans will have all the tracks already and so audio wise nothing new there… unless the tracks from Arrival/The Album have been remastered as those are the only Deluxe Edition albums which didn’t have newly remastered audio.

    It will be a nice set to add to the collection when it’s available for a decent price.

    They could have turned this into a limited edition 4cd set as quite a few B-sides are missing. Tracks like “Wer im Wartesaal der Liebe steht” (Germany, b-side to Ring Ring (German version)), “If It Wasn’t For The Nights (Japan, b-side to Super Trouper) and of course “Åh, vilka tider” which was also omitted from the Ring Ring Deluxe Edition last year.

    @Paul Sinclair
    Perhaps you could use 1980s in the tags as well as ABBA had quite a few big hits (both singles and albums) in the years 1980-1982. E.g. “Super Trouper” album which had advanced orders of over a million copies in the UK in 1980.

  25. @Fabian – whilst I find the intro and verses of You Owe Me One on the corny side, the chorus is really catchy! It’s surely no worse than I Am Just A Girl, which even made it to one of the menus on the Ring Ring DVD!

  27. I really wish Universal would release limited remasters of the original GHits, GHits 2 and The Singles – They have done deluxe versions of all the studio albums – so come on, allow fans to complete their collections

  29. (PDO UK manufactured the discs; it should have that name on the inner ring of the CD.)

    BTW, I agree that Abba really should be mixed into 5.1. The problem is there seem to be many different tastes and techniques, but Benny/Bjorn – get it done please! Ken Caillat seems to be brilliant at 5.1, as do Justin Shirley Smith and Kris Fredriksson.

  30. @ Richard – your CD is bronzing. It was an issue with some PDO UK discs. For a while they were replacing them free of charge, but I believe those times are long gone.

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  33. The diverse comments on here prove that no ABBA compilation will ever please everyone. It depends on what the UK price is on this as to whether I’ll buy it – if it’s reasonable I might, as I only have ABBA Gold itself on CD (some others from the 70s on original vinyl). Personally I’d rather see Happy New Year and Slipping Through My Fingers on a compilation than King Kong Song but if they’re sticking strictly to what were B-sides I guess that rules them out. My original copy of ABBA Gold on CD from 1992 has now turned a funny colour anyway – the playing side’s fine but the top with the details on and which was painted gold looks like it’s been left out in the rain. So a new copy may be due!

  34. Michael – Lovelight, Cassandra, & I Wonder are on Disk 2 in the 3 CD
    ‘Set’. (‘More Gold’), as are several other Tracks that were ABBA B-Sides.
    ‘You Owe Me One’ is not in the 3 CD ‘Set’ at all. Benny & Bjorn dislike
    that Track, which was the B-Side of ‘Under Attack’ in 1982. Benny &
    Bjorn have the final say on what Universal can put on ABBA Compilations. We cannot have ‘Just Like That’, as Benny & Bjorn do not think it is good enough. Likewise we cannot have the several ‘Alternative Versions’ of ABBA Hits, as Benny & Bjorn say ‘No!’. So, that is why we forever see the same old Tracks coming out…..

  35. Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate if it was all the REAL B-sides? Where’s Cassandra, Lovelight I Wonder (Departure (Live Version), & You Owe Me One? Better still, how about a reissue of the original compilations, The Best Of ABBA, GHV2, and The First 10 Years? The fans would line up.

  36. I agree with everyone above. Especially with Colin. I, for one, am not purchasing this collection, however, if disk 3 was to be sold separately, I would buy it in a flash. Just to have a retrospective of what was on the flip side of ABBA’s most successful singles.

  38. I’ reminded of that joke about all the pizza chains running out of ideas about how to create a new kind of pizza, and Pizza Hut announcing their new pizza allows you to bake your head right into the pie

  40. Still seems to be milk in the cash cow. It’s not even non album b-sides though. Doesn’t seem very well thought through, and this is the gazillionith configuration now. This is one seriously over issued back catalogue, and yet we still don’t seem to have decent remasters of all of the albums in print on CD, with Arrival and The Album needing less compressed versions again.

  42. By adding nothing but B-Sides on Disk 3, Universal have ended up with numerous Tracks on it that are far from it, that are far from ABBA at their best. I mean ‘She’s My Kind Of Girl’, ‘Crazy World’, ‘Man In The Middle’, & many more. It is a real shame, as ABBA had far stronger Album Tracks than most of those B-Sides – ‘My Love My Life’, ‘Tiger’, ‘One Man One Woman’, ‘Move On’, ‘Hole In Your Soul’, ‘As Good As New’, ‘If It Wasn’t For The Nights’, and many more. So, much of Disk 3 is very weak. It means that we still have yet to see ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ on a Global ABBA Compilation, even though it was ‘new’ to many people who saw ‘Mamma Mia!’, & they loved it – as their YouTube comments showed. So absolutely no imagination has gone into Disk 3, & it is a wasted chance to let people hear ABBA Tracks that could have been Singles. I love ‘The Piper’, ‘Kisses Of Fire’, ‘Soldiers’ etc., but the bulk of the B-Sides are ABBA at their most ordinary, & now we finally have ‘ABBA Wood’ added to ‘ABBA Gold’. Whilst the 1 Disk, 40th Anniversary ‘Gold’ will be able to have its UK Sales added to the 1992 to March 2014 ‘Gold’, it is unlikely that the Sales of the 3 Disk version will be added in. This is because UK Chart Rules say that if a Disk is added to an older Album, & that added Disk has been on Sale on its own previously, the ‘Deluxe’ version cannot be added to the Sales of the older version(s). Well, ‘More Gold’ was on Sale on its own in 1993, 1999, & 2008, so that looks like it stops the 3 CD ‘Gold’ being able to be added to the UK Sales of previous ‘Gold’s. Universal could have got around that by simply not adding ‘More Gold’, but by adding a CD of ABBA’s best Album Tracks instead. The 3 CD version will be allowed to Chart on its own – if it sells enough to do so. (‘The Essential Collection’ was seen as ‘The Definitive Collection’ being re-issued, which is why hardly anyone in the UK bought it, & it failed to reach the UK Top 200!).

  44. I’m a fan of ABBA, but this 3CD edition seems a bit pointless to me. Just another re-hash with songs that have been released many times.

    The single disc “ABBA GOLD” CD is the essential purchase for anyone who likes ABBA, and over 5 million copies have been sold in the UK. Re-promoting it each time of a significant event or anniversary is enough to stimulate sales, but does the average punter need a 3CD set including non-singles/b-sides? It’s aimed at the die hard fans, and there’s nothing new to entice them other than packaging.

    Doesn’t look like anyone learned the lesson from the previous compilation re-hash, “The Essential Collection” which bombed less than 18 months ago. I didn’t buy that either.

    1. I am looking forward to having the 40th Anniversary Edition of ABBA Gold in my collection and I am really looking forward to the Gracias Por La Musica Deluxe Edition being released in 2014/2015. I have enjoyed and own all 8 Deluxe Editions so far with every album sounding the best I ever heard them sound, Arrival & ABBA The Album were remastered for their Deluxe Edition releases its obvious that the sound is much better than the 2005 remasters. I am slightly disappointed that ‘Nina Pretty Ballerina’, ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ & ‘You Owe Me One’ weren’t included on disc , when I finally get the 40th Anniversary Edition of ABBA Gold I will have every version of ABBA Gold that has been released. I am extremely disappointed that the Singles box set is not being released on CD as I feel it should be. I am looking forward to the Live at Wembley album being released in September.

      As I said earlier the Gracias Por La Musica Deluxe Edition is what I am looking forward to the most and it will complete the Deluxe Edition series having 9 albums in this format and I would love to see The Singles: The First Ten Years re-released on CD in the style of the 2006 Greatest Hits Volume 1 release.

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