ABBA blog

This is the first of six instalments, describing the contents of the upcoming book ABBA On Record - Packaged Promoted Reviewed. Day seven, Friday 5 April, is when pre-ordering starts.

01 THE DISCOGRAPHY

• This discography, which constitutes the main part of the book, will use the Polar Music releases 1972-1982 as its basis - plus the unique recordings released in 1983 and later - just like the main book did. It will feature all known sleeves used on the Polar releases in Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

• In terms of songs/recordings/mixes not released on Polar back in the day, the discography will also feature entries for the single/album where a particular version of a song was first released, in chronological order. So, for example, the UK Ring Ring remix single (not released by Polar in Scandinavia) will be featured and presented with an entry dated 21 June 1974.

• Edits will not be included in the discography (except when released on Polar), since I want to focus on creative choices made by ABBA and their closest associates, not on edits made by local record companies.

• The discography will take an indepth look at the stories behind the official single and album sleeves: how they were conceived and put together, in as much as there is a story to be told. The focus will mainly be on the albums, since most of the time there isn’t much of a story behind the single sleeves. However, whatever facts I can find will be in the book. Click here for a rough and unfinished draft of how a few of the pages might look.

• As part of the discography, there will be more information on how the various releases were promoted and marketed, primarily in Scandinavia, the UK, the US and Australia, and what kind of success they had in those territories. This is a lot more exciting than it sounds: I've already interviewed quite a few record company people who worked with ABBA in the UK, Australia and the United States, and their stories are very interesting indeed, shedding light on how and why things happened or didn't happen. I expect to do more interviews in the course of 2019.

•  Review excerpts from Sweden and the English-speaking countries will be included with each discographical entry, if they are available. Through my own extensive research and with the aid of helpful ABBA fans around the globe, I've been able to amass an insane amount of reviews. It's highly interesting to read exactly how ABBA's recordings were received at the time, as it gives us a flavour of the times and also shows how opinion on ABBA fluctuated over the course of their career.

Note: The above content description is subject to minor changes and adjustments.

Stay tuned for the next instalment in the "ABBA On Record contents" story, to be published tomorrow.