PolyGram takes a chance on a four-CD ABBA boxed set. By Adam White / Assistance in preparing this story was provided by Dominic Pride

London

Björn yet again?

Two years after PolyGram released its ABBA Gold compilation worldwide – a set that surprised label executives by selling 7 million copies – the defunct Swedish supergroup is being commemorated one more time. A four-CD boxed set on Polydor, entitled Thank You For The Music, will ship October 17th, 1994 in markets outside North America, and in the U.S. and Canada early next year 

Widely regarded as icons of the 1970s for the stacked-heel, Spector-esque pop of Dancing Queen, Waterloo and Take A Chance On Me, ABBA has maintained an international following that many 1990s hit makers would envy. In addition to the millions who bought ABBA Gold, the group has admirers ranging from Britain’s Erasure through America’s Lemonheads to Ireland’s U2 – to say nothing of Australia’s Björn Again, which fills clubs and concert venues around the world with its ABBA sound-alike and look-alike act.

Meanwhile, ABBA’s 1976 hit Mamma Mia is featured prominently in the soundtrack of a new movie, The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. The picture, which stars Terence Stamp and includes a number of other ABBA references, opened August 10th, 1994 in four U.S. cities; it goes into wider release August 26th, 1994. A soundtrack album that includes Mamma Mia has just been released by Mother/Island Records.

“Other groups have good singers, good songs, good production,” former ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus wrote in the “Thank You For The Music” liner notes, “but given the background that Benny [Andersson] and I had as songwriters, maybe we had a bigger range. Because there was the Latin American influence, the German, the Italian, the English, the American, all of that. I suppose we were a bit exotic in every territory in an acceptable way.”

Ulvaeus, Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida) were the members of ABBA, who began recording together 24 years ago. The group had 10 top 20 singles in the U.S. between 1974 and 1981, as well as two platinum and four gold albums, but the group enjoyed even greater sales and popularity in Europe and Australia. In Britain, for example, the act accumulated 18 consecutive top 10 singles.

“ABBA wrote great pop songs which stand the test of time very well,” says PolyGram Music Publishing CEO David Hockman. “And their music continues to reach new audiences all the time.”

PolyGram International’s London-based director of catalog marketing, Chris Griffin who planned and assembled the boxed set, expects Thank You For The Music to sell strongly because of the marketing experience gained by PolyGram companies internationally with such previous four-CD sets as Bob Marley’s Songs Of Freedom and The Police’s Message In A Box. He notes that he latter has sold 300,000 units worldwide.

Keith Pringle, head of music for both the FM and AM channels at Manchester’s Picadilly Radio, says the new set could “certainly regenerate some interest in ABBA.” According to Pringle, Picadilly’s research indicates that classic ABBA ballads like Mamma Mia and I Have A Dream have stood the test of time better than tracks rooted in a particular time, like Does Your Mother Know.

Retailers hope the response to the boxed set will be as enthusiastic as the frenzy that greeted ABBA Gold at some stores. Virgin Retail Europe’s Frankfurt store was swamped when ABBA Gold was released, says head of merchandising Mike Hildebrand. “It was absolutely crazy. Everything remotely connected with ABBA – printed music as well as the records – was bought up straight away. Within a short space of time, there was an ABBA boom here among the general public. If there’s another box on the way, then it could cause another ABBA boom.”

Thank You For The Music spans ABBA’s entire recording career, from 1969-1982, including rare and previously unissued material. In Europe alone, PolyGram is pressing 100,000 sets for sale.

Griffin, Hockman, and their colleagues in other PolyGram divisions have become adept at marketing ABBA synergistically to audiences old and new. The company acquired the group’s songs and masters in 1989, when it bought the Polar label and Sweden Music catalog from Scandinavian music industry veteran Stig Anderson for an estimated $US25 million.

ABBA Gold has performed best in Germany, with PolyGram reporting sales of 1.4 million units there. In the U.K. it sold 1.1 million; in the U.S., 500,000; and in Sweden, 295,000. A follow-up, More ABBA Gold, has sold a total of 1.1 million copies, led by Germany with 268,000 pieces.

PolyGram Sweden exploited the Polar assets in 1992 via ABBA-The Tribute, a 12-track album featuring local artists. It was a “tremendous success,” according to Ingemar Bergmann, managing director of the company’s publishing unit there. Sales are close to 50,000 copies in Sweden.

But the company’s synergy is most evident with The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. The film is a PolyGram Filmed Entertainment picture, and the soundtrack album outlet, Mother/Island, is a PolyGram affiliate.

Thank You For The Music contains the first recording to feature all four ABBA members (Hej Gamble Man! From 1970), as well as such other early sides as She’s My Kind Of Girl, the first Björn & Benny single, and People Need Love, the first record credited to “Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid.”

The set also features all of the hit singles contained in the ABBA Gold releases.

With more than 60 tracks, the boxed set features previously unreleased tracks including Put On Your White Sombrero, from sessions for 1980s Super Trouper album; Dream World, from a 1978 session for the Voulez-Vous album; and Slipping Through My Fingers, a live version of the song from The Visitors, recorded in 1981 for The Dick Cavett Meets ABBA TV special. The box will have a suggested list price of approximately $US60 

The accompanying booklet includes a centerpiece ABBA essay by Fred Bronson, Billboard’s “Chart Beat” columnist; a detailed discography by Carl Magnus Palm; an essay by British journalist John Tobler, author of an ABBA biography; and an introduction by Ulvaeus and Andersson.

Björn and Benny were very much involved with this set,” says PolyGram International’s Chris Griffin, “much more so than I even dared hope for when we started working on it a year ago.” Their help included mixing tracks, advising on the rare cuts, and sourcing illustrative material. The studio engineer who handled the original ABBA recordings, Michael B. Tretow, was also involved, and Griffin adds that he kept Stig Anderson regularly posted on key aspects of the set.

A second ABBA tribute album – said to have attracted The Pet Shop Boys and Madonna, among others, and dubbed “Fabba” – has been anticipated by the group’s fans over the past couple of years. At one point, PolyGram in the U.K. was known to have considered it; more recently, Epic Records U.K. was attached to the concept.

John Glover of London-based Blueprint Management, which directs the careers of U.K. acts Beverly Craven and Go West, confirms the onetime existence of a tribute album plan, but says it has been abandoned. Craven did record a version of The Winner Takes It All for the project – it was subsequently released on her last Epic album – and Go West’s remake of One Of Us came out as a single on Chrysalis.

Billboard (USA) – 3 September 1994 (Page 10 & 121)

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