| ABBA: The Album | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by ABBA | ||||
| Released | December 12, 1977 | |||
| Recorded | May 31 – November 20, 1977 at Marcus, Metronome and Glen Studios, Stockholm and Bohus Studio, Kungalv | |||
| Genre | Pop, rock | |||
| Length | 39:53 (Polar (LP 1977)) | |||
| Label | Polar Atlantic (US original release) |
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| Producer | Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus | |||
| ABBA chronology | ||||
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| Original UK album cover | ||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| NME | [2] |
| Rolling Stone | (Favorable) [3] |
ABBA: The Album is the fifth studio album by the Swedish pop group ABBA. It was released on 12 December 1977 through Polar Music. The album was released in conjunction with ABBA: The Movie, with several of the songs featured in the film.
The album contained the singles "Take a Chance on Me", "The Name of the Game", "Eagle" and "Thank You for the Music" which has been called ABBA's "goodbye" song even though it was released five years before the band officially broke up. It also features the song "Hole In Your Soul", which was performed as the last song at many ABBA concerts, including their final 1979 tour, and two other songs, "One Man, One Woman" and "I'm a Marionette".
The album offers three songs from ABBA's mini-musical "The Girl With The Golden Hair". These songs are "Thank You for the Music", "I Wonder (Departure)" and "I'm a Marionette".
ABBA: The Album was first released on CD in 1984. The album has been reissued in digitally remastered form by PolyGram/Universal Music four times; first in 1997, then in 2001, in 2005 as part of The Complete Studio Recordings box set and again in 2007 as a two disc 'Deluxe Edition'.
Contents |
Due to the Cold War, Western music was actively discouraged throughout Eastern Europe at the time. Despite this ABBA: The Album sold an unprecedented million copies in Poland in 1977, exhausting the country's entire allocation of foreign currency. In Russia, only 200,000 copies were permitted to be pressed. However, demand within the USSR indicated they could have sold 40 million copies.[4]
Polar's official cover featured an entirely white background, and is the basis for current CD versions. However, Epic Records' original UK release of the LP featured a blue background on the front cover, fading to white at the bottom. It also featured a gatefold sleeve. The back cover was altered, incorporating a similar photo of ABBA to that used elsewhere in the world for the inner sleeve, and referencing tracks included in ABBA: The Movie. The inner gatefold was designed to look like an air mail envelope, similar to the style later used for Gracias Por La Música and even had a photo of ABBA incorporated into a stamp in the corner.
This was the first and only time that Epic radically broke away from the standard Polar Music design for an ABBA album. The UK design for ABBA: The Album has only been re-issued on CD format once, as part of a limited edition boxed set released by the Japanese arm of Universal Music in 2004.
All songs written and composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.
| Side one | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Eagle" | 5:51 | |||||||
| 2. | "Take a Chance on Me" | 4:05 | |||||||
| 3. | "One Man, One Woman" | 4:25 | |||||||
| 4. | "The Name of the Game" | 4:54 | |||||||
| Side two | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Move On" | 4:42 | |||||||
| 2. | "Hole in Your Soul" | 3:41 | |||||||
| The Girl with the Golden Hair: Three Scenes from a Mini-Musical | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 3. | "Thank You for the Music" | 3:48 | |||||||
| 4. | "I Wonder (Departure)" | 4:33 | |||||||
| 5. | "I'm a Marionette" | 3:54 | |||||||
|
Total length:
|
39:53 | ||||||||
(P) 1977 Polar Music International AB, Stockholm, Sweden.
Stig Anderson helped us with the lyrics on "The Name of the Game", "Move On" and "I Wonder (Departure)".
The Album was remastered and reissued in 1997 with no bonus tracks.
The Album was remastered and reissued in 2001 with one bonus track:
The Album was remastered and reissued again in 2005 as part of the The Complete Studio Recordings box set with following bonus tracks:
Tracks 10–11, vocals recorded January 1980. These two songs are from the album Gracias Por La Música (Septima SRLM 1, June 23, 1980).
The Album was reissued again in 2007 (October 15) as a 30th Anniversary of the original release, called the 'Deluxe Edition'. This features the same track listing as the 2005 release along with four additional tracks;
The 'Deluxe Edition' reissue also came along with a bonus DVD with the following clips:
The Album was reissued once again in 2008 as part of the The Albums box set but without any bonus tracks.
An early version of "Take a Chance on Me". A brief excerpt of the track was released in the box set Thank You for the Music.
A song written for the 1977 Tour with lyrics written by all four, jokingly depicting themselves as A, B, B and A. The song was never considered for a studio version, but parts of the chorus were later reused in "Free as a Bumblebee", and as that song never progressed beyond the demo, the chorus surfaced during the songwriting sessions for the stage musical Chess, as the UK number 1 hit single "I Know Him So Well".
Another song from the 1977 Tour, written for the mini-musical The Girl with the Golden Hair. The song was considered too weak to progress as a studio recording, but the chorus surfaced as a melody line in "Hole in Your Soul" (the part "...ahaa-, the songs you sing are too romantic..."). "Get On the Carousel" appears in ABBA: The Movie.
An early version of "Move On".
A demo instrumental recorded during The Album sessions. Some parts surfaced in the recording sessions for Chess and resulted in a melody line in the track "Merano". A brief excerpt of this song was released in the box set Thank You for the Music.
Additional musicians
Production
| Year | Country/Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1978 | UK/Albums Chart | 1[5] |
| USA/Billboard 200 | 14 | |
| Canada/RPM Chart | 8 | |
| Canada/CRIA Chart | 7 | |
| New Zealand | 1 | |
| Belgium | 1 | |
| Finland | 2 | |
| Japan | 9 | |
| Switzerland | 1 | |
| The Netherlands | 1 | |
| Germany | 2 | |
| Zimbabwe | 2 | |
| Australia | 4 | |
| Austria | 2 [6] | |
| Mexico/International Albums Chart | 1 | |
| 1977/1978 | Norway | 1 [6] |
| 1978 | Sweden | 1 [6] |
According to The Official Charts Company, the album spent 39 consecutive weeks (and total weeks) in the Top 40 from 4 February 1978 to 21 October 1978. It was also the first Abba album to chart straight at Number One.
Weekly chart positions from 4 February 1978 to 21 October 1978. 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-3-5-5-5-6-5-5-4-5-2-4-5-7-6-9-14-14-15-18-22-27-20-20-20-20-24-38-36
For the first 14 weeks the album charted along with Greatest Hits and Arrival. All three were in the Top 15 at the start of March 1978.
Singles – UK
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | "The Name of the Game" | UK Singles Chart | 1 |
| 1978 | "Take a Chance on Me" | 1 |
Singles – Norway
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | "The Name of the Game" | Norway's Singles Chart | 3 |
| 1978 | "Take a Chance on Me" | 8 |
Singles – USA and Canada
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | "The Name of the Game" | Billboard Hot 100 – USA | 12 |
| 1978 | Billboard Adult Contemporary – USA | 9 | |
| "Take a Chance on Me" | Billboard Hot 100 | 3 | |
| Adult Contemporary | 9 | ||
| 1977 | "The Name of the Game" | RPM Singles – Canada | 14 |
| RPM Adult Contemporary – Canada | 12 | ||
| CRIA Singles – Canada | 15 | ||
| RPM Singles – Canada | 3 | ||
| RPM Adult Contemporary – Canada | 7 | ||
| CRIA Singles – Canada | 7 |
| Preceded by Rumours by Fleetwood Mac |
UK Albums Chart number one album 4 February 1978 – 18 March 1978 |
Succeeded by 20 Golden Greats by Buddy Holly and The Crickets |