The new ABBA singles box set is listed as having red, yellow, transparent red & white as the vinyl colours. But the abbasite.com has it listed as red, yellow, transparent red & blue vinyls. Could this be an advertising mix up or maybe two different variations to decide between.
Does anybody know what the official production runs are for the singles box sets series. I know the Arrival box set was limited to 2,000 copies worldwide, but not sure about the others in the series.

Regards
Julian, UK

Now that the box is out we know that the discs are red, yellow, transparent red, and white. Yes, it looks like an advertising mix-up, or a change in colour during the planning process.
ABBA – The Singles is limited to 2,400 copies. The numbers have varied with each issue – Arrival (2016) had the least with 2,000 copies, Super Trouper (2021) and Ring Ring (2023) had the most with 5,500. All the singles box sets are detailed here.

I found an Agnetha single from early in her career where only one side is engraved, while the other has a blank label but is available in different colors (here red). Is it true that this would be her first single and that she offered it to dentists or pharmacists in her hometown of Jönköping in 1968? How many singles were pressed (I imagine around a hundred). And how many different colors would exist for the label on the other side?

Regards,
Sergio from Brussels

The one-sided single ‘Borsta tandtrollen bort’ (Brush the tooth troll away) was released to promote dental hygiene to school children. The single was a prize in a competition. Rumour has it around 400 or so copies were pressed. I don’t know for sure how many different coloured labels might have appeared on the blank B-side, I’ve only seen the single with yellow labels on both sides. I believe it was released in 1968 after Agnetha’s first few singles and possibly even after her debut album.

It’s written in the stars that the girls just rerecorded their vocals for the Spanish album with the original backing tracks. However the beginning of ‘Dancing Queen’ starts with a drum before the piano crescendo,  also in ‘I Have A Dream’ when they sing “I Believe In Angels”, you can hear the continuation of the baa drum. ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ has the extra guitar. Is there a clear explanation of this?

Regards,
Simon, UK

All of those sounds would have been on the original recordings but mixed out for release. Around the time Gracias Por La Música was released, Michael B. Tretow talked about how difficult it was to replicate the original mixes for the album, plus he wanted to put his own stamp on the songs. If you’ve heard the so-called Mamma Mia! mixes of these songs, you can hear these sounds. Many copies of these versions can be found on YouTube, usually incorrectly titled as “demo mix” or “early mix”.

Recently there has been talk of ABBA Voyage opening in Las Vegas. Tickets are only selling now till January. Does that mean that it will be closing in London in January to move to Las Vegas?

John, UK

Chatter about ABBA Voyage opening in Las Vegas started almost immediately after it premiered in London three years ago. In early June this year speculation flared up again (source), but no firm deal has been announced.
In mid-May a job advertisement appeared for musicians and singers to audition to replace the current Hero band, scheduled to start in December 2025. And in early June planning consolation on the area indicated that ABBA Arena has the lease on the site until 2027 (though the year has since been removed from the site). All this indicates that ABBA Voyage will remain in London for at least the next couple of years. There’s no reason why it can’t be held in two (or more) locations at once.

In 2016, a 1-track ‘One Night in Bangkok (Remastered 2016)’ single was released digitally, which includes a 3:13 “Radio Edit” version that (poorly) cuts off the orchestral intro. This video from 2010 managed to accurately predict the new edit:  https://youtu.be/LIedNTwiwLc. Therefore, both versions on the upcoming white vinyl re-release have never been released on a 7″ record before. The pairing makes no sense, meaning the A-side can be easily reverse-engineered from the B-side. There is another UMG digital release of ‘Bangkok’ from 2022 that includes the actual single edit, so why not release a facsimile of the original 1985 single (with the proper B-side) instead?

Love,
Aaron, Australia

The 3.14 “Radio Edit” was actually first released on the B-side of a 12-inch promotional single in the US (RCA JR-13989) in 1984, something I didn’t know myself until recently (thanks Marc). The A-side had the regular 4.05 single edit. I don’t know why they’ve gone for the radio edit on this new release, but I guess it puts it out there on a physical format for collectors.

Strange question, I know, but as Frida and Agnetha were smokers during their career, and their chosen brand seemed to have been Marlboro Reds which as any smoker will tell you are very strong cigarettes, I find it amazing their voices never suffered.  Your thoughts?

Simon, UK

I imagine they weren’t heavy two- or three-pack-a-day smokers, maybe not even one full pack in a day. Many other legendary voices of the era such as Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, and Elaine Paige were also smokers, and their voices don’t seem to have been affected either.