Have you heard any chatter in the ABBA/Universal realm of a possible soundtrack to the London Voyage show?

Mike, Vancouver, Canada

In a webinar hosted by the Official International ABBA Fan Club in November 2022, that question was posed to Ludvig Andersson. He agreed it was a good idea, but there’s no news on whether it will become a reality. But we all hope that it does.

How many copies has ABBA Gold sold in the U.K. The last time I heard it had sold 6.3 million copies.

Julian, Lancashire, U.K.

6.3 million copies (21 times platinum) seems to be the most recent figure available. This was apparently certified by the British Phonographic Industry on 2 June 2023.

I went to a Björn Again concert in my town last week. They are currently on their “Waterloo Anniversary Tour”, but it seems like they forgot to change countless background assets intended for their concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl earlier this year. For example, during the pre-show quiz, one of the questions was something among the lines of “Did anyone in the audience attend ABBA’s [Melbourne] concert in 1977? Say “ME!” if you did”. This clearly didn’t work in a town (and venue) that ABBA never performed in.
The introduction video was completely redone and incorporated some footage of ABBA’s arrival in Melbourne, which was intercut with footage of the group “re-enacting” their actions. It didn’t seem to be from ABBA – The Movie, and looked more like newsreel footage (maybe they upscaled the VHS version instead of using the Blu-Ray?). They also included a dubious claim that ABBA had “25 top 10 hits” in Australia. I’m pretty sure they had less than that.

Love,
Aaron, Australia

It’s always possible that someone in the town went to one of ABBA’s concerts in 1977. I did that myself in Adelaide last year at a performance of The Choir by ABBA The museum, being the only one in the room who actually acknowledged they’d been to an ABBA concert (though for me it was Sydney, not Adelaide).
That footage of ABBA arriving in Melbourne may be from news outtakes that have been in circulation for many years, and can be found on YouTube.
You’re right, ABBA only had 16 Australian top 10 hits, and 23 in total in the top 40.

One thing is on my mind… Why are there only 2,800 pieces for the box of Waterloo…? The Visitors only 3,000 pieces… What do you think?

Jarek, Prague

Perhaps to meet anticipated demand. The number of the singles box sets have been increasing since the first one was released (Arrival, 2,000 copies), peaking at Super Trouper and Ring Ring, both with 5,500. Most sold out fairly quickly, but the Ring Ring box, which was released a year ago, seems to have been a slower seller and is still widely available. As I remember Super Trouper also took longer to sell out than previous box sets.

It’s well known that ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!’ suffered edits on the release on the USA. Was the promo video also edited to have the intro removed?
Also, remind me, why was ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ released as a 12″ only in the UK? Seems pointless to me as there was nothing new on the A or B sides. I still think it would have charted higher if it had the regular 7″ release.

Simon, UK

I don’t know if the ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!’ video was edited in the US to match the single. I’d guess probably not. I’m not even sure it was screened there.
‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ was something of an experiment. ABBA and Polar didn’t want to release another single from Super Trouper, but some European record companies wanted a new ABBA single as it had been several months since the previous single, and there was no new song on the immediate horizon. With 12-inch singles rising in popularity and sales at the end of the 70s and start of the 80s, it was decided to release ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ as a 12-inch limited-edition collector’s item, rather than a regular single release. It didn’t do too badly, being the highest charting and biggest selling 12-inch single in the UK at the time.

The infamous Australian division of Aldi have begun to place questionable budget records (sold for under AUD$20) in their “special buys”. Many of these albums include material that is considered to be out-of-copyright in Europe, such as radio broadcasts of live concerts and popular music released before 1962. They also use generic titles (“Greatest Hits Live” is a common one) and tend to have poor audio quality. ABBA don’t have a lot of material that fits this criteria, with the only example that comes to mind being a particular BBC radio broadcast of a Wembley Arena concert on November 10th, 1979. A few (complete) bootlegs have already been released, but there’s a good chance Aldi may stock an abridged single-LP version in the future. What do you think about this?

Love,
Aaron, Australia

As you mention, there has only been one of these types of releases of ABBA music on vinyl, the so-called ABBA Bremen 1979 double LP, which is actually the BBC ABBA in Concert radio special from 1980. It’s curious that these European albums now being made available in Australia, as a similar copyright loophole was closed in the early 90s following the appearance of dozens of grey-area CDs (there was one ABBA title available, with live recordings from television).