The Visitors - the deluxe edition

The Deluxe Edition of The Visitors, ABBA’s eighth and final studio album, will be released on April 23, 2012. Originally released in 1981, the album features single hits such as ‘One Of Us’, ‘Head Over Heels’ and ‘When All Is Said And Done’, along with ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’, which is highlighted in one of the more poignant moments in the Mamma Mia! musical.
Like the previous Deluxe Editions of ABBA’s albums, The Visitors will feature several bonus selections along with a DVD of rare and previously unreleased material from the archives.
For ABBA fans, the most sensational inclusion in the package will be the previously unreleased track, ‘From A Twinkling Star To A Passing Angel (demos)’. This is the first time since the Thank You For The Music box set in 1994 that ABBA have opened the doors to the tape vaults to release previously unheard music from the group’s heyday.

THE VISITORS – DELUXE EDITION

DISC 01: CD
1. The Visitors
2. Head Over Heels
3. When All Is Said And Done
4. Soldiers
5. I Let The Music Speak
6. One Of Us
7. Two For The Price Of One
8. Slipping Through My Fingers
9. Like An Angel Passing Through My Room
Bonus Tracks:
10. Should I Laugh Or Cry
11. I Am The City
12. You Owe Me One
13. Cassandra
14. Under Attack
15. The Day Before You Came
Extra Bonus Track:
16. From A Twinkling Star To A Passing Angel (demos)

DISC 02: DVD:
1. Two For The Price Of One (Dick Cavett Meets ABBA)
2. Slipping Through My Fingers (Dick Cavett Meets ABBA)
3. When All Is Said And Done (Original Promo Clip)
4. ABBA In London, November 1982 (The Late Late Breakfast Show, BBC)
5. ABBA In Stockholm, November 1982 (Nöjesmaskinen, SVT)
6. The Visitors TV commercial I (UK)
7. The Visitors TV commercial II (Australia)
8. The Singles – The First Ten Years TV commercial I (UK)
9. The Singles – The First Ten Years TV commercial II (Australia)
10. International Sleeve Gallery

Happy New Year on the chart

The single "Happy New Year" re-entered the Swedish chart on January 6th, 2012 at #51

New issue of the ABBA magazine out now

The December issue of the International ABBA magazine is being distributed by the Official International ABBA Fan Club in the week 49. The main feature in this issue is Raffem's story about ABBA in Poland which I wrote this autumn especially for this edition. I hope you'll find it interesting. There can be even seen original clippings from Polish newspapers from the time when ABBA paid the visit in Poland in 1976 as well as ABBA (+ solo after ABBA) on Polish radio power play chart. Totally 5 pages. Enjoy.

The magazine contains as usual tons of news, several great photos of the group, forum and much more.

New single

New vinyl single featuring "Happy New Year" b/w "The Way Old Friends Do" was released on November 30th, 2011. This is a limited edition item released in 500 pieces.

The Arrival cover in new version

The Spanish artist Antonio de Filipe opened his exhibition in the series "LPoP" in Malmö/Sweden on Saturday November 26th, 2011. The exhibition showed his famous paintings with mixes of well-known LP covers. One of the latest works features the famous cover of ABBA's album "Arrival".
The exhibition is open until December 31st, 2011 at the gallery "gkm" in Malmö, Stora Nygatan 30.
 

ABBA exhibition in Vallentuna

The local authorities in Vallentuna outside Stockholm promote the municipality with ABBA's help. The ABBA members lived in Vallentuna between 1972 and 1975 and the authorities promote the commune by among others an ABBA exhibition in Vallentuna center in autumn 2011. Earlier in the autumn 2011 there was a big ABBA feature in Vallentuna's local newspaper with several previously unpublished pictures of the group taken just in Vallentuna in the early days.

ABBA Collected

An ABBA Box containing 3 CDs with totally 50 songs saw its release on July 12th, 2011. The songs featured are both greatest hits and B-sides as well as unreleased during ABBA's active period "Put on Your White Sombrero".

Super Trouper - Deluxe edition

A Deluxe Edition of ABBA’s seventh studio album, Super Trouper, was released on May 9, 2011. Super Trouper Deluxe Edition is a 2-disc release, featuring a CD with a remastered version of the original album along with relevant bonus tracks, plus a DVD of rare television performances and interviews from the archives, including previously unseen footage.

The CD features several bonus tracks featuring previously unavailable stereo version of the full-length "On and On and On" as well as "Elaine", "Put on Your White Sombrero" and the Spanish versions.

One nice surprise on the DVD is the documentary "Somewhere in the crowd there's you" featuring rare footage from October 3rd, 1980. You can see incredibly clearly that something is wrong between Frida and Benny - they don't touch each other, they don't talk to each other which means that their marriage had been already dead

The Show Express performance from ZDF is well known and available in HQ since many years ago as ZDF broadcasted the ABBA Kultnacht. Pity that the French TV performance of Super Trouper and The Winner Takes It All does not appears on this release.

Words and Music - a quite short TV special with short interviews with the band members and some video clips. The SVT version of "Happy New Year" around the piano which is available in top quality on fan DVDs as it has been shown several times by SVT during last years. Remastered videos for Super Trouper and Happy New Year (but not The Winner Takes It All and not Felicidad either) has been added as well to fill the DVD up to its full capacity. Two Super Trouper commercials and the picture gallery close the DVD.

The booklet contains the story of the album and some alternative shots from well-known 1980 photo sessions.

ABBAWORLD in Prague

The members of ABBA are happy to see ABBAWORLD arrive in the blooming capital of the Czech Republic in springtime. The exhibition, which will premiere on 6 May 2011 at Slovansky Dum in the centre of the Czech capital, is presented by Sony Music Prague, in cooperation with Viva Art Music. The exhibition will stay in Prague until the end of August.
 

ABBA Treasures

New ABBA book written by Elisabeth Vincentelli is unique and interesting because it is different. Whilst some "ABBA-writers" repeat themselves with new releases of the same old ABBA story but with some different pictures, Vincentelli got a good idea to make a new kind of ABBA book. She mixes the ABBA story with a kind of analysis of the group's development during the glory years of its career. There are lots of pictures - most of them well-known for old ABBA fans but even some rare shots can be seen here and there. The new idea is to attach 20 removable memorabilia and reproductions of stickers, trading cards, tickets to ABBA concerts and other stuff. It is real fun to have a possibility to read the reproduction of "Expressen" from the day after the Eurovision victory in 1974 or to see the ABBA stationery from the period 1980-1981.

The only thing that feels very wrong are reversed ABBA pictures as well as wrong years and descriptions under many pictures. It is for instant stated under a picture of ABBA taken  on Danish TV in 1975 that the picture had been taken in 1977. Two famous pictures from with classical and well-known photo session from late 1978 are described as ABBA 1977 when they started recording sessions for ABBA The Album. But the funniest thing is the description of a well-known photo from USA in autumn 1974, in which it is stated that the picture had been taken in... 1979.

So 10 points out of 10 for the idea but only 5 out of 10 for the research and the contents.

Icon - new compilation

A compilation CD entitled "Icon" was released in September 2010. It contains 11 early ABBA hits.

ABBA Thank You for the Music

A new ABBA book/magazine has been issued in the UK and its limited edition was distributed by WHSmith stores. The book features the story of ABBA and the presentation of the members as well as tons of rare and previously unseen ABBA pictures from various periods. Pity for ABBA fans from outside the UK not to be able to buy it.

Learn English with ABBA

Czech newspaper "Dnes" released textbook and CD "English in the car with ABBA". Lyrics to 8 ABBA hits are analyzed in the 39-side-textbook and the CD contains all songs and a pronunciation course. The songs are: The Winner Takes It All, Thank You For The Music, Does Your Mother Know, Fernando, Gimme Gimme Gimme, Knowing Me Knowing You, Mamma Mia and Money Money Money.

The ABBA guide to Stockholm

New ABBA related book is a guide book to Stockholm written by Sara Russel and issued in April 2010. A very nice book with some rare photos of ABBA. The guide book covers main ABBA related places in the capital of Sweden.

It is nice that raffem. com was a kind of inspiration in this case (and not only) as we started our ABBA related places section already in February 2002.

New ABBA related books

A new ABBA-related book "ABBA in America" (in two language versions: Swedish and English) is out in Sweden. It is an extended version of the book "Succen på världsscenen" which was issued in Scandinavia in 1979 by the journalist Leif Schulman and photographer Charles Hammarsten (both from the weekly "Hänt"). The book had 96 pages with rare pictures and a reportage mainly from the American leg of ABBA's tour. The 2010 edition has 160 pages and surprisingly contains several pictures from the Japan where ABBA toured in March 1980. A little mystery why the title is "ABBA in America" and not "ABBA Tour 1979/80"?

The well-known book "From ABBA to Mamma Mia" originally issued in 1999 has a new updated version now. The new edition of the book came out in February 2010. There are some

differences comparing to the 1999 edition. Mostly lay-out changes, several pictures included in the first issue are missing in the new one. The musical Mamma Mia section is extended with some new pictures from the Stockholm set-up of the musical