Disco de ABBA: “The Albums [Box]”

If you're the completist, whose sensibility almost always goes out the window; whose hard earned money goes out just as fast, then go ahead...blow it! I just did :)

But if you are a bit of a pragmatist and own their lavish, velvetty boxed set "the complete studio collection" from 2005, you might want to pass.

For one, the cd's and sleeves look exactly the same as the 2005 set, albeit without the bonus tracks. Second, audio quality, having been digitalized and remastered by the same blokes, masters of audio, is the same. These are the same folks who ruined Agnetha's "Wrap Your Arms Around Me" and Frida's "Something's Going On" remasters from 2005. When i heard that Universal will release yet another boxed set of the Swedish monolith's recorded work, i would have expected them to set history straight by including ABBA's spanish album "Gracias Por La Musica"...to my non surprise but nonetheless utter disappointment, they still blew that chance, so this would be the third reason not to buy it.

Although both Universal and ABBA have sole prerogative on how to market their body of work, they should realize that we fans, who've made the music a part of our lives by buying their records, are aware of the fact that 9 albums were OFFICIALLY released and not 8. And I'm not even counting in 1986's "ABBA-Live" which should actually bring the tally to 10 bona fide albums.

I can't see the reason why their Spanish album, which has done well in both South America, Spain and even Japan, continues to be denied its rightful place. Such revisionism, may backfire. Who knows, someone or something might knock some sense into me and might choose not to buy another, if Universal milks their catalog one more time with another boxed set.

I'm surprised that noboby has to date reported that these are not the *original* studio albums. (and I'm not talking about them missing the Spanish language album)

What they have given us is the sleeves of the original 8 studio albums which all include a list of the tracks on those original albums, yet the tracks on the CDs provided in those first two album sleeves do not match the list of tracks the sleeves say are in them.

The completely unbelievable decision has been made to remove the two Swedish language tracks from the first two albums (and put them on the "bonus" CD). In the case of the first album, Ring Ring in Swedish has been replaced by "My Kind of Girl" and in the case of the second album they have dropped Waterloo in Swedish which started that album and instead start the album with Waterloo in English which on the original album completed the album. (For this removal there is no replacement).

The key thing with the Waterloo album is that it was issued after they had won the European Song Contest with Waterloo sung (as the rules then insisted) in Swedish and they had then when they sung it again as winners had (for the first time in the history of that competition (?)) an English language version already available which they therefore (to the extra applause of the audience) sang.

In other words for that album - labelled "Grand Prix of the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest" - the presence of both langauge versions IS important.

Having a Swedish language version of Ring Ring is less important but again that otherwise English language original album included both language versions (with again the Swedish language version as the first track) so any box claiming to have the original albums should have that as first track on the CD.

One consequence of having different songs on 2 of the 8 albums than those listed on the album sleeves means that lots of space is wasted in the booklet by repeating the albums' front sides with lists of the tracks that are actually on the CDs.

This means that no space is left for useful information on a track-by-track basis of for instance who is the first (and second etc.) female solo singer on each track. [I suggest the broschure makers look at the Crosby, Stills, Nash box set's broschure which has background information (mainly from Graham Nash) on each track)

Otherwise I agree with most of the posters about the quality (still) of the music. I've for a long time had Abba Gold on my IPod but until I bought this set thought that most of the "non-Gold" stuff was pretty poor in comparison. Well some is (mainly from the early albums) but not as much as I expected.

I don't agree with the comments on the sleeves. As we don't have a vinyl box available, the best you can do is scaled down sleeves and for me there's nothing wrong with the quality of these.

There was also an earlier comment about the quality of the re-mastering. My first hearing was of a "start of late period" album and there it struck me how well the music responded to the re-mastering, but since then I've not been as impressed so I think we can say that the re-mastering is OK and better in parts than in others.

But despite the only three stars (caused mainly by me being so annoyed that the Waterloo album (which is the only one I listened to often soon after it came out, but never bought) isn't as I remember it to be (and for anyone who cares I didn't live in Sweden at that time but in another (non-Nordic) European country), I'm still very glad I bought this set.

I have every single song recorded by ABBA, including the bootleg recordings of the rareties. I understand the bootlegs will never make it to a compilation like this, but please, if your going to re release the same music at least give the true fans a bit more, like the rarely heard "On the Carousel" from The Album. I have the full version and it is a great song. There are so many rareties that have never been officially released in the U.S or Canada but have been found on imports from China, Turkey and even from Afghanistan. These were official releases in those countries. Universal should consider finding them, or asking the members of ABBA for permission to release them. They might actually sell a few more million copies. Otherwise this is just another greatest hits package.

I was thinking about trying to collect the full ABBA catalog, but this made it a lot easier to do it all at once. I like the compact format (each CD in a replica of the original album sleeve), instead of the bulk you normally get with a multi-CD box set. 9 CDs don't take up any more room on my CD rack than 3 in jewel cases. I also like the look of the discs themselves; like miniature vinyl records.

The ABBA "The Albums" boxset lived up to my expectations - almost. I the CD's are perfect; excellent quality of sound. The case looks great! I really like the shiny logo on it. My only complaint is that the CD's are held in sleeves instead of larger plastic cases. Other than that, I have no complaints. The booklet that comes with the boxset has a nice intro. The timeline also has some interesting photos of the group. If you're looking for a compact boxset, this products is for you. Overall: I give it a 4/5 stars. I highly recomend it for any ABBA fan. This is a high quality product that I personally think is worth the price.