Saturday 28 June 2008

Hitkrant, January 1982: ABBA show their colours

An article that appeared in Dutch magazine Hitkrant, shortly after the release of the The Visitors album, informing us that two songs from that album had been recorded in Spanish.
Of course, there has been much ado about ABBA’s Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s new, fire red hairdo. But not only in that respect has ABBA shown their colours; that mainly happened with the new album ‘The Visitors’ of which the general opinion is that ABBA is showing a completely new and personal side. In the meantime, subsequent work for ‘The Visitors’ has begun, because obviously it’s not just about recording an album and then sit and wait how many copies are being sold.
The past few years ABBA has focussed more and more on the South American market, and subsequently has released several singles and albums in Spanish. That’s also the case with ‘The Visitors’: two songs from the album have been recorded in Spanish as well. As ever, Buddy Mary McCluskey translated the lyrics and that’s how ‘When All Is Said And Done’ turned into ‘No Hay A Quien Culpar’ and ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ turned into ‘Se Me Esta Escapando’. Of course, the version of the album with these two Spanish songs is aimed at the Spanish-speaking countries, and has been released already in Mexico, Latin-America and South-America.
As a consequence, three promotional films are available at the moment. One for ‘When All Is Said And Done’, one for ‘One Of Us’ (which has been broadcast on TV already) and one for ‘No Hay A Quien Culpar’. Yes, you could buy them, but you would have to order them in Stockholm and pay about 500 Dutch guilders for them, excluding postage! Obviously, the promotional films are primarily made to be used for television.
That’s how the ABBA-machine is working at full force. The combination of the endless musicality of the Swedish foursome and the brilliant business-skills of Stig Anderson is still a guarantee for one success after the other.

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