ABBA The Singles - The First Fifty Years

 So ABBA have a new compilation album coming out in October, titled "The Singles - The First Fifty Years", which I find to be an absolutely hilarious title, which is of course based on "The Singles - The First Ten Years" released back in 1982 to celebrate ABBA's 10 year anniversary from the group's formation in 1972.  

The album contains all of ABBA's official single releases give or take from the 70s and 80s, with the addition of the five singles from ABBA's Voyage album, making this a nice compilation of ABBA's singles from the span of their entire career.  

The album is available for pre-order on all of ABBA's official stores, like the museum and the universal music store, as well as Amazon.  I wasn't initially going to pre-order it because it's nothing I don't already have, and dare I say, there's nothing really to entice the consumer to buy it?  

Back in 1979, when ABBA were releasing Greatest Hits Vol.2, the album included ABBA's newest single at the time, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight), and aside from the single release, this album was the only LP that featured that song, and it also included Summer Night City, yet another albumless song.  Fast forward to 1982, and for The Singles (The First Ten Years), the album includes two more albumless singles, The Day Before You Came and Under Attack.  Also, although not included on the initial release of the album, ABBA's Greatest Hits from 1976 as it was released in the US, included the albumless track, Fernando.  All three compilation albums featured something new, something that would entice the audience to buy that compilation album,.

 But The Singles (The First Fifty Years) doesn't have anything new.  There's no new single, nothing to really grab anyone's attention aside from the fact that this album is celebrating fifty years of ABBA, which is exciting in its own right!  I feel like this album is mostly targeted towards the existing ABBA fans, the ones who must buy every single ABBA album, compilation or studio, but not the casual listener, like all three former compilation albums from ABBA's active years were meant to do.  Now I know that ABBA are an already established act, and I'm also not asking ABBA to release anything more.  I'm more than satisfied with all that we have, I know better than to ask for more music from ABBA (and I'm also well aware that ABBA LOVE to surprise us and then out of nowhere announce that they recorded an entire new album not just two new songs and then cause me to give them all my money yet again...), I just think more thought could have gone into this compilation album.

Although I wasn't planning on preordering this album, especially as I can't spend over $100 on the compilation album in record format, I did see that it was available on Amazon in its CD form, and because I have prime, I was like, well okay might as well give more money to ABBA.

But that's actually not what I'm here to complain about hahahhahaa.  It's the cover of the album.  First of all, I love the fact that they used an image of ABBA in their prime.  ABBA in late 1975, as they looked when they were working on their most successful studio album Arrival.  ABBA in their prime.  Not ABBA in 1982 like as was originally featured on the back of ABBA Gold.  (They have since changed the image on more recent releases of the album.).  As an obsessed ABBA fan, I never complain about ABBA and their work, I'm always an optimist, but I just have to say, especially where ABBA Gold was my second introduction to ABBA, seeing ABBA at their most worn out and bored as they looked in 1982 as the first visual impression of the band was really confusing to me back in 2010.  Like I had a hard time connecting the way they looked on that image from 1982 to the youthful and energetic sound that I was hearing when listening to each track.  But anyway I digress.  

I also love the title, I think it's a fantastic title.  I like that it's in the style of ABBA's last compilation album from their active years as a band.  ABBA's The Singles (The First Ten Years) is such a stunning album cover, I love the layout of the font, yet, this new compilation looks poorly made in comparison, like a sloppy copy of the original, or more like a bad Disney live action money grab version of the original amazing film.  

I think what bothers me the most is that the modern graphic design, the even letter spacing of digitally applied text doesn't match the 70s appearance that ABBA has.  The drop shadow looks artificial, and it lacks the beautiful hand-written quality of the 1982 album.  It literally looks like the sloppy YouTube thumbnails that I produce for my videos, and I am not professional in any way and that's certainly reflected in my thumbnails hahahaha. 

So, although I love the concept of the album cover, it's really really bothering me, I decided to try my hand at fixing it up a little.  I literally spent all morning trying to figure out photoshop as I have it but hardly use it, and the end result is not perfect in any way shape or form.  I am not a graphic designer, I really don't have the eye for that sort of thing, but I had to do something to make this album cover look better.

I tried to keep it more in the style of the original 82 compilation album, the font a little more squished.  I didn't include drop shadows, and I didn't keep the byline in all caps.  I think it looks pretty good, I think it looks more in line with ABBA's other compilations albums, so if the people at UMG happen to see this simple edit I did in an hour (not including the time spent to learn photoshop....), feel free to use it hahahhahaa.