Much to my relief, Carl Magnus Palm is launching another campaign to do an updated version of the book in 2025, with a kickstarter campaign that will only go forward if the goal is reached by the end of the month. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1832368278/abba-the-complete-recording-sessions-19721982?ref=profile_created&category_id=48
If there are others like me who really wanted the book but missed out the first time around, now is you chance I guess, haha. I'm not gonna lie, it is a lot of money, but from my understanding, the book is a real treasure trove of information on ABBA's recording process, from 1972 to 1982, so if that's your thing, you might find it worth it.
Now, I have been extremely critical of Carl Magnus Palm's other books, namely the alleged 100% accurate story of ABBA, Bright Lights, Dark Shadows, but considering the whole point of The Complete Recording Sessions is sharing over to us information that only the author was granted access too, like alternate recordings, early mixes, dates and times of recording sessions, etc, etc, and I was super impressed with the Complete Recording Sessions-style segment at the end of ABBA on Record, I think this book is worth my while.
So if you are interested in any of that and want to pledge for the book, why not check it out?
And in case you were curious, this is not sponsored at all lol.
Something interesting I noticed lately listening to both Gemini and ABBA is how similar “Does Your Mother Know?” and “Slow Emotion” by Gemini are. I think something that really has me thinking it is how layered and complex the female backing vocals are compared to the male leads. Using software, I split the backing vocals, lead vocals and instrumental separately from both songs and the way that a lot of amazing harmonies on the women’s side gets buried and overlooked is crazy! Especially on Slow Emotion. I am not one to pin Karin against Agnetha/Frida (frankly i think it’s dumb and lowkey misogynistic doing so) but it’s actually pretty impressive how Karin was able to do all that layering with only a little bit of Anders mixed in. The same goes for Does Your Mother Know? Now, I don’t particularly like the verses on that song but, I do love the backing harmonies and I think they’re pretty underrated compared to other ABBA songs. Rant over lol. Also, I think you should do some posts about Gemini because I feel that their music and abilities themselves often get disregarded by the ABBA connection and B&B’s somewhat mismanagement of them to try and spite A&A.
ReplyDeleteI've never picked up on a similarity to Slow Emotion and Does Your Mother Know before, but I wholeheartedly agree that Karin Glenmark is an incredible vocalist. Over time I definitely learned to appreciate Gemini's music, and I definitely don't agree with comparing and pitting them against Agnetha and Frida. I've definitely intended to write something about Gemini for honestly a couple of years haha, but I haven't listened to all their songs yet. I listen to their first album quite a lot, but not much of their second. I prefer to listen to my music offline, so listening to their songs via YouTube is not easy for me, plus, oddly they're not on streaming platforms, at least not where I can find.
DeleteI do love the 80s sound of their self-titled album. The more upbeat songs in particular are really nice, like Slow Emotion, Live On The Love, but honestly I just like them all. (Although I still have some reservations on Just Like That, but my beef is with Bjorn and Benny and not Gemini haha.) One quick ABBA comparison though - the end of Too Much Love Is Wasted reminds me a lot of the end of Don't Shut Me Down....
I agree. I wish they would actually release their two albums on streaming properly and not as a compilation album. The mixing on the Best of Karin and Anders is so poor and inconsistent at times. Worst of all, they don't even include some very underrated tracks like Slow Emotion or Nearly There from the 2nd album. They also cut the intro down on ''Falling'' from how it sounds on their self-titled album. Also, T.L.C has some of its harmonies removed in the first chorus. The worst offence of all is how they remixed "Copy Love". Like, no it sounded fine how it was on the 1986 single version. Overall, I hate how B&B managed Gemini. They really could have had more success outside of Scandinavia if they weren't used as pawns,
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