Saturday Deluxe / 6 May 2017

There’s flogging a dead horse, and then there’s resuscitating said dead horse to flog it some more. People, I give you yet another edition of ABBA’s Gold compilation, which most people call ‘ABBA Gold’ (see Wings Wildlife, for similar confusion).

The release in question is a gold double vinyl edition of the 1992 compilation which ‘celebrates’ the 25th anniversary of it’s original release, or maybe the 43rd anniversary of the band winning the Eurovision Song Contest, or possibly the 35th anniversary of their last TV appearance…

Anyway, there have of course been billions of editions since this came out in 1992. CD, vinyl, cassette, laserdisc, CD+DVD combo and a three-CD version which was issued in ‘gold’ (coloured!) ‘steelbook’ packaging in 2014.

This new coloured vinyl is 180g vinyl of course. Surely record labels should stop telling us when vinyl is ‘heavyweight’ 180g, since that’s what we expect these days, isn’t it? They’re basically all like that. Let’s make a deal, just tell us when vinyl ISN’T 180g, for example 140 or 200g.

It’s times like this that I quite admire Kate Bush. She doesn’t want to dig into her archive for deluxe reissues, so she leaves well alone! Okay, it’s somewhat frustrating as a fan but probably better than this. Bjorn and Benny should really hang their heads in shame for allowing reissues like this. Honestly, how much juice can you squeeze out of one 19-track compilation? It’s not even the best ABBA compilation. 1982’s The First Ten Years is far superior; it has all the same hits but features late career highlights such as Under Attack and The Day Before You Came, not included on Gold. Maybe they should reissue that as The Only Ten Years?

Look out next year for the half-speed mastered 45RPM ABBA Gold 4LP box that will celebrate 40 years since Summer Night City went to number one in Ireland.

Compare prices and pre-order

Abba

ABBA Gold 2LP gold vinyl

Shop Price gbp Stock Amazon uk   55.22 Order Amazon usa   54.99 Order

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Interesting dilemma for Marillion fans who fancy a SIGNED copy of the new Misplaced Childhood reissue…

The band with Steve Hogarth (frontman since 1989) are offering signed copies on their website, while Fish is doing the same via his Fishheads shop.

Personal preference, I guess, but I’m going with Fish. Not only does it mean fewer scribbles on that great artwork, but he did write all the lyrics; the narrative is very much his vision. He’s also signing ALL pre-orders while the band are only signing the first 1000 units.

Read more about the Misplaced Childhood reissue.

A post shared by SuperDeluxeEdition (@super_deluxe_edition) on May 5, 2017 at 4:30am PDT