The Visitors (ABBA album)

Last updated

The Visitors
ABBA - The Visitors (Polar).jpg
Studio album by
ABBA
Released30 November 1981
Recorded16 March – 14 November 1981
Studio Polar, Stockholm
Genre Pop
Length37:39
Label
Producer
ABBA chronology
Super Trouper
(1980)		The Visitors
(1981)		 The Singles: The First Ten Years
(1982)
Singles from The Visitors
  1. "Slipping Through My Fingers"
    Released: June 1981 (Japan)
  2. "One of Us"
    Released: 7 December 1981
  3. "When All Is Said and Done"
    Released: 23 December 1981
  4. "No Hay A Quien Culpar"
    Released: 1981
  5. "Se Me Esta Escapando"
    Released: 1981
  6. "Head over Heels"
    Released: 19 March 1982
  7. "The Visitors"
    Released: 5 April 1982
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [2]
Blender Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svg [3]
The Daily VaultB+ [4]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [5]
Pitchfork 8.6/10 [6]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [7]
Smash Hits 8/10 [8]

The Visitors is the eighth studio album by Swedish pop group ABBA. It was released on 30 November 1981.

Contents

With The Visitors, ABBA took several steps away from the "lighter" pop music they had recorded previously and the album is often regarded as a more complex and mature effort. [9] The opening track, "The Visitors", with its ominous synthesizer sounds and the distinctive lead vocal by Frida, announced a change in musical style. With Benny and Frida going their separate ways, the pain of splitting up was explored yet again in "When All Is Said and Done". The major hit single on the album, "One of Us", also depicted the end of a love story. Elsewhere there were Cold War themes—highly topical at the time—and further songs of isolation and regret.

The Visitors was one of the first records ever to be digitally recorded and mixed, as well as one of the earliest in history to be pressed on the CD format in 1983. [10] The Visitors has been reissued in digitally remastered form four times—first in 1997, then in 2001, again in 2005 as part of The Complete Studio Recordings box set and most recently in 2012.

The Visitors Deluxe Edition was released on 23 April 2012. As with previous releases in the Deluxe Edition series, this version offered a DVD of archive material along with CD bonus tracks – including the demo medley "From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel", the first previously-unreleased ABBA recordings since 1994. [11]

For four decades, The Visitors stood as ABBA's last studio album, until the release of their 2021 album, Voyage .

Recording and release

Recording began on what was to become ABBA's eighth studio album on 16 March 1981. [12] By this time, tensions in ABBA had heightened. Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog had divorced in July 1980, while the band's other couple, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, announced their divorce in February 1981, adding strain to the musical partnership. Ulvaeus mentioned in retrospect that the sessions were troubled, noting, "It could be frosty sometimes." Lyngstad also commented that they were beginning to tire of working together. [13]

The members of ABBA and their personnel have memories of the recording sessions for this album being rather difficult. To begin with, their sound engineer Michael Tretow had to become accustomed to using the new 32-track digital recorder that had been purchased for Polar Music Studios. He said, "Digital recording...cut out all the hiss, but it also meant that sounds were sharply cut off below a certain level. The sound simply became too clean, so I had to find ways of compensating for that." The first three tracks for the album had already been recorded using analogue tape and therefore Tretow had to transfer all subsequent tracks from digital to analogue and back again to avoid a difference in quality. [14]

On its release, The Visitors reached the top of the charts in a number of territories but was not as successful as their previous albums. [15]

The Visitors was released as a Deluxe Edition in April 2012. As with previous releases in the Deluxe Edition series, this version offered a DVD of archive material along with a CD featuring the original album (although a different mix of "Head Over Heels" was used) and bonus tracks; one of the bonus tracks included was the demo medley "From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel", the first previously unreleased ABBA recordings since 1994. [11] Pitchfork gave it an 8.6 grade, saying "even as the band's commercial star faded and its professional relationships quietly unravelled, they were perfectionists. ABBA's music on The Visitors is more pristine and ambitious than it had ever been, its themes darker, its personal politics more tangled." [16] The Arts Desk: "The Visitors is not their best, but it is their most interesting [album], pointing to where Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson would go next." [17]

Album cover

The studio of Julius Kronberg at Skansen in Stockholm. Skansen Julius Kronberg studio.jpg
The studio of Julius Kronberg at Skansen in Stockholm.

Rune Söderqvist designed the cover and photographed the group in a room containing Julius Kronberg's painting of Eros. The room is part of his Atelje Studio in Skansen Park, Stockholm. The group are positioned apart and appear to be waiting solemnly in the shadows. [18] [19]

Track listing

All tracks written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. [20]

Side one
No.TitleLength
1."The Visitors"5:49
2."Head over Heels"3:45
3."When All Is Said and Done"3:20
4."Soldiers"4:38
Side two
No.TitleLength
1."I Let the Music Speak"5:20
2."One of Us"3:55
3."Two for the Price of One"3:36
4."Slipping Through My Fingers"3:51
5."Like an Angel Passing Through My Room"3:25
Total length:37:39
1997 CD edition bonus tracks
No.TitleLength
10."Should I Laugh or Cry" (B-side of "One of Us" and "When All Is Said and Done")4:26
11."The Day Before You Came" (1982 non-studio-album single A-side)5:47
12."Under Attack" (1982 non-studio-album single A-side)3:44
13."You Owe Me One" (B-side of "Under Attack")3:24
2001 CD edition bonus tracks
No.TitleLength
10."Should I Laugh or Cry"4:26
11."The Day Before You Came"5:50
12."Cassandra" (B-side of "The Day Before You Came")4:51
13."Under Attack"3:48
The Complete Studio Recordings bonus tracks
No.TitleLength
10."Should I Laugh or Cry"4:30
11."No hay a quien culpar" (Spanish version of "When All Is Said and Done")3:12
12."Se me está escapando" (Spanish version of "Slipping Through My Fingers")3:52
13."The Day Before You Came"5:50
14."Cassandra"4:52
15."Under Attack"3:45
16."You Owe Me One"3:26
2012 deluxe edition (The Final Album) bonus tracks
No.TitleLength
10."Should I Laugh or Cry"4:32
11."I Am the City"4:08
12."You Owe Me One"3:32
13."Cassandra"4:55
14."Under Attack"3:49
15."The Day Before You Came"5:51
16."From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel" (Demos)9:08
2012 deluxe edition DVD
No.TitleLength
1."Two for the Price of One" ( Dick Cavett Meets ABBA ) 
2."Slipping Through My Fingers" (Dick Cavett Meets ABBA) 
3."When All Is Said and Done" (original promotional video) 
4."ABBA in London, November 1982" ( The Late, Late Breakfast Show , BBC) 
5."ABBA in Stockholm, November 1982" (Nöjesmaskinen, SVT) 
6."The Visitors TV Commercial I" (UK) 
7."The Visitors TV Commercial II" (Australia) 
8."The Singles – The First Ten Years TV Commercial I" (UK) 
9."The Singles – The First Ten Years TV Commercial II" (Australia) 
10."International Sleeve Gallery" 

Personnel

ABBA

Additional personnel

Production

Charts

Certifications and sales

Certifications and sales for The Visitors
RegionCertification Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA) [48] Gold35,000^
Denmark (IFPI Danmark) [49] Gold10,000‡
Finland (Musiikkituottajat) [50] Platinum66,439 [50]
Germany (BVMI) [51] Platinum750,000 [52]
Hong Kong (IFPI Hong Kong) [53] Gold10,000*
Japan—128,000 [30]
Spain (PROMUSICAE) [54] Gold50,000^
Sweden (GLF) [55] Platinum290,000 [55]
United Kingdom (BPI) [56] Platinum300,000^
Summaries
Worldwide—5,000,000 [57]

* Sales figures based on certification alone.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

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  4. ↑ Smith, Michael R. (2019). "The Daily Vault Music Reviews : The Visitors". dailyvault.com. Retrieved 17 February 2019.
  5. ↑ Larkin, Colin (2007). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th Concise ed.). United Kingdom: Omnibus Press. p. 31. ISBN   978-1-84609-856-7.
  6. ↑ Pitchfork review
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  8. ↑ Ellen, Mark (7–20 January 1982). "Albums". Smash Hits : 16.
  9. ↑ allmusic ((( The Visitors > Overview )))
  10. ↑ Rambarran, Shara (2021). Virtual Music Sound, Music, and Image in the Digital Era. New York: Bloomsbury Academic & Professional. ISBN   978-1-5013-3362-0. OCLC   1236265553.
  11. 1 2 ABBA – The Official Site Archived 18 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine
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  14. ↑ Magnus Palm, C: "ABBA The Complete Recording sessions", page 109. Century 22 Ltd, 1994
  15. ↑ Magnus Palm, C: "Bright Lights, Dark shadows", page 446. Omnibus Press, 2001
  16. ↑ ABBA The Visitors [Deluxe Edition]
  17. ↑ Reissue CDs Weekly: Carole King, Abba, Sheena Easton
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  19. ↑ 1981 ABBA-THE VISITORS
  20. ↑ "Album the-visitors « The Visitors | Albums | ABBA". Archived from the original on 21 May 2017.
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  54. ↑ Salaverri, Fernando (September 2005). Sólo éxitos: año a año, 1959–2002 (PDF) (1st ed.). Spain: Fundación Autor-SGAE. ISBN   84-8048-639-2 . Retrieved 10 January 2021.
  55. 1 2 "Lot 1471978 – ABBA "The Visitors" Platinum Record Award – Auctionet". Auctionet.com. 12 December 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2021. Archived on 10 January 2021 at Wayback Machine.
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  57. ↑ Palm, Carl Magnus (2017). ABBA: The Complete Recording Sessions (2nd Revised and Expanded ed.). United Kingdom: CPI Group. p. 400. ISBN   978-91-639-2656-3.
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