Abba - The Visitors (1981) (LP) - €10,00

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

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. 

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 album was recorded during a period of major personal shakeups, principally in the decision by Benny Andersson and Frida to follow the same route to divorce that had already been taken by Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Faltskog. 

Both male members of the group would soon remarry, but at the time, despite all of these changes in their circumstances, The Visitors was never intended as ABBA's swan song -- they were to go on recording together. That may explain why, rather than a threadbare, thrown-together feel, The Visitors is a beautifully made, very sophisticated album, filled with serious but never downbeat songs, all beautifully sung and showing off some of the bold songwriting efforts. 

The title track is a topical song about Soviet dissidents that also manages to be very catchy, while "I Let the Music Speak" sounds like a Broadway number (and a very good one, at that) in search of a musical to be part of, and "When All Is Said and Done" is a serious, achingly beautiful ballad with a lot to say about their personal situations -- even "Two for the Price of One," a lighthearted song sung by Björn Ulvaeus about answering a personal advertisement, offered several catchy hooks and beautiful backup singing. 

"Like an Angel Passing Through My Room" ended the original album on a hauntingly ethereal note, but not as any kind of larger statement about the quartet's fate. The intention was to keep working together, but Andersson and Ulvaeus' growing involvement with their stage project, Chess, prevented any further work together by the group beyond three songs, "The Day Before You Came," "Cassandra," and "Under Attack".

Side A

A1.  The Visitors - 5:49  

A2.  Head Over Heels - 3:45  

A3.  When All Is Said And Done - 3:20  

A4.  Soldiers - 4:38  

Side B

B1.  I Let The Music Speak - 5:20  

B2.  One Of Us - 3:55  

B3.  Two For The Price Of One - 3:36  

B4.  Slipping Through My Fingers - 3:51  

B5.  Like An Angel Passing Through My Room - 3:25 

All tracks are written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. 

ABBA

• Anni-Frid Lyngstad – lead vocals, backing Vocals
• Agnetha Fältskog – lead vocals, backing Vocals
• Björn Ulvaeus – acoustic guitar, guitar, mandolin, lead vocals, backing vocals
• Benny Andersson – synthesizers, keyboards, backing vocals

Additional personnel

• Ola Brunkert – drums 
• Rutger Gunnarsson – bass, mandolin
• Janne Kling – flute, clarinet 
• Per Lindvall – drums 
• Åke Sundqvist – percussion 
• Lasse Wellander – acoustic guitar , electric guitar, mandolin 
• The Three Boys – mandolins 
• Björn Borg – trumpet 
• Walter Borland – trombone 
• Gunnar Gunrup – trumpet 
• Torbjörn Kvist – tuba 
• Bosse Persson – tuba 

Production

• Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus – producers, arrangers
• Michael B. Tretow – engineer
• Rune Söderqvist – album design
• Lars Larsson – photography

Notes

Release: 1981

Format: LP, Vinyl

Genre:  Pop

Label:  Polydor Records

Catalog#  2311122

Vinyl:  Goed (VG)

Cover:  Goed (VG)

Prijs: €10,00