ABBA "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (Single & Video)"

"Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" is a song by Swedish band ABBA. It was recorded in August 1979 in order to help promote their North American and European tour of that year, and was released on ABBA's Greatest Hits Vol. 2 album as the brand new track.

"Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" was written and composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, with the lead vocal sung by Agnetha Fältskog. Fältskog, as the narrator, weaves the image of a lonely woman who longs for a romantic relationship and views her loneliness as a forbidding darkness of night, even drawing parallels to how the happy endings of movie stars are so different from her own existence. The melody line of the song was played on an ARP Odyssey synthesizer.

The song was recorded at Polar Music Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 1979, and was ready for release in October of that year, in conjunction with the group's tour of North America and Europe.

Originally, ABBA had recorded another song, "Rubber Ball Man", which was planned as a single. It featured the typical "ABBA-arrangement" with both Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad on lead vocals and the use of classical strings. This song was also performed by the group during rehearsals for its 1979 tour as "Under My Sun". However, the group felt that "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!", with its disco sound, would be a better choice, and thus, "Rubber Ball Man" remained nothing more than a demo.

The single version of this song, which was released in its full length of 4:48 everywhere else in the world, was released in the United States and Canada in an edited format, being just 3:36 in length. This was done by removing the first half of the opening instrumental, the first four of the eight bars of the instrumental bridge between the second and final chorus, and fading the song out early. It is believed the edit was done by Atlantic, ABBA's North American record label and not Polar, hence the reason why it was available only in the US and Canada. This single version has never appeared on any commercial CD issued by Polar/Universal to date and along with the US promo edit of "Chiquitita", it marked the only time Atlantic ever commercially released an edited version of an ABBA single while they had the North American rights to release ABBA recordings.

The single was never released by Polar Music in the group's native Sweden, instead being featured on the Greatest Hits Vol. 2 album, which did get a Swedish release. While Polar released the single in neighbouring Norway, Denmark, and Finland, copies of these versions were not made available in the Swedish record stores, who thus arranged to import copies of the United Kingdom version on Epic Records. Sales of these imports were sufficient for the single to reach no. 16 on the sales chart in Sweden.

"¡Dame! ¡Dame! ¡Dame!" is the Spanish-language version of the song. The song was released as a single to promote Gracias Por La Música in Latin America and other Spanish-speaking countries.

"Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" was another highly successful song for ABBA. It hit no. 1 in Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, and Switzerland, while reaching the Top 3 in Austria, Germany, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Norway. It also proved to be ABBA's most successful song in Japan, hitting no. 17.

ABBA "Summer Night City (Single & Video)"

"Summer Night City" is a song recorded by the Swedish pop group ABBA, written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus as a tribute to their hometown of Stockholm. It is the group's second non-album single, released on 6 September 1978. It was recorded during the sessions of the group's upcoming Voulez-Vous album, but was eventually not included. However, it was included on the ABBA compilation album Greatest Hits Vol. 2 in October 1979, more than a year after its release. It was also featured as a bonus track on both the 1997 and 2001 CD re-issues of Voulez-Vous.

The recording sessions for "Summer Night City" began in early 1978. It had the working titles of "Kalle Sändare" and "Dancing in the Moonlight". ABBA's new recording studio, Polar Music Studio, had opened in May 1978, but had not been ready to use initially, so the primary backing track had been recorded at Metronome Studio. A 43-second ballad-style introduction to the song had been edited out to improve the overall quality, but nothing seemed to work. Allegedly, mixing the single took at least a week, far more than it took to mix any other track in ABBA's recording history. They felt something was wrong with the recording but couldn't put their finger on it. In the end, the song had an enormous amount of compression applied to it to give it a more "driving" sound. Agnetha has been quoted as saying she didn't like the song to start with, as she felt "it wasn't ABBA" but later on grew to like it. A reluctant ABBA decided to release "Summer Night City" as a single in September despite their disappointment with the track in its current form. The group still performed the song live on their 1979 world tour, though with the original introduction that had been removed from the studio recording. The previously unreleased version with the extended introduction was finally released as part of the box set Thank You for the Music in 1994.

Their ambivalence about the record has surfaced occasionally in interviews where Benny has said "we shouldn't have released that one", and Bjorn called the recording "really lousy".

The single's B-side was a medley of the American traditional songs "Pick a Bale of Cotton", "On Top of Old Smokey", and "Midnight Special", which the group had recorded in May 1975. This was the only song released by ABBA that was not written by any of the members themselves. On the single, "Medley" was actually a re-equalised version of the original 1975 version that had been issued on the German charity album Stars im Zeichen eines guten Sterns (Polydor). However, the 1978 compressed version is very similar, so much so that a mistake was made in the booklet notes of the 1994 4-CD boxed set Thank You for the Music. It turned out that the 1975 original version was included in that set but it was claimed to be the 1978 compressed. The "Medley" mystery was allegedly solved when the UK single master tapes were returned by Epic Records to Polar Music in Sweden in the early 2000s. As the UK tapes had definitely included the 1978 compressed version, it then became possible to determine which version was which. As explained by ABBA historian Carl Magnus Palm:

When The Complete Studio Recordings was put together, I and the mastering engineer tried to determine whether it actually was two different mixes. The conclusion was that it probably was and so both versions were included in the box set. However, since then it's finally been determined that they are one and the same mix, the difference being that the 1978 "version" was subjected to a lot more compression, presumably to make it sound more like the highly compressed "Summer Night City" A-side of the single.

Despite the group's negative views of the song, "Summer Night City" was another sizeable hit for ABBA, albeit not one of their biggest. It topped the charts in Ireland, Finland and Sweden; the group's last No.1 in their home country. It also reached the Top 5 in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Rhodesia and Switzerland. In the UK, "Summer Night City" reached No.7 in the charts and then dropped, which was ABBA's lowest peak position for three and a half years.[5] This caused concern for the group given that it was their first release after a seven-month break; the single however reached a new peak of No.5 the following week. Nevertheless, it remained ABBA's lowest-charting single in the UK for the period 1976–1980.

"Summer Night City" makes small appearances in the musical Mamma Mia!. Samples from the song appear in scrambled "nightmare" form during the entr'acte, and is also scene change music between the songs "The Winner Takes It All" and "Take a Chance on Me".

ABBA "Fernando (Single & Video)"

"Fernando" is a song by the Swedish pop group ABBA. It was released in March 1976 as the brand new track for the 1976 compilation album Greatest Hits, and was also included on the group's fourth studio album Arrival in Australia and New Zealand. "Fernando" is also featured on the multi-million-selling Gold: Greatest Hits compilation. The song is one of ABBA's best-selling singles of all time, with six million copies sold in 1976 alone. It is one of fewer than forty all-time singles to have sold 10 million (or more) physical copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time.

"Fernando" was not originally released as an ABBA song but as a solo single by band member Anni-Frid Lyngstad. It was featured on her No. 1 Swedish solo album Frida ensam (1975). The song was composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and carried the working title of "Tango". Preparations for recording began in August 1975. The writers made last-minute changes to the title before recording. The name "Fernando" was inspired by a bartender of that name who worked at a club the band frequented in Stockholm, Sweden.

The original Swedish-language version's lyrics were written by ABBA's manager Stig Anderson, and differ substantially from the English-language version. In the original, the narrator tries to console the heartbroken Fernando, who has lost his great love. "The sorrow can be hard to bear, but the fact that friends let us down is something we all have to cope with". The chorus' lyrics are: "Long live love, our best friend, Fernando. Raise your glass and propose a toast to it; to love, Fernando. Play the melody and sing a song of happiness. Long live love, Fernando".

The English version, with completely different lyrics by Björn Ulvaeus, presents a vision of nostalgia for two veterans reminiscing in old age about a long-ago battle in which they participated. "I wrote all the songs as little stories. 'Fernando' was about two old freedom-fighters from the war between Texas and Mexico. I was lying outside one summer night, looking at the stars and it suddenly came to me". "I knew that the title 'Fernando' had to be there, and after pondering a while, I had this vivid image in my mind of two old and scarred revolutionaries in Mexico sitting outside at night talking about old memories".

The B-side to "Fernando" was the song "Hey, Hey, Helen", a track from the group's self-titled third studio album (1975), although in some countries "Tropical Loveland" (also from the album ABBA) was used instead. Some copies of the single use "Rock Me" or "Dance (While the Music Still Goes On)" as a B-side.

The title and rhythm of the song made it an obvious choice for inclusion on ABBA's Spanish album, Gracias Por La Música. The lyrics were translated into Spanish by Mary McCluskey and recorded at Polar Music Studio on 3 January 1980. The song was released as a promotional single in Spain. The lyrics, while adapted for rhythm and rhyme, carry the same sentiment and roughly the same meaning as the English version: "There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernando. They were shining there for you and me, for liberty, Fernando" becomes "Something was around us perhaps of clarity Fernando, that shone for us two in protection, Fernando" ("Algo había alrededor quizá de claridad Fernando, que brillaba por nosotros dos en protección, Fernando".)

"Fernando" was released in March 1976 and became one of ABBA's best-selling singles, topping the charts in at least 13 countries, and selling over 10 million copies worldwide. It was the longest-running No. 1 in Australian history (spending 14 weeks at the top and 40 weeks on the chart), and remained so for over 40 years, until it was surpassed by Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You", which achieved 15 weeks at No. 1 in May 2017. "Fernando" also reached the top of the charts in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa and Switzerland. It was also a Top 5 hit in ABBA's native Sweden (although Lyngstad's version was No. 1 on Sweden's radio chart for nine weeks), Finland, Norway, Spain, Canada and Rhodesia.

The track became ABBA's fourth Top 20 hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 13. It also reached No. 1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, the first of two chart-toppers for ABBA on this chart (the second being "The Winner Takes It All"). The song remains an airplay staple on American radio stations specializing in the MOR, adult standards and easy listening formats.

"Fernando" was the fourth-biggest single of 1976 in the UK. It spent 10 weeks in the UK Top 10 (more than any other ABBA single), and was also the second of three consecutive UK No. 1 singles for ABBA, after "Mamma Mia" and before "Dancing Queen".

In Portugal the single sold 80,000 copies; in France it went to No. 1 and sold 850,000 copies.

The song was also chosen as the "Best Studio Recording of 1975", ABBA's first international prize.

ABBA "The Definitive Collection"

The Definitive Collection is a 2001 compilation album of all the singles released by Swedish pop group ABBA. It consisted of two discs: the first featuring the singles from 1972–79 ("People Need Love" to "Does Your Mother Know"), and the second including the singles from 1979–82 ("Voulez-Vous" to "Under Attack"), with the tracks being listed in chronological order. The main exception is the track "Thank You for the Music", which, despite being written and recorded in 1977, was in fact released as a single (primarily in the UK) in 1983 after the band had split up. It appears on disc two, along with two bonus tracks, "Ring Ring" (1974 UK single remix), and "Voulez-Vous" (1979 US promo extended remix). The Australian version of The Definitive Collection adds a further two bonus tracks: "Rock Me" and "Hasta Mañana". The 1974 remix of "Ring Ring" is the first appearance on CD of this version mastered from the original master tape, after the UK single master tapes had been returned to Polar Music by the former UK licensees, Epic Records. The track's previous appearance on CD, in a 1999 singles boxed set, was mastered from a vinyl single.

The Definitive Collection is the only ABBA compilation to include all the UK single releases from 1973 to 1983. The four "unofficial" UK ABBA singles are included, these being the 1974 remix of "Ring Ring", "Angeleyes", "Lay All Your Love on Me" and "Thank You for the Music". An "unofficial single" is one that was not released by ABBA's record label, Polar Music, in any Scandinavian country.

A DVD also called The Definitive Collection was released in 2002, and features all of ABBA's videos, as well as five bonus videos and a picture gallery. In the US the 2-CD set was bundled with the DVD.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 179 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list.

Track listing

All songs which are written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus unless otherwise noted. Tracks 1-4 were originally released under the name "Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid".

Disc one

1. "People Need Love" Ring Ring, 1973; first released as a single the previous year 2:45
2. "He Is Your Brother" Ring Ring; first released as a single the previous year 3:18
3. "Ring Ring" (Andersson, Stig Anderson, Ulvaeus, Neil Sedaka, Phil Cody) Ring Ring 3:04
4. "Love Isn't Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough)" Ring Ring 2:53
5. "Waterloo" (Andersson, Anderson, Ulvaeus) Waterloo, 1974 2:47
6. "Honey, Honey" (Andersson, Anderson, Ulvaeus) Waterloo 2:55
7. "So Long" ABBA, 1975; released as a single the previous year 3:05
8. "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" (Andersson, Anderson, Ulvaeus) ABBA 3:16
9. "SOS" (Andersson, Anderson, Ulvaeus) ABBA 3:20
10. "Mamma Mia" (Andersson, Anderson, Ulvaeus) ABBA 3:32
11. "Fernando" Fernando single, in a following year; later released on later releases of Greatest Hits, 1975 4:14
12. "Dancing Queen" (Andersson, Anderson, Ulvaeus) Arrival, 1976 3:51
13. "Money, Money, Money" Arrival 3:05
14. "Knowing Me, Knowing You" (Andersson, Anderson, Ulvaeus) Arrival; released as a single the following year 4:01
15. "The Name of the Game" (Andersson, Anderson, Ulvaeus) The Album, 1977 4:52
16. "Take a Chance on Me" The Album 4:05
17. "Eagle" (Edited Version) The Album; released as a single the following year 4:27
18. "Summer Night City" Summer Night City - Single in previous year; later released in Greatest Hits Vol. 2, 1979 3:35
19. "Chiquitita" Voulez-Vous, 1979 5:24
20. "Does Your Mother Know" Voulez-Vous 3:13
21. "Rock Me" (Australian bonus track) ABBA, 1975; released as a single the following year 3:08
22. "Hasta Mañana" (Andersson, Anderson, Ulvaeus; Australian bonus track) Waterloo 3:11

Disc two

1. "Voulez-Vous" Voulez-Vous 5:08
2. "Angeleyes" Voulez-Vous 4:19
3. "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" Greatest Hits Vol. 2, 1979 4:50
4. "I Have a Dream" Voulez-Vous 4:42
5. "The Winner Takes It All" Super Trouper, 1980 4:56
6. "Super Trouper" Super Trouper 4:13
7. "On and On and On" Super Trouper 3:42
8. "Lay All Your Love on Me" Super Trouper 4:34
9. "One of Us" The Visitors, 1981 3:56
10. "When All Is Said and Done" The Visitors 3:17
11. "Head over Heels" The Visitors 3:47
12. "The Visitors (Crackin' Up)" The Visitors 5:46
13. "The Day Before You Came" The Singles: The First Ten Years, 1982 5:51
14. "Under Attack" The Singles: The First Ten Years 3:47
15. "Thank You for the Music" The Album, 1977; released as a single in support of Thank You for the Music, 1983 3:51
16. "Ring Ring" (1974 UK single remix; Andersson, Anderson, Ulvaeus, Sedaka, Cody; bonus track) Previously unissued on CD, 2001 3:10
17. "Voulez-Vous" (1979 US promo extended remix; bonus track) Previously unissued on CD 6:07

DVD

1. "Waterloo" 2:47
2. "Ring Ring" 3:04
3. "Mamma Mia" 3:32
4. "SOS" 3:20
5. "Bang-A-Boomerang" 2:50
6. "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" 3:16
7. "Fernando" 4:14
8. "Dancing Queen" 3:51
9. "Money, Money, Money" 3:05
10. "Knowing Me, Knowing You" 4:01
11. "That's Me" 3:16
12. "The Name of the Game" 4:52
13. "Take a Chance on Me" 4:05
14. "Eagle" 4:27
15. "One Man, One Woman" 4:37
16. "Thank You for the Music" 3:51
17. "Summer Night City" 3:35
18. "Chiquitita" 5:24
19. "Does Your Mother Know" 3:13
20. "Voulez-Vous" 5:08
21. "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" 4:50
22. "On and On and On" 3:42
23. "The Winner Takes It All" 4:56
24. "Super Trouper" 4:13
25. "Happy New Year" 4:23
26. "When All Is Said and Done" 3:17
27. "One of Us" 3:56
28. "Head over Heels" 3:47
29. "The Day Before You Came" 5:51
30. "Under Attack" 3:47
31. "When I Kissed the Teacher" 3:01
32. "Estoy soñando" ("I Have a Dream") 4:45
33. "Felicidad" ("Happy New Year") 4:23
34. "No hay a quien culpar" ("When All Is Said and Done") 3:17
35. "Dancing Queen" (Live at the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm, Sweden)

ABBA "ABBA Live"

ABBA Live is an album of live recordings by Swedish pop group ABBA, released by Polar Music in 1986.

A live album was something that many ABBA fans had demanded for several years. ABBA themselves had toyed with the idea on a couple of occasions, but always decided against it. Finally, four years after the members went their separate ways, a live collection was released after all. The resultant album, ABBA Live, contained recordings from 1977, 1979 and 1981. The tracks were mostly taken from ABBA’s concerts at Wembley Arena in London in November 1979, with a few additional songs taken from the tour of Australia in March 1977 and the Dick Cavett Meets ABBA television special, taped in April 1981.

When this LP/CD was released, the band's popularity was at an all-time low and none of the members themselves were involved in the production of the album. Much to the dismay of both music critics and ABBA fans it also had 80's synth drums overdubbed on most tracks, taking away the true live feeling of the performances. Neither did it feature any of the tracks that the band had performed live on their tours but never included on any of their studio albums, such as "I Am an A", "Get on the Carousel", "I'm Still Alive", or the original live versions of the songs from the 1977 mini-musical The Girl with the Golden Hair: "Thank You for the Music", "I Wonder (Departure)" and "I'm a Marionette", all of which had slightly different lyrics and/or musical arrangements to the subsequent studio recordings included on ABBA: The Album. Several tracks had also been heavily edited, in the case of the 1979 live recording of "Does Your Mother Know" by as much as five minutes since it originally was performed on that tour as a medley with "Hole in Your Soul".

ABBA Live was the first ABBA album to be simultaneously released on LP and CD, the CD having three "extra tracks". The album did not perform very well, internationally or domestically, peaking at #49 in Sweden and only staying in the charts for two weeks. It was remastered and rereleased by Polydor/Polar in 1997, but is currently out of print.

ABBA "ABBA In Japan"

ABBA Live in Japan es un video con un programa de televisión grabado por el grupo sueco ABBA en Japón en 1978. Ese programa se publicó por primera vez en DVD, íntegro y remasterizado, el 2009. La edición se presenta en una versión estándar y otra limitada con un segundo DVD que contiene un documental con el regreso de Abba a Japón en 1980.

El DVD de ABBA en Japón celebra las aventuras de ABBA en Japón en 1978 y 1980. Este especial, es un espectáculo de televisión filmado cuando el grupo visitó Japón en noviembre de 1978.

Se ha vuelto a montar a partir del material sin editar. Fernando, que incluyó un par de versos y un coro en la emisión original, se ve ahora en forma completa por primera vez. Y la actuación de 'Summer Night City', presentado originalmente en un formato de pantalla dividida con ABBA en sólo una cuarta parte de la pantalla, ahora la pantalla se centra. Por último, "The Name Of The Game ', que fue editado fuera de la emisión original, se ha reinsertado en su lugar que le corresponde.

Cada canción en el especial de televisión se ha sincronizado con la última remasterisaciones estéreo, con excepción de los tres números en vivo: 'Money, Money, Money', 'SOS' y 'Thank You For The Music'.

El DVD viene con dos Bonus. La primera es el documental "fly-on-the-wall" de ABBA En Japón, en noviembre de 1978, que cubre la visita del Grupo en el momento de los especiales de televisión. El disco también cuenta con la actuación de "If It Wasn't For The Nights" de la especial, pero con la mezcla original, sonido ligeramente diferentes como se presenta en la emisión - en el momento, la canción no había sido puesto en libertad el registro todavía y fue objeto de nuevas mezclas de ABBA antes de ser finalmente expedidos en el álbum Voulez-Vous.

ABBA En Japón también es lanzado una versión de 2 Discos "Limited Special Edition". El contenido del primer disco es idéntico a la versión de disco de una sola. El segundo disco cuenta con un raro detrás de las escenas de documentales de la gira de conciertos de ABBA de Japón en marzo de 1980. El disco también cuenta con dos galerías: una con fotos de la visita en 1978, y uno que ofrece una generosa selección de japoneses individuales y carátulas de discos. Más regalos vienen en la forma de tres tarjetas de fotos de ABBA y la etiqueta de viaje original de la gira de conciertos de ABBA de Japón.

Ambas versiones de ABBA en Japón disponen de un folleto ilustrado con un ensayo escrito por Carl Magnus Palm detalla las aventuras de ABBA en Japón y la realización de este especial de televisión.


La fecha de lanzamiento internacional para ABBA en Japón es 26 de octubre de 2009.