Angus Kidman – anguskidman.show

So the big talk in ABBA circles right now is the forthcoming compilation The Singles: The First 50 Years. Due out on 25 October, this 2-CD set takes its inspiration from the 1982 album The Singles: The First Ten Years, but adds a stack of other singles released in various markets, plus five (five!) tracks from comeback album Voyage.

Naturally, some fans are fuming about what’s included. ‘Rock Me’ and ‘On And On And On’ are odd omissions for Australia, while British enthusiasts will whine about the loss of ‘Thank You For The Music’.

But that kind of problem is inevitable when ABBA’s approach in their heyday was to let local record companies push individual tracks if they saw commercial potential, while the catalogue is now run as a single international monolith. (Cynically, that approach also means that ABBA Gold isn’t rendered totally redundant by this release, since there are tracks on it that aren’t on here, ‘Rock Me’ being a major case in point for Australia.)

But rather than getting deep into that rabbit hole, I want to go in totally the opposite direction: Which tracks would ABBA never have been able to release as singles?

So I’ve picked one song from each of their studio albums which I don’t think would ever have worked as a single, whatever its musical or historical merits. ABBA’s detritus is better than many other pop acts’ top-tier material, but it’s still detritus, ultimately.

This is my opinion only, and yours will probably differ. But I’m right.

Ring Ring: ‘I Saw It In The Mirror’

When I’m asked to name my least-favourite ABBA song (it’s the kind of question fans like to discuss amongst themselves), ‘I Saw It In The Mirror’ is inevitably the pick. This 100% filler track is plodding, dominated by a soulless vocal from Bjorn, and lacks any energy whatsoever. Not only could it never be a single, it should have been ditched from the Ring Ring album and replaced with something else (‘Merry Go Round’ being the prime candidate).

Waterloo: ‘Suzy-Hang-Around’

The instrumental arrangement is charmingly twangy, and ‘Suzy-Hang-Around’ is a notable curiosity as the only ABBA song where Benny takes the lead on vocals. But the “childhood friends” lyric is twee and goes nowhere, and this wouldn’t have done anything to advance ABBA’s standing, especially given how much trouble they had getting anything to really register with the pop public after ‘Waterloo’ itself.

ABBA: ‘Man In The Middle’

It’s not an accident that I’m picking on songs with male lead vocals here. Even at this early stage, it was clear that female vocals were a requirement for an ABBA single (a rule that only got broken for ‘Does Your Mother Know’ and ‘Rock Me’). Sounding like a lost tune from an exploitation movie soundtrack, ‘Man In The Middle’ isn’t offensive, but would make no sense as a 7-inch A-side.

Arrival: ‘Arrival’

Hard to pick a dud on Arrival. This instrumental is a fantastic piece of work, often chosen by cover bands as entrance music, covered by Mike Oldfield and given lyrics in both English and French for the oft-forgotten ABBAcadabra kiddie stage musical. But there’s no way an instrumental would have been picked as a single for ABBA at any point, obviously.

The Album: ‘I’m A Marionette’

Not gonna lie, I was very tempted to put that schlock plodder ‘Eagle’ here. But realistically, ‘I’m A Marionette’ makes no sense outside the storyline for ‘The Girl With The Golden Hair’, and not much more sense within it. It just wouldn’t work as a single.

Voulez-Vous: ‘I Have A Dream’

I resisted picking an actual single with ‘Eagle’ just then, but here I have no choice. Yes, I know it’s a big hit, a beloved sing-along classic and the opening number for Mamma Mia. But ‘I Have A Dream’ has always been the low point of Voulez-Vous for me, and I wish they’d ditched it and included ‘Lovelight’ instead.

Super Trouper: ‘The Piper’

Back in twee territory again. I accept that ‘The Way Old Friends Do’ might be an even less likely candidate as a single, but Bjorn’s more realistic approach to relationship lyrics would have been undermined badly by this fairytale-inspired number. So it’s a no from me.

The Visitors: ‘Two For The Price Of One’

I like ‘Two For The Price Of One’ a lot. But the plot twist lyric is only surprising once, which would make it an unlikely candidate for radio play – still a big consideration for singles when The Visitors came out. And that’s before we think about the oompah-band ending (though I suppose that could be edited out).

Voyage: ‘Ode To Freedom’

Including five tracks from Voyage on an album called The Singles seems like a stretch, given that only ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’ can really claim to be a hit. ABBA obviously weren’t particularly concerned about whether the singles from that album would chart, or trying to match modern musical trends to chase down positions.

Even with that context, it’s hard to imagine the sombre and clasically-toned ‘Ode To Freedom’ ever getting picked. It’s a great album closer, but it would never score radio play on any network that actually played singles.

So there you go. For more ABBA deep dives, check out the ABBA song titles puzzle or what ABBA Voyage is like from the cheap seats.