Description
ABBA – The Visitors / Polar Audio CD 2001 / 549 957-2
UPC 731454995726
The Visitors is the eighth studio album by 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 Visitors was one of the first records ever to be digitally tracked and mixed, as well as one of the earliest in history to be pressed on the CD format in 1982 as, in terms of commercial release dates, it was predated by the Japanese release of Billy Joel's 52nd Street. 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 offers 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.
For four decades, The Visitors had stood as ABBA's last studio album, until the release of their 2021 album, Voyage.
| Label: | Polar – 549 957-2 |
|---|---|
| Format: |
CD, Album
|
| Country: | Europe |
| Released: |
2001 |
| Genre: | Pop |
| Style: | Europop |
Tracklist:
| 1 | The Visitors | 5:46 | |
| 2 | Head Over Heels | 3:47 | |
| 3 | When All Is Said And Done | 3:17 | |
| 4 | Soldiers | 4:38 | |
| 5 | I Let The Music Speak | 5:20 | |
| 6 | One Of Us | 3:55 | |
| 7 | Two For The Price Of One | 3:36 | |
| 8 | Slipping Through My Fingers | 3:53 | |
| 9 | Like An Angel Passing Through My Room |
3:34 | |
|
Bonus Tracks: |
|||
| 10 | Should I Laugh Or Cry | 4:26 | |
| 11 | The Day Before You Came | 5:50 | |
| 12 | Cassandra | 4:51 | |
| 13 | Under Attack | 3:48 |
- Acoustic Guitar [Acoustic Guitars] – Björn Ulvaeus
- Art Direction [2001], Design [Redesign 2001] – Fredrik Hurtig
- Art Direction [Original] – Rune Söderqvist
- Bass – Rutger Gunnarsson
- Drums – Ola Brunkert, Per Lindvall (tracks: 1, 4, 12, 13)
- Electric Guitar [Electric Guitars], Acoustic Guitar [Acoustic Guitars] – Janne Schaffer (tracks: 12, 13), Lasse Wellander
- Engineer – Michael B. Tretow
- Flute, Clarinet – Jan Kling (tracks: 5)
- Keyboards, Synthesizer [Synthesizers] – Benny Andersson
- Liner Notes [New Liner Notes 2001 - With Thanks To] – Ian Cole (2), Trent Nickson
- Liner Notes [New Liner Notes 2001] – Carl Magnus Palm
- Mandolin [Mandolins] – The Three Boys (tracks: 6)
- Percussion – Åke Sundqvist
- Photography By [Booklet Photos (Premium Publishing), Photography By [Booklet Photos (Polar Music Int'l)] – Anders Hanser (2)
- Photography By [Booklet Photos (Pressens Bild)] – Per Kagrell
- Photography By [Booklet Photos (Sjöberg Classic)] – W. Heilemann
- Photography By [Booklet Photos] – Polar Music Int'l, Sjöberg Classic
- Photography By [Cover Photos At Julius Kronbergs Ateljé, Skansen, Stockholm] – Lars Larsson (2)
- Photography By [Master Tape Photo] – Tomas Finger
- Producer [Produced By] – Benny Andersson And Björn Ulvaeus
- Project Manager [Reissue Project Coordinator] – Jeanette Andersson (2), Margareta Lundström
- Remastered By [2001 - With] – Michael B. Tretow
- Remastered By [2001] – Jon Astley
- Supervised By [Reissue] – Marko Söderström
- Written-By – B. Andersson/B. Ulvaeus
