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The Visitors
ABBA
- Издание:
- Germany
- Жанры:
- Electronic
- ,
- Rock
- Стили:
- Pop Rock
- ,
- Synth-pop
- Форматы:
- 1xCD
- ,
- Album
- Лейблы:
- Polydor (8000 112)
ТрекЛист:
1. The Visitors 5:45
2. Head Over Heels 3:46
3. When All Is Said And Done 3:17
4. Soldiers 4:37
5. I Let The Music Speak 5:18
6. One Of Us 3:54
7. Two For The Price Of One 3:35
8. Slipping Through My Fingers 3:53
9. Like An Angel Passing Through My Room 3:34
The first Abba CDs ever produced were never designed for public consumption. Indeed, they predate the release of the first CDs to the general public. The story of Abba on CD began in the technical laboratories of PolyGram in West Germany.
In the run-up to the official launch of the CD format in 1983. PolyGram produced a number of different prototype discs of differing musical genres to test their manufacturing processes and eventually promote the new format among the press.
The chosen pop CD prototype was The Visitors, seemingly chosen because it had been mostly digitally recorded and it was the then latest record by PolyGram’s best-selling European artist, Abba.
In all, there were three different prototypes of The Visitors produced, each with different characteristics. Only one of these versions is known to be playable – the other two only appear to have been preserved encased in plastic in commemorative pieces presented to PolyGram staff to celebrate the launch of the new format.
All three versions have identical disc faces, which feature a different textual layout to the publicly released version. The most notable of these is that the catalogue number is printed as 8000 112 on the prototypes but appears as 800 011-2 on the released version.
[r8771861] (Prototype 1)
The first version can be identified from its data side, which features no matrix number etched on the inner hub and strange grooves throughout the disc unlike any subsequent CDs. It is highly unlikely to have been playable.
[r8771945] (Prototype 2)
The second version may have been playable but it is doubtful whether it played The Visitors. The data side’s matrix number is 400 029-2, which corresponds with the early classical release, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra’s version of Tchaikovsky’s Symphonie Nr. 6. As a result, it seems likely that this ‘dummy’ version was produced for marketing purposes.
[r8771955] (Prototype 3)
The third version was definitely playable and was sent out to the press with pre-production CD players for review purposes. Among these reviewers were Bjorn, Benny and Abba’s manager Stig Anderson, who were presented with copies (and a CD player) by PolyGram in August 1982. While the third version was essentially the finished product, it wasn’t the one that made it into the shops in March 1983.
[r4091246] (Commercial Release)
For a start, the text print on the CD had been changed to exclude track running times so that there was more space for producing and publishing credits. The digits in the title’s catalogue number had also been reshuffled to follow the familiar pattern adopted by all PolyGram CD releases until the late 1990s.
In addition, it is possible that the actual mastering on the disc was also changed – early reviewers of the disc had observed that tape hiss was audible during the segue between Slipping Through My Fingers, which was recorded on analogue equipment, and Like An Angel Passing Through My Room, which had been recorded digitally. This hiss isn’t evident on the commercially released version of the album.