The_Visitors_(ABBA_album)

The Visitors
The Visitors
Studio album by ABBA
Released	30 November 1981
Recorded	16 March – 14 November 1981
Studio	Polar, Stockholm
Genre	Pop
Length	37:39
Label	Polar; Epic (1981 UK release);
Producer	Benny Andersson; Björn Ulvaeus;
ABBA chronology
Singles from The Visitors
	"Slipping Through My Fingers"; Released: June 1981 (Japan); "One of Us"; Released: 7 December 1981; "When All Is Said and Done"; Released: 23 December 1981; "No Hay A Quien Culpar"; Released: 1981; "Se Me Esta Escapando"; Released: 1981; "Head over Heels"; Released: 19 March 1982; "The Visitors"; Released: 5 April 1982;

<i>The Visitors</i> (ABBA album)

The Visitors (ABBA album)

1981 studio album by ABBA

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

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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.^[9] 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 recorded and mixed, as well as one of the earliest in history to be pressed on the CD format in 1983.^[10] 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 offered 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.^[11]

For four decades, The Visitors stood as ABBA's last studio album, until the release of their 2021 album, Voyage.

Recording and release

Recording began on what was to become ABBA's eighth studio album on 16 March 1981.^[12] By this time, tensions in ABBA had heightened. Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog had divorced in July 1980, while the band's other couple, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, announced their divorce in February 1981, adding strain to the musical partnership. Ulvaeus mentioned in retrospect that the sessions were troubled, noting, "It could be frosty sometimes." Lyngstad also commented that they were beginning to tire of working together.^[13]

The members of ABBA and their personnel have memories of the recording sessions for this album being rather difficult. To begin with, their sound engineer Michael Tretow had to become accustomed to using the new 32-track digital recorder that had been purchased for Polar Music Studios. He said, "Digital recording...cut out all the hiss, but it also meant that sounds were sharply cut off below a certain level. The sound simply became too clean, so I had to find ways of compensating for that." The first three tracks for the album had already been recorded using analogue tape and therefore Tretow had to transfer all subsequent tracks from digital to analogue and back again to avoid a difference in quality.^[14]

On its release, The Visitors reached the top of the charts in a number of territories but was not as successful as their previous albums.^[15]

The Visitors was released as a Deluxe Edition in April 2012. As with previous releases in the Deluxe Edition series, this version offered a DVD of archive material along with a CD featuring the original album (although a different mix of "Head Over Heels" was used) and bonus tracks; one of the bonus tracks included was the demo medley "From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel", the first previously unreleased ABBA recordings since 1994.^[11] Pitchfork gave it an 8.6 grade, saying "even as the band's commercial star faded and its professional relationships quietly unravelled, they were perfectionists. ABBA's music on The Visitors is more pristine and ambitious than it had ever been, its themes darker, its personal politics more tangled."^[16] The Arts Desk: "The Visitors is not their best, but it is their most interesting [album], pointing to where Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson would go next."^[17]

Track listing

All tracks written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.^[20]

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Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	^[2]
Blender	^[3]
The Daily Vault	B+^[4]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	^[5]
Pitchfork	8.6/10^[6]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	^[7]
Smash Hits	8/10^[8]

No.	Title	Length
10.	"Should I Laugh or Cry" (B-side of "One of Us" and "When All Is Said and Done")	4:26
11.	"The Day Before You Came" (1982 non-studio-album single A-side)	5:47
12.	"Under Attack" (1982 non-studio-album single A-side)	3:44
13.	"You Owe Me One" (B-side of "Under Attack")	3:24

No.	Title	Length
10.	"Should I Laugh or Cry"	4:26
11.	"The Day Before You Came"	5:50
12.	"Cassandra" (B-side of "The Day Before You Came")	4:51
13.	"Under Attack"	3:48

No.	Title	Length
10.	"Should I Laugh or Cry"	4:30
11.	"No hay a quien culpar" (Spanish version of "When All Is Said and Done")	3:12
12.	"Se me está escapando" (Spanish version of "Slipping Through My Fingers")	3:52
13.	"The Day Before You Came"	5:50
14.	"Cassandra"	4:52
15.	"Under Attack"	3:45
16.	"You Owe Me One"	3:26

No.	Title	Length
10.	"Should I Laugh or Cry"	4:32
11.	"I Am the City"	4:08
12.	"You Owe Me One"	3:32
13.	"Cassandra"	4:55
14.	"Under Attack"	3:49
15.	"The Day Before You Came"	5:51
16.	"From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel" (Demos)	9:08

The_Visitors_(ABBA_album)

The Visitors (ABBA album)

Recording and release

Album cover

Track listing

Personnel

Production

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications and sales

References

External links

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No.	Title	Length
1.	"The Visitors"	5:49
2.	"Head over Heels"	3:45
3.	"When All Is Said and Done"	3:20
4.	"Soldiers"	4:38

No.	Title	Length
1.	"I Let the Music Speak"	5:20
2.	"One of Us"	3:55
3.	"Two for the Price of One"	3:36
4.	"Slipping Through My Fingers"	3:51
5.	"Like an Angel Passing Through My Room"	3:25
Total length:		37:39

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Two for the Price of One" (Dick Cavett Meets ABBA)
2.	"Slipping Through My Fingers" (Dick Cavett Meets ABBA)
3.	"When All Is Said and Done" (original promotional video)
4.	"ABBA in London, November 1982" (The Late, Late Breakfast Show, BBC)
5.	"ABBA in Stockholm, November 1982" (Nöjesmaskinen, SVT)
6.	"The Visitors TV Commercial I" (UK)
7.	"The Visitors TV Commercial II" (Australia)
8.	"The Singles – The First Ten Years TV Commercial I" (UK)
9.	"The Singles – The First Ten Years TV Commercial II" (Australia)
10.	"International Sleeve Gallery"

Region	Certification	Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)^[48]	Gold	35,000^{^}
Denmark (IFPI Danmark)^[49]	Gold	10,000^‡
Finland (Musiikkituottajat)^[50]	Platinum	66,439^[50]
Germany (BVMI)^[51]	Platinum	750,000^[52]
Hong Kong (IFPI Hong Kong)^[53]	Gold	10,000^*
Japan	—	128,000^[30]
Spain (PROMUSICAE)^[54]	Gold	50,000^{^}
Sweden (GLF)^[55]	Platinum	290,000^[55]
United Kingdom (BPI)^[56]	Platinum	300,000^{^}
Summaries
Worldwide	—	5,000,000^[57]
^* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^{^} Shipments figures based on certification alone. ^‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.