El ABBA Omnibus Blog informa del 35º aniversario del logotipo de Abba y de la edición de la canción mása emblemática de Abba "DANCING QUEEN". Aquí en inglés os dejamos la referencia de ambos aniversarios.
ABBA Omnibus Blog informs of the 35th anniversary of Abba's logo and Abba's most important song "DANCING QUEEN". Here's the reference for both:
[ABBA OMNIBUS BLOG]
This month marks the 35th anniversary of the introduction of the famous ABBA logotype (or logo).
The logo was the inspiration of designer Rune Söderqvist. He was a friend of photographer Ola Lager, who had taken the photos for the covers of ABBA’s Waterloo (1974) and ABBA (1975) albums. Söderqvist suggested to Lager that ABBA needed a proper logo, that what they had been using “looked awful”. Lager mentioned this to ABBA and manager Stig Anderson, who asked Söderqvist to submit his ideas for consideration.
Söderqvist’s design was Swedish style personified. Using the font News Graphic Bold, the idea was simple: to reverse the first B, so that the two Bs faced the As, representing the two couples in ABBA. It also matched the symmetry of the word ABBA.
Compared to logos of other bands in the 1970s (see Bee Gees, Carpenters, Chicago, etc) Söderqvist’s logo was clean and streamlined. Some critics say that it looks cold and industrial. But it is extremely effective and instantly recognisable. Apparently Benny was the only member of ABBA to show any particular interest when Söderqvist first presented the logo.
Söderqvist thus became the art designer for all of ABBA’s subsequent record sleeves, starting with the Polar version of the first Greatest Hits album, released in November 1975. Curiously the text on the back cover was the non-bold version of News Gothic, which hints that his logo design dates from the same period.
The logo first appeared on the ‘Dancing Queen’ single, released in August 1976, and all subsequent official ABBA record releases and merchandise. In 2008 music website Spinner.com listed the ABBA logo as number 13 in a list of the 25 best band logos.
Over the years the logo has been bastardised, with a plethora of other fonts used on merchandise and record covers, perhaps most galling on the original CD of ABBA Gold and signage for the ABBAWORLD touring exhibition. But the logo has endured and today can be seen on all official CD releases and merchandise authorised by Polar Music.
Thirty-five years ago this week ABBA’s classic single ‘Dancing Queen’ and ‘That’s Me’ was released.
Today ‘Dancing Queen’ is recognised as the most popular ABBA song, and ABBA’s biggest selling single. It’s been described as a chart topper in most countries it was released; it was ABBA’s only number 1 on the US pop single charts.
‘Dancing Queen’ had its public debut in June 1976 at a televised gala concert commemorating the wedding of Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf to German-born Silvia Sommerlath. This led to a widely held assumption that ‘Dancing Queen’ was written specially for the occasion. But Ms. Sommerlath at 33 was hardly “young and sweet, only 17″, and in fact ABBA had started work on the song over 10 months earlier.
Another modern myth is that the ‘Dancing Queen’ was rush-released after the wedding, but it was long scheduled as ABBA’s next single, for an August release. Recording started in August 1975, around the same time as ‘Fernando’. In early 1976 ABBA and their manager Stig Anderson had the difficult choice of which song to release as a single first. ‘Fernando’ was selected because it was a ballad that was different from the previous international single (the upbeat ‘Mamma Mia’), and because ‘Dancing Queen’ was considered such an advance for ABBA.
I first heard about ‘Dancing Queen’ just after ABBA’s first visit to Australia in March 1976. Newspapers reported that while the group was in Australia filming the television special The Best of ABBA (aka ABBA in Australia, ABBA Down Under) they filmed “under strict security” a performance of the next single ‘Dancing Queen’, which would be released the following August. The reports described the song as “disco-influenced”, that it was the best thing ABBA had recorded so far and predicted it would be a huge hit.
Many fans outside Sweden heard ‘Dancing Queen’ for the first time on the German TV special The Best Of ABBA (a different programme from the Australian special of the same name; the German special was renamed ABBA in Europe for Australian viewers), which was screened in June and July in some countries.
The B side ‘That’s Me’ was another new song from recording sessions earlier in the year. Both songs would be included on the Arrival album, released in October 1976. ‘That’s Me’ would go on to be a hit in Japan as a single in its own right. ‘Dancing Queen’ became ABBA’s signature song, and was used as the encore song in ABBA’s concerts in for the rest of their career together.
‘Dancing Queen’ was released on 6 August 1976 in the UK, 9 August in Australia, 16 August in Sweden, but not until early 1977 in the USA.
ABBA Omnibus Blog informs of the 35th anniversary of Abba's logo and Abba's most important song "DANCING QUEEN". Here's the reference for both:
[ABBA OMNIBUS BLOG]
This month marks the 35th anniversary of the introduction of the famous ABBA logotype (or logo).
The logo was the inspiration of designer Rune Söderqvist. He was a friend of photographer Ola Lager, who had taken the photos for the covers of ABBA’s Waterloo (1974) and ABBA (1975) albums. Söderqvist suggested to Lager that ABBA needed a proper logo, that what they had been using “looked awful”. Lager mentioned this to ABBA and manager Stig Anderson, who asked Söderqvist to submit his ideas for consideration.
Söderqvist’s design was Swedish style personified. Using the font News Graphic Bold, the idea was simple: to reverse the first B, so that the two Bs faced the As, representing the two couples in ABBA. It also matched the symmetry of the word ABBA.
Compared to logos of other bands in the 1970s (see Bee Gees, Carpenters, Chicago, etc) Söderqvist’s logo was clean and streamlined. Some critics say that it looks cold and industrial. But it is extremely effective and instantly recognisable. Apparently Benny was the only member of ABBA to show any particular interest when Söderqvist first presented the logo.
Söderqvist thus became the art designer for all of ABBA’s subsequent record sleeves, starting with the Polar version of the first Greatest Hits album, released in November 1975. Curiously the text on the back cover was the non-bold version of News Gothic, which hints that his logo design dates from the same period.
The logo first appeared on the ‘Dancing Queen’ single, released in August 1976, and all subsequent official ABBA record releases and merchandise. In 2008 music website Spinner.com listed the ABBA logo as number 13 in a list of the 25 best band logos.
Over the years the logo has been bastardised, with a plethora of other fonts used on merchandise and record covers, perhaps most galling on the original CD of ABBA Gold and signage for the ABBAWORLD touring exhibition. But the logo has endured and today can be seen on all official CD releases and merchandise authorised by Polar Music.
Thirty-five years ago this week ABBA’s classic single ‘Dancing Queen’ and ‘That’s Me’ was released.
Today ‘Dancing Queen’ is recognised as the most popular ABBA song, and ABBA’s biggest selling single. It’s been described as a chart topper in most countries it was released; it was ABBA’s only number 1 on the US pop single charts.
‘Dancing Queen’ had its public debut in June 1976 at a televised gala concert commemorating the wedding of Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf to German-born Silvia Sommerlath. This led to a widely held assumption that ‘Dancing Queen’ was written specially for the occasion. But Ms. Sommerlath at 33 was hardly “young and sweet, only 17″, and in fact ABBA had started work on the song over 10 months earlier.
Another modern myth is that the ‘Dancing Queen’ was rush-released after the wedding, but it was long scheduled as ABBA’s next single, for an August release. Recording started in August 1975, around the same time as ‘Fernando’. In early 1976 ABBA and their manager Stig Anderson had the difficult choice of which song to release as a single first. ‘Fernando’ was selected because it was a ballad that was different from the previous international single (the upbeat ‘Mamma Mia’), and because ‘Dancing Queen’ was considered such an advance for ABBA.
I first heard about ‘Dancing Queen’ just after ABBA’s first visit to Australia in March 1976. Newspapers reported that while the group was in Australia filming the television special The Best of ABBA (aka ABBA in Australia, ABBA Down Under) they filmed “under strict security” a performance of the next single ‘Dancing Queen’, which would be released the following August. The reports described the song as “disco-influenced”, that it was the best thing ABBA had recorded so far and predicted it would be a huge hit.
Many fans outside Sweden heard ‘Dancing Queen’ for the first time on the German TV special The Best Of ABBA (a different programme from the Australian special of the same name; the German special was renamed ABBA in Europe for Australian viewers), which was screened in June and July in some countries.
The B side ‘That’s Me’ was another new song from recording sessions earlier in the year. Both songs would be included on the Arrival album, released in October 1976. ‘That’s Me’ would go on to be a hit in Japan as a single in its own right. ‘Dancing Queen’ became ABBA’s signature song, and was used as the encore song in ABBA’s concerts in for the rest of their career together.
‘Dancing Queen’ was released on 6 August 1976 in the UK, 9 August in Australia, 16 August in Sweden, but not until early 1977 in the USA.
Video "DANCING QUEEN", Abba:
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario