GREATEST HITS - THE HISTORY OF THE ALBUM

In November 1975, Polar Music rush-released the first Swedish compilation album by ABBA. Entitled Greatest Hits, it came after only three albums released by the group, but was issued to counter expected import sales of compilation albums released by Polar's European licencees (in all likelihood West German Polydor's The Best Of ABBA, released in October 1975, was considered the biggest threat).

The surrealist cover painting on the Swedish release was made by artist Hans Arnold. It was originally awarded as a prize from the Swedish magazine Vecko-Revyn in 1975, when ABBA were voted Artists Of The Year. The group liked it so much that they used it for the gatefold sleeve of the album.

The release of the Greatest Hits album proved to be an exceptionally wise decision, for it went on to become one of ABBA’s all-time best-selling albums. It reached number one in Sweden, Norway, Great Britain and Zimbabwe, and the Top Ten in plenty of other countries, also giving ABBA their first Platinum award in the United States. In Great Britain, the album was the best-selling album of 1976, as well as the second best-selling album of the Seventies, beaten only by Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water.

The configuration and track listing of Greatest Hits varied between territories, and when Polar released the album in Norway in the spring of 1976, 'Fernando' had recently been released as a single, and thus was included in the track listing. This appears to have been true of most versions of the Greatest Hits album outside Sweden.


THE REISSUE

Mia Segolsson, who handles the ABBA catalogue at Universal Music in Stockholm, Sweden, thought it would be fun to issue a replica edition of Greatest Hits as a 30th anniversary celebration - the anniversary in this case was, of course, the international release of the album in 1976, with 'Fernando' added to the track listing.

My own contribution to this re-release is limited to writing a brief history of the album for the inner sleeve.