ABOUT THE BOOK

Although I am mostly known for my work charting the history of ABBA, this discography of Swedish singer and actress Monica Zetterlund was the book that actually got my writing career started in the first place. The book was written in collaboration with my friend Thomas Winberg, who had been a keen observer of Monica's career for many years. Research for the discography began in the summer of 1990. During the course of the project, Thomas and I got to spend a couple of hours with Monica, who answered questions and contributed her memories of certain recording sessions.

In 1992, the book Monica Zetterlund - En diskografi ("Monica Zetterlund - A Discography") was finally published by Arkivet för ljud och bild (The National Archive Of Recorded Sound And Moving Images in Stockholm, Sweden). The discography covers Monica's recorded output plus unreleased recordings up to and including 1992.

Every known track Monica had released on record up to that point - including credits for musicians and composers, timing and whatever anecdotes and background info was available - was described in the book. Many unreleased recordings were covered as well.

Monica's memoirs, Hågkomster ur ett dåligt minne ("Reminiscences Out Of A Bad Memory"), were published at the same time as Thomas' and my discography. We contributed a chronology at the back of the book.


THE MONICA ZETTERLUND CD RELEASES

One year after its publication, the discography was put to good use. EMI decided to release a double CD of every track recorded and released by Monica on their Columbia label from 1958 to 1960, and the information about the recordings was taken from our discography. I also did some additional research especially for this project. The CD was entitled Swedish Sensation! The Complete Columbia Recordings (released November 4, 1993; catalogue number: EMI 4750612; deleted).

In the autumn of 1995 a 6-CD Monica Zetterlund box set was put together by designer Kent Nyberg on behalf of BMG. Once again, the discography proved useful. I got involved in the project, making suggestions for the track listing, as well as providing liner notes and memorabilia for the booklet. The box set, which covered her entire recording career and also included plenty of previously unreleased material, was entitled Ett lingonris som satts i cocktailglas (released November 1995; catalogue number: RCA/BMG 74321 32989 2; deleted).

In 2005, I have had some personal input into a brand new Monica Zetterlund double CD compilation, which includes a previously unreleased track. See "Z - Det bästa med Monica Zetterlund" under More info.