There are ABBAfans, and then there are Super ABBAfans.  Judge for yourself the status of Australia's Ian Cole, who recently submitted the following to ABBAmail:
 

"Some time ago (probably during one of my anti-PolyGram rants) I commented that one of these days I should write in with all the errors in John Tobler's "authorized" book ABBA Gold - The Complete Story. Though I'd meant it as an off-the-cuff aside, a few people wrote to me privately saying they'd love to see this!

So for those interested here's all the errors that I've found in his book.  Hopefully it will give a bit of insight into why many of us bitch about Tobler's writing, both in his books and CD liner notes.

Before I start, here's an ironic quote on page 82: "...'factoids', a term used to describe events which may not have happened, but which have been written about so much that a large number of people believe them to be true."

******

pg 8: "[Frida] made an album and a series of singles for the Swedish EMI
label [before moving to Stockholm, and meeting Benny]". Wrong. She recorded
several singles only.

pg 9: Björn Kristian Ulvaeus, not Christian, though it's probably an
acceptable Anglicization, it's not the first book to spell it that way.

pg 18: photo captioned "Agnetha and Björn with their first child Linda".
Wrong. The photo is of baby Christian in 1977.

pg 19: "Shortly before the end of 1969... Benny produced an LP for
Anni-Frid, which was released by EMI Records in Sweden". And...

pg 21: "During 1971... Anni-Frid reverted to her recording career,
releasing another LP." So far Tobler has Frida releasing 3 LPs, when she
only released 1: the Benny-produced Frida in 1971.

pg 21: "[Björn and Agnetha married] on July 7th, 1971" Wrong. July 6th, but
the incorrect date has appeared in many books.

pg 23: "Both Agnetha and Frida were featured on the record [She's My Kind
Of Girl], but were not credited on the label" Wrong. They weren't on that
recording.

pg 26: re: Ring Ring at Swedish Eurovision heat: "Anni-Frid learned all the
female vocal parts of the song, so that it would be possible for her to
perform it without Agnetha". This story has been printed many times over
the years, but something always disturbed me about it. They *both* sing the
song, mostly singing the same melody, so how could Frida sing Agnetha's
part at the same time as she's singing her own? Throw her voice?

pg 28: ".. while the English version [of Ring Ring] reached Number One in
Australia, Holland, Belgium and South Africa." Wrong. According to the info
on Trent's Worldwide Chart List
(http://www.zip.com.au/~callisto/abba.html), in 1973 it got to no. 5 in the
Netherlands, and no 92 in Australia (in 1976 it got to no. 4).

pg 28: "...Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Anni-Frid... returned to the studio to
record the follow up single, Love Isn't Easy." Wrong. It was on the Ring
Ring album, which had been already released and discussed in the same
paragraph as this tidbit!.

pg 28: photo captioned "Agnetha jokes with a posse of admirers" Wrong. In
every other ABBA book this is clearly shown as a photo of Agnetha and
members of the Bengt Enghart's (sp?) Orchestra, who are dismissed as " a
dance band in Jonkoping" on page 17.

pg 30: photo captioned "ABBA with Sven-Olaf Waldoff in Brighton for
Eurovision" Wrong. This photo (and a photo of ABBA performing on page 34)
was at the Swedish heat for Eurovision, though this too has crept into
other books.

pg 36: "[Ring Ring/Hasta Mañana] the third ABBA single released in
America". Wrong! I think it was the 4th or 5th.

pg 40: "Ring Ring/Watch Out" Wrong. The b-side was Rock 'n Roll Band.
"Slightly remixed courtesy of Paul Atkinson of the CBS International  A & R
Department." Not necessarily right. The additional overdubs were done at
Glen Studio in Sweden, though maybe he was the "representative from Epic
Records" mentioned in THe Complete Recording Sessions (p 39)

pg 44: "...Bang-A Boomerang, the song written for Svenne & Lotta's abortive
Eurovision quest." Wrong. It was written for ABBA, given to S & L then
recorded by ABBA anyway (CRS p 45)

pg 47: photo caption on Mamma Mia single: "Note the spelling error on the
single sleeve below [Mama Mia]". Since this sleeve was created by CBS/Epic
in the UK in 1984 for their box set of singles, is it relevant?

pg 47: "... a compilation album, Best Of ABBA... sold the staggering total
of more than 850,000 copies...". Out of date info. The actual figure was
over 1 and a quarter million. I think Tobler's figure may have come from
the book ABBA by Harry Edgington and Peter Himmelstrand, which came out in
early 77 but would have been written mid-76.

pg 47:  "The final month of 1975... [Agnetha] in a bid to ensure that her
throat gave her no more problems [after having her tonsils removed], she
also gave up smoking." Yeah, right, though this is straight out of other
books too. ;)

pg 48: re: Top Of The Pops: "It was a rule that as many artists as possible
should recreate their hit records for the programme, and in order to
achieve this, a backing track was recorded shortly before the show to
enable the artist to sing live when it was broadcast." As I remember, it
was a BBC thing that any musician not seen on the broadcast (in this case
ABBA and their backing musicians) *had* to be English. So a British band
could actually lip sync, or sing live to their studio backing track, but
overseas artists had to have their backing track recorded by the BBC
orchestra.

pg 50: re: Greatest Hits LP: Fernando was included on this LP later, after
it became a hit. It was not a case of "dar[ing] to include their current
hit single, only released a matter of days before."

pg 52: "[In Australia} all three ABBA albums nestled in the Top 20." Wrong.
There were 4.

pg 56: re Crazy World: '...judging by the simplicity of the production, may
have been recorded some considerable time before its release." Well, 2
years. If he'd had access to anyone involved he could have confirmed this
bit of speculation.

pg 59: "Happy Hawaii is exactly the same musically as their familiar Why
Did It Have To Be Me". Not *exactly*.

pg 60: "The only casualty was Anni-Frid, who slipped in a puddle during a
dance routine, and fell rather inelegantly on her backside." Wrong. She
fell on her front. Though the incident is not actually shown, a photograph
of this is shown in ABBA The Movie.

pg 60: "At another venue, manager Stig Anderson insisted that the ticket
allocation be reduced from 40,000 to 20,000, pledging that the group would
perform two shows instead of the scheduled one...". Wrong. It was not
"another venue", it was Sydney which was mentioned in the previous paragraph.

pg 69: "[ABBA The Movie was] the seventh biggest box-office success of the
year..." Where? Not in the world-wide figures that I've seen, The UK I assume.

pg 74: "Summernight City" Wrong. Summer Night City. Most entries in the
book merge the words, but not all.

pg 82: "ABBA performed [on ABBA in Switzerland]... two songs from their
forthcoming album: The King Has Lost His Crown and Kisses Of Fire." Wrong.
Also Does Your Mother Know and Lovers (Live A Little Longer), plus
Chiquitita if you want to count that too. DYMK is mentioned as being in the
special 4 paragraphs later.

pg 85: "According to eye witness reports, [the UNICEF concert LP]... was
hardly an accurate representation of the music made that evening. For
example, the chance to hear duets between Rod Stewart and Kris
Kristofferson or between Donna Summer and Rita Coolidge could have been
fascinating." Obviously he didn't see the TV special of the concert then,
which included some of these other performances. The LP only included those
songs which had been donated to UNICEF.

continuing: "Chiquitita... is little more than a very accurate live
performance of the song..." Wrong. It's the studio version. ABBA (and most
everybody performing in the concert) lip synced.

pg 87: "Just as its forerunner, Greatest Hits, optimistically included a
brand new track (Fernando), Vol. 2 carried Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!..." Wrong.
As noted above, Fernando was added to GH *after* it became a hit.

pg 92: "On return from the West Indies, Björn and Benny mixed the tracks
[on Gracias Por La Musica]..." Wrong. Michael B. Tretow did all the
engineering and production work. B & B only listened to it to approve
release when it was completed.

pg 94: "[Super Trouper] was accompanied by a spectacular video filmed in a
circus big top." Wrong. There is no circus big top, just a dark studio.

pg 95: "... The Way Old Friends Do, a studio-recorded version of which
seems never to have been released." A stupid statement in light of the fact
that *this* book is documenting ABBA's releases. Again, it shows that he
had no contact with ABBA when researching this book.

pg 96: "Björn and Benny wrote and recorded a special song, Salute to Stig,
which is probably the rarest ABBA record of all..." Wrong. The title is
straight out of the stupid ABBA Magazine, who thought that Hovas Vittne was
Happy Birthday in Swedish. And it's probably the second rarest ABBA record
(there being only 50 copies of Sang till Gorel, as opposed to 200 copies of
Hovas Vittne).

pg 96: "In April, 1981, the quartet starred in a TV special made in America
and hosted by Dick Cavett..." Wrong. Made in Sweden.

pg 96: "Also in 1981, a solo album by Agnetha, Tio år med Agnetha, was
released in Sweden." Wrong. 1979.

pg 98: "[One Of Us] was the first track to be heard from ABBA's ninth (and
last) original album..." We've been through this before. Depending on which
albums you count, it could be the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th or 11th, but this
fits in with what Tobler has to say on page 123.

pg 100: "Until the release of Lay All Your Love ON Me/On And On And On,
[Two For The Price Of One], which was one of the first completed for the
album, was considered for possible single release.." Wrong. It never was.

pg 101: "Benny and Mona were celebrating the birth of Ludwig (doubtless
named after Beethoven, the famous classical composer)." Obviously he didn't
research any contemporary stories that would confirm this.

pg 103: "Benny and Björn finished writing two new songs for ABBA, Just Like
That and I Am The City, for the next album, which was reported to have 26
tracks - 24 singles, a new track released as a single to coincide with the
album, and one completely new track, perhaps one of the two mentioned."
Wrong. In 82 when these songs were announced, they were reported to be
"album tracks" and as such would not be released as either a new single or
as part of the compilation.
And he manages to not mention the original plan of a double album, either a
newly recorded live album of all the hits, or a single live album with a
new studio album. I think this even made it to the pages of the ABBA
Magazine, which very rarely reported any news, unless it was ABBA go to
London for the opening of an envelope.

pg 106: "[The cassette EP} was probably released at a time when the UK
record industry was making one of its periodic attempts to launch a new
format..." Tobler has written at least 15 books, written for at least 11
music magazines, worked for CBS UK for a time, written scripts for radio
series, researched for several radio series, TV shows and video releases,
and he can only assume why this was released?

pg 106: "... Agnetha released a single titled Never Again, a duet with
Tomas Ledin, who had ironically written a song which Frida had included on
her album." A Polar plot to launch Tomas internationally through ABBA is
hardly "ironic".

pg 106: "Balavouine" Wrong. Balavoine

pg 110: "... Man, which was also released as the B side of the second of
three hit singles taken from the album, none of which reached the Top 30 of
the UK chart." 1. Wrong. It was the B side to the first single (The Heat Is
On). 2. Contradictory statement?

pg 111: "Agnetha recorded P & B, the title song of a Swedish feature film,
and it was released as one side of a huge hit single in Sweden, the other
side of which was It's So Nice To Be Rich." Not wrong, but misleading as it
doesn't really make clear that *both* songs were from the movie.

pg 113: Obviously Tobler misses the point of why CBS UK issued Thank You
For The Music - A Collection Of Love Songs. He raves that it included songs
that had been on The Singles, but that it doesn't include songs that had
been UK singles like Head Over Heels, which would not fit into the "Love
Songs" concept (which is pretty poor anyway).

Also "Why weren't there some of the single B sides that hadn't been on
album chosen?" One was: Should I Laugh Or Cry.

pg 116: re The Anniversary Collection of 26 singles: "... had the title of
the double album released 18 months earlier really been so quickly
forgotten?" Again he seems to be missing the point. Created by different
companies to commemorate different anniversaries and different markets, The
singles aimed at the general market, the box set for collectors.

pg 121: "In 1982, a world chess championship ... between an American, Bobby
Fischer, and a Russian, Boris Spaskey..." I believe this was 1972?

pg 122: re reissue of Greatest Hits: "An identical reissue..." I believe
this reissue had a single sleeve, not a gatefold like the original.

pg 122: "The first and most successful single from the album, I Won't Let
You Go... did not reach the UK chart." Another contradictory statement.

pg 123: "Perhaps they were invited [to Live Aid], but declined..." He's
writing the authorised book, why didn't he ask them?

pg 123: The Opus 10 myth. *Factoid alert!* Check Carl Magnus Palm on the
Web (http://www.bahnhof.se/~cmpalm/index.html) for the true story.

pg 123: "Frida also announced that she was abandoning her solo career, and
would return to ABBA" Half right. She was abandoning her solo career, to
become a "private person"

pg 124: "...The Way You Are was written as a them for the Olympic Games and
as also featured in a Swedish movie.". Half right. As I recall, the film
was part of a *bid* for Sweden to host the 1992 Winter Olympics.

pg 125: re: Greatest Hits Vol. 2: "An identical reissue..." Like GH 1
earlier, I think this also had a single sleeve, not the gatefold like the
original.

pg 128: "Klinga mina klocker... was written by Björn" Half right. He wrote
the lyrics, Benny wrote the music of course.

pg 132: The Collection 2 (Pickwick): the CD does not include Ring Ring in
Swedish and Rock 'n Roll Band, though the vinyl LP does.

also mentions that it includes "the incomplete Live album - the full album
has three more tracks" Wrong. The full album (also released on cassette)
has 11 tracks (all on The Collection 2); the CD only has 3 *bonus* tracks.

pg 135: "There were rumours that en EP by ABBA containing four new songs...
would be released shortly before Christmas 1988" I don't remember hearing
any such rumour, and at that time we heard every other ABBA rumour, fact,
whatever through the grapevine (much as now with ABBAMAIL but a lot
slower). Again, if he'd had access to anyone involved, this sort of
"factoid" would not have crept in.

pg 138: re The Love Songs CD: "...even though every track had previously
appeared on CD" Wrong. At the time Should I Laugh Or Cry, Lovelight and
Gonna Sing You My Lovesong had not been issued on CD. This is the only CD
with the full, original version of Lovelight. And I've Been Waiting For You
 and Tropical Loveland had not been issued in the UK, though the ABBA CD
had been released in Germany in 1987 (which is when it grew the 5 extra
tracks).

pg 140: photo caption: "AN interesting and probably freezing photo session,
Norway 1977". This is so funny! ABBA are obviously cut out and stick onto
the photo showing a snowy background. Even the ABBA Magazine printed this
and pointed out what a ridiculous photo it was.

pg 141: "It was suggested that a 4 CD boxed set of ABBA recording should be
released in 1992, although this idea was eventually postponed" True! I
remember hearing the same thing in 1992 (and also that all the albums were
going to be remastered and rereleased. As we know all of that eventually
happened)

pg 142: "On January 28th, 1992, Frida joined the Swedish group Roxette
onstage in Zurich in Switzerland and they performed Money, Money, Money" I
think that we've established that this didn't actually happen, but that
they got together *backstage* after a concert.

pg 142: "The last five tracks on this CD [ABBA] were not on the original
ABBA album, and it appears that they were added to the original album some
time before the above date.." No kidding. Actually it was in 1987 when it
was released by PolyGram in Germany, probably because Ring Ring and
Waterloo hadn't been released on CD at that time.

pg 143: "This excellent [?!?] live album (which proved beyond all doubt
that ABBA were equally adept on the road and in the studio) was the only
genuinely new album in this program of reissues" It was only genuinely new
in some places. It had been easily available (even on import in the UK, as
he asserts elsewhere in the book) since 1986.

also "The [Live] album was also released on vinyl, although the final three
tracks were omitted..." Vice versa. the 3 tracks were *added* to the CD.
The LP and the cassette both had 11 tracks, ending with Waterloo.

pg 148: "..Saltwater, a song written by Julian Lennon and sung by Frida"
Sounds like he's saying it was written for her, which of course it wasn't.

pg 152: in the ABBA singles discography, he lists "Ring Ring
(English)/Merry-Go-Round". Wrong. In Sweden the b side was She's My Kind Of
Girl, most everywhere else it was Rock 'n Roll Band.

pg 156: the listings of the singles Belle/C'est Fini, Time/I Am The Seeker,
Sa lange vi har varann/Du finns hos mig and Om du var har/As Long As I Have
You hints that Frida sang on both sides of all these singles, when she only
sang on the a side of the first 3 and the b side on the 4th. Also fails to
list the Adam Ant single Strip that Frida recites one verse on.

*****

There's a lot of other things that I don't like about Tobler's writing, but I thought I'd better just keep this to the actual factual errors, otherwise we'd all be here for days reading this!

Ian Cole in Sydney Australia

Ian Cole is "Ian Sydney" on IRC and ICQ 325922
He maintains these ABBA related websites:

The ABBA Phenomenon in Australia:
ABBALINK: The giant list of ABBA world wide web sites: