'Twist in the dark' was released in France only, and features 'Come to me (I am woman)' on the B-side - a track that was released as an A-side in other territories. I haven't bought a Frida single in over ten years, so it is fun to add something to the collection after all that time.
My collection: 7" single no. 6647
Found: Record fair, Rotterdam, 5 March 2022
Cost: €2
Tracks: 'Twist in the dark' / 'Come to me (I am woman)'
When Frida went solo in 1982, nobody suspected that it signalled the end of Abba, the band she'd been part of for the last ten years. And when the first single, 'I know there's something going on', produced by Phil Collins, became a big hit, nobody knew that the rest of her solo career would be less successful. Her career as a solo artist became comparatively insignificant, although artistically it had some interesting moments nonetheless.
Released in 1984, the track 'Time' was recorded by Frida (formerly from Abba) and B.A. Robertson for the soundtrack of 'Abbacadabra', a musical based on music by Abba. In fact, 'Time' was based on the instrumental track 'Arrival', from Abba's 1976 album of the same name, with added lyrics.
'Come to me (I am woman)' was the last single taken from Frida's 1984 album 'Shine'. The track was slightly edited for the single, becoming 30 seconds shorter than the album version. Like more tracks on the album, it was recorded with an all star band, featuring Simon Climie on keyboards, Mark Brzezecki (from Big Country) on drums and Kirsty MacColl on backing vocals. The B-side 'Slowly' was written by Frida's Abba colleagues Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.
As advertised on the sleeve of this single, 'Belle' is an extract from the musical Abbacadabra, as performed in France. The song adds French lyrics, written by Alain and Daniel Boublil, to the instrumental track 'Arrival', which originally appeared on Abba's 1977 album 'Arrival'.
'Here we'll stay', the third single from Frida's 1982 album 'Something's going on', went by almost unnoticed. So much so, that I forgot all about it when I wrote about the previous single, 'To turn the stone'. The track was originally recorded as a duet with Phil Collins, who produced the album. For the single version, his voice was omitted. The single was unsuccessful: it only reached number 100 in the UK singles chart.
'To turn the stone' was the second single taken from Frida's 1982 album 'Something's going on'. It was considerably less successful than the previous one, 'I know there's something going on', which reached the charts all over Europe.
The Swedish group Abba never officially announced their breakup, but in 1982 both Agnetha and Frida were releasing solo albums. At the time, I thought I could never really forgive the band for throwing away their career, but I had to admit pretty fast that Frida's solo single 'I know there's something going on' was a damn fine song. Like the accompanying album 'Something's going on', the single was produced by Phil Collins, who also provided the great drum track on the song.
'Shine' is the title track from Frida's 1984 album which was produced by Steve Lillywhite. He'd already worked with bands like U2, Rolling Stones and Peter Gabriel despite being only 25 years old at the time. 'Shine' was a deliberate move away from Abba's pop sound that Frida feared to be always connected to. In a recent comment, Frida said that 'maybe this album became a bit too modern for its time'.
