Top 40 Music on Compact Disc: abba "take a chance on me"

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Topic: abba "take a chance on me"

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edtop40
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Posted: 01 November 2007 at 8:01pm \| IP Logged

my commercial 45, issued as atlantic 3457, states on the 45's label the running time is 4:05, but it actually runs 3:58.....if you fade-out for 0:04 from 3:54 to 3:58 you'll re-create the true 45 version....this accounts for the differing run times in the db......this should be noted in the db....

Edited by edtop40 on 01 November 2007 at 8:04pm

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jimct
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Posted: 26 November 2007 at 3:56pm \| IP Logged

My only promo 45, on both the mono and stereo sides, has both a listed and actual time of (3:25). But I also see a notation for this song, about a DJ 45 than "runs (3:30)". Can anyone provide any further details? Is it perhaps a short/long promo, with the commercial 45 version possibly included on the other side? The (3:25) edit, which involves QUITE a number of edits to re-create (from what I've been told), was the one we played on the radio in 1978.

BillCahill
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Posted: 26 November 2007 at 5:54pm \| IP Logged

There were two different edits that I know of. One is a white label release which says 3:25 on the label, runs 3:25, is mono/stereo and edits out the female talking parts and shortens the song near the end. These were actual edits which can be re-created, not remixes with the vocals out. One of those edits is a little sloppy. There is no number on the label, no Atlantic logo at all, the trail says A 35044 - 1 and ST - 35044 -1 and elsewhere on the trail has a triangle followed by the number 104377. There may have been a more traditional pressing of this one for promos but the one I have is a white label, with only ABBA , mono or stereo, the time, and the title on the label.

The other edit I have is on a standard Atlantic Promo single red/blue mono/stereo, has a time of 3:30 listed, runs ALMOST 3:33 but no quite, and on the trail is A 35054- 8 and ST 35054 -9 .. it keeps the talking in but shortens the song near the end. The edit point near the end to get to the "bah bah bah bah" part faster is not the same on both. They both shorten by about the same amount of time there, it's just a different edit point. I had never heard this version on the radio, I heard it for the first time when I picked it up a year or so ago. The station I worked, WTRY, used the "no talking" edit.

Yes there is a number difference, I triple checked, the white label's trail number is 35044 while the red/blue trail is 35054.

Edited by BillCahill on 26 November 2007 at 6:30pm

AndrewChouffi
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Posted: 26 November 2007 at 6:32pm \| IP Logged

Jim Or Bill,

Does anyone have a dub of the 3:25 version I can hear?

I recall when the song was a hit I tried to edit the song exactly like the promo, but I couldn't. I'd like to try again.

Andy

jimct
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Posted: 27 November 2007 at 8:53am \| IP Logged

Bill, my (3:25) promo 45 has the same, plain white, barren label look as yours, right down to the same deadwax #. I will be happy to send Andy an mp3 of that one. But Bill, if you plan to send Andy an mp3 of the listed (3:30), actual almost (3:33) version, would you also be able to shoot one out to me? Once again, Bill Cahill comes to the rescue, with ALL the needed details, and I, for one, VERY much appreciate it.

AndrewChouffi
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Posted: 28 November 2007 at 7:56am \| IP Logged

Jim just sent me the 3:25 promo -- it's exactly the way I remember it.

And it's "impossible" for me to recreate. I just don't think it can be done.

Can anybody "prove" it can be edited from the full-length version?

Andy

eriejwg
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Posted: 28 November 2007 at 12:48pm \| IP Logged

I concur with Andrew, it CAN'T be recreated because the 'spoken' parts appear to be overdubbed in...

Jim, is this the same as your promo 45? Wanted to make sure before I placed a bid...

jimct
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Posted: 28 November 2007 at 1:08pm \| IP Logged

No, John, the one in the picture is the (3:30) promo 45, actually the one I'm currently looking for myself, and the one I have already asked Bill Cahill to send me an mp3 file of, whenever he gets time. If you re-read the earlier posts carefully, John, you will see that Bill Cahill exactly describes what both his and my (3:25) promo 45s look like visually, sir - it's NOT at all like the above, typical "Atlantic standard promo 45" look.

eriejwg
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Posted: 28 November 2007 at 1:33pm \| IP Logged

Thank you, sir!

AndrewChouffi
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Posted: 28 November 2007 at 1:46pm \| IP Logged

Jim just sent me a digital recreation of the 3:25 promo that was done a few years back by an unnamed source.

It is impeccable.

I still can't figure out how the editor created the double-shot of the snare (as opposed to the snare-shot then tom-shot) in two of the places.

Andy

BillCahill
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Posted: 30 November 2007 at 7:01pm \| IP Logged

I sent a couple of you guys an MP3 that I edited from CD.

Did that edit sound right and if so, do you need more help with the edit points?

I know how it was done and where all the parts are. It's just hard to describe clearly.

The way they got rid of the talking was to take the second "Take a Chance On Me" in each case (which had no talking) and replaced the first.

The second instance is harder to re-create because when they extended the swirly sound for a half second or so they didn't edit on beat points like most edits. Only after I noticed how the strings stayed on through that section did I realize that they took a half second of audio and repeated it. But they did it in a very odd way and it took me some time to find the exact piece.

Bill

eriejwg
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Posted: 30 November 2007 at 7:47pm \| IP Logged

Bill:

The way you described it makes perfect sense. I had replaced the two "Take A Chance On Me"'s, and the first half of the swirling. It was the double drumbeats that hald me up. Once you mentioned they came from earlier in the song, it made sense. Usually, when editing, we look forward not backwards in a song.

Actually, YOUR edit was much smoother than even the original promo 45.

Can anyone answer why the record company needed to do those edits in the first place?

AndrewChouffi
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Posted: 30 November 2007 at 8:00pm \| IP Logged

Yeah Bill's edit is amazing!

My guess as to why the American record company(Atlantic) needed to do those edits was the promotion department thought radio programmers wouldn't cotton to those spoken passages (they are somewhat distracting to the overall confection of the record), and it was hard back then to get an overseas record company to remix a single sometimes.

With Abba's current iconic status, it's easy to forget that EVERY American single was somewhat of a challenge to get on the air (and work up the charts). They were never "automatics".

I would love to find out if indeed that edit was made by an Atlantic employee, or perhaps it WAS also released promotionally overseas.

Andy

jimct
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Posted: 27 April 2008 at 10:27am \| IP Logged

Way back in his initial post, my friend Ed states that his 45 has a listed time of (4:05), but an actual time of (3:58). However, my commercial 45, which also has a listed time of (4:05), instead features an actual run time of (4:01). FYI, my 45's deadwax is "ST-A 34598-1".

Yah Shure
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Posted: 09 June 2009 at 3:04pm \| IP Logged

A friend has just asked me a question about "Take A Chance On Me," which led me to listen to the 3:25 white label test pressing for the first time since 1978. (My station began playing the track immediately from The Album. When the test pressing was issued, every jock on the staff felt that the edit didn't cut it, so to speak, so we stuck with the LP track until the 3:30 DJ 45 was issued a short time later.)

In comparing the test pressing's stereo side with the stereo side of the official 3:30 DJ 45, I noticed that for the remainder of the song following the a capella intro, Benny and Bjorn's vocals are nearly mixed out. The word "chance" brings them a bit forward each time it comes up, but otherwise they're pretty much lost in the woods. By comparison, the official DJ 45 has them featured much more prominently throughout the latter part of the tune.

That discovery was interesting in itself, but Benny and Bjorn's more-distant vocals on the test pressing were the opposite of what my friend said he once heard:

Later in its run, one FM station started playing a mix where the boys' chant was enhanced, panned both left and right, out of synch just enough that they were as clear as the girls, which is not the case on the album mix.

I'm not familiar with any such mix. Does this description ring a bell with anyone?

KentT
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Posted: 16 July 2009 at 2:33pm \| IP Logged

The Swedish Polar Promo 45 has the LP version on one side and the Swedish language version on the other. Both Stereo. Less compressed and better sounding than the US LP. Norway also issued this Promo version as well.

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Brian W.
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Posted: 25 April 2011 at 12:56am \| IP Logged

jimct wrote:

I don't own a 45 of this, but I will note that the 3:58 version on Billboard Top Hits 1978 has a complete fadeout -- in other words, it fades out to nothing but hiss, then the song quickly ends. Which means that an early fade during the CD's mastering can't account for its shorter length. So there may indeed be two different 45 pressings with slightly different run times.

FYI, the final line of the fadeout on that 3:58 version on the Billboard 1978 CD is "gotta put me."

Wanna do my very best
Baby can't you see
Gotta put me--

End of music. One second of tape hiss. End of track.

Edited by Brian W. on 25 April 2011 at 12:57am

aaronk
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Posted: 25 April 2011 at 7:08am \| IP Logged

Brian W. wrote:

...it fades out to nothing but hiss, then the song quickly ends. Which means that an early fade during the CD's mastering can't account for its shorter length.

This is possible evidence of a shorter 45, but there are a couple other possibilities. 1) The person responsible for providing a copy to Rhino could have faded the song early while dubbing it onto another tape, and 2) albums during that time period were (correct me if I'm wrong) mastered to another tape with all of the songs in sequence, so it wouldn't be uncommon to hear tape hiss between tracks.

Actually, I would love to learn more information about how tapes were dubbed and mastered during that era. There is one thing that doesn't make logical sense in this case. Why would Atlantic bother to make another copy of the single master just to fade it :05 early? It would make more sense that the earlier fadeout was done in real-time while creating the master stamper for the 45, in which case a master tape with a 3:58 version wouldn't exist.

Edited by aaronk on 25 April 2011 at 10:23am

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Todd Ireland
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Posted: 20 January 2024 at 5:02pm \| IP Logged

The database currently states that DJ 45 copies of ABBA's "Take a Chance on Me" run 3:30 and 3:25 and that commercial copies all run 4:01, not 4:05 as stated on the record label. I can also confirm that the song's actual vinyl LP run time is 3:55, not 4:05 as stated on the label. This might help explain why "Take a Chance on Me" runs closer to this shorter length on several CDs.

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