Ring Ring is the debut studio album by the Swedish group credited to Björn Benny & Agnetha Frida, who later became the pop group ABBA. It was released in Scandinavia and a limited number of other territories, including Germany, Australia, South Africa and Mexico, on 26 March 1973 through Polar Music.[5] It was a chart-topping album in Belgium, and a big success in the Netherlands, Norway and South Africa.[6]
The album was re-released in Australasia in 1975, but was not released in the United Kingdom until 1992, and the United States until 1995.
Overview
When the first song "People Need Love" was recorded in the spring of 1972, the group was just one of many projects the four members were involved in. Only after the title track, "Ring Ring" became a hit, did the four decide to go on working together as a permanent group.[7] The original 1973 Polar version of the album opens with "Ring Ring (Bara du slog en signal)", the Swedish version of the track, and places the English-language version as track four on side two.
The track "She's My Kind of Girl", included on the international editions, is in fact a song by Björn & Benny which dates back to 1969, which was a hit in Japan, and had also been included on the b-side of the English version of the "Ring Ring" single in Scandinavia. Ring Ring also features a song co-written by Agnetha Fältskog. Although she had composed much of her Swedish solo output, the song "Disillusion", for which she wrote the music, is the only song released on an ABBA studio album to feature a songwriting contribution from her.
Ring Ring was first released on CD in Sweden in 1988; a West German CD release followed in 1990 (later released internationally). The album has been reissued in digitally remastered form three times; first in 1997, then in 2001 and again in 2005 as part of The Complete Studio Recordingsbox set.