Tages discography

Tages were a Swedish rock band from Gothenburg formed in 1963 by vocalist Tommy Blom, rhythm guitarist Danne Larsson, lead guitarist Anders Töpel, bass guitarist Göran Lagerberg and drummer Freddie Skantze. During their seven year tenure, they released six studio albums, three compilation albums, five extended plays and 26 singles in Sweden. Between November 1964 and April 1968, Tages were considered one of the four most popular bands in Sweden, with 13 of their singles reaching the top 10 of the national record chart Tio i Topp including two number one singles. The band also released a string of commercially successful studio albums, with two of them, Tages (1965) and Tages 2 (1966), selling over 10,000 copies each in Sweden, enough for them to be certified gold. Towards the end of the 1960s, Tages' popularity started diminishing, and they charted their final top 10 single in April 1968. Lead vocalist Blom left the band at the end of their folkpark tour in August 1968. The group continued on as a quartet, with the group's sixth studio album and final five singles being released under the name Blond, a name which was chosen by the band's management who believed it to be more internationally viable. They broke up during the summer of 1970 after several personnel changes.

Tages' first 10 singles and three studio albums were released in Sweden by Platina Records, an independent record label founded by Evert Jakobsson. The band had signed a contract with the label in September 1964. Platina was distributed by EMI Records starting in 1965, causing singles by Tages released in the UK during this time period to appear on several EMI sublabels, including Columbia and His Master's Voice. Tages founded their own publishing company, Segat AB, during the spring of 1966, which ensured that "income reached the right [band members'] pockets", contrary to many other publishing companies during the 1960s. Platina's contract with Tages expired on New Year's Day 1967, upon which they opted to sign a contract with Parlophone instead. This caused Jakobsson to issue archival material by Tages on Platina concurrently to their new releases on Parlophone in an act of retaliation. In preparation for a potential international breakthrough, Tages' new manager Richard-Reese Edwards got the band signed to Fontana Records, negotiating an advance of $50,000 ($428,721 in 2024), a sum previously unheard of by a Swedish pop group.

Starting with two unauthorized albums compiled by Jakobsson during the 1960s, Tages' music has been collected on several compilation albums. As the band's masters were owned by three separate record labels, the band's early compilation albums were restricted to the material each label had the rights to. In 1983, Jakobsson licensed an album's worth of his Tages Platina masters to EMI, who were putting together the compilation album Tages, 1964-68! Later during the 1980s, Sven-Åke Peterson of EMI negotiated with Jakobsson, purchasing the masters from him. In 1994, the 3-CD career-spanning box set This One's For You was released, containing almost every recording by Tages under that name. The Blond recordings are still owned by Universal Music Group, who issued all of their material with the band on the 2003 reissue of The Lilac Years.