ABBA are reuniting

Bass Player Guy: I'm playing a wedding in December. Some very wealthy people. We're the opening act. You know who the headliner is going to be? ABBA.

KL: Abba? Get out. There's no way. ABBA is going to reunite and fly to the US to play some guy's wedding? How much money is the guy really going to sink into this? Surely it's Bjorn Again, the ABBA tribute band.

Bass Player Guy: ABBA is going to reunite to do this one show. If you pay these people enough money they'll do anything.

Months later:
KL So how was the wedding gig? How was ABBA?
Bass Play Guy: You know what, you were right. It wasn't ABBA, it was Bah-jyorn Again.

When I saw Bjorn Again, when the ladies had a costume change, the boys played Black Sabbath's "Paranoid"!! (I guess they need to break the monotony somehow - I'm betting they play more or less the same set every night i.e. most of ABBA Gold plus "Ring Ring" and "Honey Honey".)

If someone can learn me how to post pictures to this thing, I can oblige.

Sadly, I went to go find the un-airbrushed picture of Agnetha I had seen on the web so I could post the URL, and it is now gone (quel surprise!).

One of the things that made 2005 a little better than expected. Gawd, I hate reunions.

Reviving as all four made an appearance together (at the Mamma Mia premiere)

http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20080704&t=2&i=5036718&w=&r=2008-07-04T195818Z_01_L04364676_RTRUKOP_0_PICTURE1

http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20080704&t=2&i=5037136&w=&r=2008-07-04T222408Z_01_L04364676_RTRUKOP_0_PICTURE0

Frida looking great.

But when did Meryl Streep become a member of ABBA? :)

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/1551303/abbas-agnetha-faltskog-drops-comeback-single-album-to-come

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w95WdpE6QAI

Productionwise, it sounds like it's from about 1998.

Instrumentally it sounds like the Lightning Seeds only worse.

Horrible.

It's a Gary Barlow co-write. Pretty much how I thought it'd sound.

A real shame to see Agnetha stuck with one of Barlow's boilerplate 'X Factor Winner's single' songs.

There's even a separate thread now. Take y'all's pick, I guess.

ABBA mulls possible reunion

ABBA perform together in Stockholm (briefly)

Previously the group have been offered $1 billion to reform.

O_O

Surely there's some kind of typo in there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5nYTGQfnnQ

A little shaky but when they harmonise it can only be them. Maybe Michael Tretow was off-stage, fiddling with his dBX and Eventide ;)

Funny that this momentous event takes place under a projection of a ticket-stub from Wembley '79. £7.50 was a lot of money back then.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/oct/26/abba-announce-virtual-live-experience-2018-simon-fuller

http://s3.amazonaws.com/quietus_production/images/articles/24479/image005_1524829793_crop_457x287.png

ABBA confirm they have recorded new music for the first time in 35 years calling it an 'extremely joyous experience'

ABBA has recorded new music for the first time in 35 years, according to a statement from the band.

They told Swedish site Afton Bladet: ‘The decision to go ahead with the exciting ABBA avatar tour project had an unexpected consequence.

'We all four felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the recording studio. So we did.

They're back! ABBA have confirmed they have reunited and recorded new music for the first time in 35 years calling it an 'extremely joyous experience'

'And it was like time had stood still and that we had only been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyous experience.'

'It resulted in two new songs and one of them, I Still Have Faith In You will be performed by or digital selves in a TV special produced by NBC and the BBC aimed for broadcasting in December.

They added: 'We may have been old, but the song is new. And it feels good.'

Just two days ago, fans were overjoyed to hear ABBA are launching a comeback... but they won't be the ones singing or dancing.

Instead, virtual 'Abbatars' are being created to represent the four members of the Swedish pop group for an upcoming digital gig.

Singer Björn Ulvaeus, 72, revealed the news of the gigs during a speech in Brussels. The two-hour show is expected to be broadcast by the BBC in Britain and simulcast across the globe.

A world tour is planned for 2019 or 2020, which could generate hundreds of millions of pounds in ticket sales, according to the Times.

The band will appear as they looked at their musical peak in 1979 thanks to high-tech imaging equipment.

'We thought we looked good that year,' Ulvaeus said.

Silicon Valley experts are using old videos to replicate how the band danced, dressed and sang so they can be programmed to reproduce hits such as Waterloo, Mamma Mia and Dancing Queen.

Ulvaeus described the effect as 'simply mind-boggling'.

Video playing bottom right...

'You'll hear the voices of ABBA coming out of the mouths of the Abbatars,' he said.

'You won't be able to see that they're not human beings. It'll be spooky, I assure you, but great fun and no one has done it before.'

The band sold more than 400 million albums but have not performed since 1986, apart from at a private party in 2016.

The four members - Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, 71, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 72, and Agnetha Fältskog, 68 - have previously resisted reunions but are all behind the Abbatar project.

If successful the technology could allow bands to stage concerts anywhere in the world without the celebrities being present.

If the technology is embraced by fans it will allow artists to stage concerts anywhere in the world without leaving their homes.

Ulvaeus said US 'techno artists' had scanned the band last year.

'They photographed us from all possible angles, they made us grimace in front of cameras, they painted dots on our faces, they measured our heads,' he told broadcasting executives last week.

'Apparently, a cranium doesn't change with age the way the rest of your body falls apart.'

The singer said there was an 'existential dimension' to the project, as the band explored the idea of being young again: 'The wisdom that we hopefully possess now in combination with the youth of the Abbatars.'

living in the future is wild

First I learn that Fugazi occasionally gets together and jams, and now ABBA. Following a Cubs win, death of Bowie and Prince, a couple of weird Super Bowls, that Oscars best picture debacle, Trump ... yeah we are living in an alternate reality. It's pretty much the right time for Tupac to call off the ruse and go on tour.

it can only be a matter of time before hologram fugazi hit the road

We are all holograms living in a world where Fugazi is still on hiatus. There is another dimension where Fugazi still records and tours, but there are no other people.

Soldiers is so fucking good

otm

First I learn that Fugazi occasionally gets together and jams, and now ABBA

tour 2019

this is pretty sweet news. i recently listened to the greatest hits LP and every song was a glorious pop gem.

i have some friends in Malmo that i have visited a few times. when you first get to the Stockholm airport there was a giant mural of ABBA on one of the walls. for good reason, they are a treasure.

oh god

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAzEY1MfXrQ

its like they took all the worst elements of the worst euroballads of the last couple of albums and made its gruesome prototype

I feel like this whole thing is a bad idea, might have worked better if they had tried it 20 years ago, but I know their lawyers needed ample time to come to an agreement on how this would work, and of course the de-ageing tech wasn't great back then.

Don't Shut Me Down is much better imo

these two songs are amazing

no idea what that means about euroballads xp these are great abba songs

Rutger and Ole turning over in their respective graves.

That was not terrible, but I don't know if I'd listen again.
I don't know about the self-mythologizing video, though, as if we've all spent 40 years doing nothing but waiting for their reunion?

Yes, your take seems about right.

i love Abba, i don't love reunions, i really don't love being beaten over the head with wrong opinions by the normie media

guess i'll check this out when i feel like it

the reunion concert will be an absolute fiasco

What, you don’t like avatars?

Should ILX have avatars?

I didn't realize there was an entire new album, that actually makes me more optimistic (rockism).

Good point.

what a dreadful boring comeback song.

I really hoped they would return with a great pop banger. They should have stayed retired.

Pop banger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWGWFa3jznI

Tracklisting for the Voyage album:

1. I Still Have Faith In You
2. When You Danced With Me
3. Little Things
4. Don’t Shut Me Down
5. Just A Notion
6. I Can Be That Woman
7. Keep An Eye On Dan
8. Bumble Bee
9. No Doubt About It
10. Ode To Freedom

Short demo versions of Just A Notion and Bumble Bee can be found on the Abba Undeleted Medley, released in 1994. Just A Notion is at 4:55, Bumble Bee at 14:41.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUfAzxBKvLA

Just A Notion was first recorded in 1982 for the abandoned follow-up album to The Visitors; both versions of the recording were bootlegged.

Free As A Bumblebee (with a Bjorn vocal) was demoed in 1978 during the Voulez-Vous sessions.

I like both tracks. I didn’t expect to, but I prefer the ballad. The chorus on the poppy one doesn’t soar where I want it to, but the ballad is all soar, all the time. I can’t help it, I’m a cheese ball and I found it moving.

Keep An Eye On Dan surely has to be a Bjorn vocal.

Gawd bless them for not using autotune, the vocals on the ballad are kinda pitchy in places and they could have easily tidied that up, along with the timing.

I can see this working out for them, apparently the Fleetwood Mac reunion tour just before Covid made tons of cash (despite being Lindsey-less), nostalgic boomers money is there for the taking.

I've never had much interest in an ABBA reunion, I think finishing when they did and then never doing anything together after it was a touch of class. Both new songs sound very like ABBA, but sort of as if they've been constructed from bits of their older songs. I like them though.

(xp) The thing about ABBA is, that in the UK at least, they're very much not just a band loved by boomers.

Surely their fanbase when they were originally around was majority gen X.

I learned from an early 80's Look-In annual that I shared my birthday with Bjorn and considered that confirmation that I was cool!

(xp) They were something of a 9 to 90 band. My mum, who was never much into pop or rock music, loved them - in contrast she had no interest in the Beatles whatsoever.

I guess that’s true they held an appeal to a wide age range. Quite enjoying these new ones, maybe the sound is less “fuzzy” and “warm” and more shiny than classic Abba, but it’s a different age.

My parents and my Granny's loved Abba

Where the fuck did this come from????

Both songs are a HELL of a lot better than I was expecting. Thumbs up!!

Sweden, iirc

bet Jeff Lynne's gutted he wasn't asked to produce

abba has always been a self produced all swedish in house crew!

Another softie here who likes both of these songs. "I am not the one you knew/I'm now and then combined/And I'm asking you to have an open mind" <== that is a lovely lyric

"Don't Shut Me Down" is aces. A legitimate ABBA song.

Both new songs are strong, but "Don't Shut Me Down" is really excellent and bodes well for the rest.

I was on the livestream yesterday. As the first video (for "I Still Have Faith In You") started playing, without any prior explanation, my thoughts went from "hmm, don't remember this one", to "oh, those voices sound distinctly older", to "fuck, this is a new track". That's when the shivers started. Then, towards the end: "how have they got late-1970s Frida to lip-synch the lyrics, that's uncanny". We didn't yet know about the avatars.

The most charitable thing I can say about Zoe Ball's interview with Benny & Bjorn is that she was overawed and lost it a bit. B&B handled her excitable wibblings with patience and grace.

Gleaned from the interview: the show is 22 songs, 90 minutes, mostly greatest hits plus the two new songs and a few deeper cuts. 10 live musicians on stage. Visual direction by Baillie Walsh. Inclusion of "Dancing Queen" confirmed (duh). They also talked about "Under Attack" and "The King Has Lost His Crown" as songs that should have been big hits, which could be a hint. On the new self-produced album ("it's all us"), "Little Things" is a Christmas song.

*43 seconds into "don't shut me down"* god i fucking love abba

oh man wtf both songs rule

Yeah, ISHFIY wasn’t immediately so matched to my tastes, but I love it just as much now.

Yeah I hated it on first listen but after listening to it on proper speaker, I've totally fallen for it

Same here

"Do I have it in me?" is such an odd question for a song to ask in 2021. I love it. They are the best.

"I am not the one you knew/I'm now and then combined/And I'm asking you to have an open mind" <== that is a lovely lyric

So true.

I don't think I'm a huge fan of these songs, but I do think it's great that they are just making songs that sound like ABBA and aren't awkwardly trying to meet contemporary pop music halfway

^cosign

It helps that ABBA never overstayed their welcome. It is fresh coming back to this sound after 40 years

Otm. Feels like they've done everything right on paper, even if the songs themselves strike me on first listen as replacement-level late ABBA album cuts.

Sonically it's neither too fussy about recreating the sound of their old records nor too self-conscious about not doing so. The honest weatheredness of the vocals is really striking and lovely, and imo quite apt in that ABBA at their best always had a particular kind of stylized "grown up perspective". "This wooden bench is getting harder by the hour" is the platonic ideal of a lyric that only Frida can drop on an unsuspecting listener like a ton of bricks, too.

Enjoying the idea of this as a MBV or Vashti Bunyan style comeback that tries exactly hard enough and not a bit harder, though that impression might be harder to sustain once I've seen more of the motion capture avatars.

I mean, the late period albums rule so this bodes well for me when I get around to hearing them.

BTW I was legitimately in tears of joy when news broke of the album because of how the world is and everything is always better with ABBA.

Okay, thse are growing on me.

Don’t Shut Me Down has been pleasurably pinging in my head non-stop for two days now

I'll post a review of the show next August. Yeah, I succumbed.

I don't like ABBA much, but I do respect that after reportedly/allegedly turning down decades of reunion offers for hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars, they more or less just quietly went and did it themselves, when the world was at its most distracted and needed them least/most (take your pick).

These two tracks are surprisingly good and, yes, in so many ways just what the doctor ordered. What I can’t believe is how much they sound like themselves here. I mean, these are all septuagenarians (all 76 but Agnetha who is 71). For a ton of reasons, they should sound very different. Yet they don’t.

I’m mildly interested in seeing what they do with the avatar thing.

One thing: Bjorn says that “I Still Have Faith in You” is about the band’s relationships with one another and how they have remained “the best of friends.” Is the latter remotely true? Or sentimental pap? I had always worked under the assumption that at least one of the divorces ended pretty badly.

The Richard and Linda Thompson divorce was historically terrible, too, but I believe they are friends now. I think that's not uncommon after decades of reflection, and I doubt it usually even takes that long.

I especially like how these really really sound like ABBA and they haven't tried to go all EDM or something.
The whole branding (as well as the "computer"-based language on 'Don't Shut Me Down') reminds me of Random Access Memories a little bit.

This whole revival has led me into a wikipedia rabbit hole. I didnt know about all the tragedies that Agnetha went through... This band's history is straight out of a Bergman movie. "Voyage" being their "Saraband"

Was looking at ABBA Revival as a potential screenname but, not only is it taken, it is the name of an ABBA tribute band.

Is the latter remotely true? Or sentimental pap?

True, I reckon, as evidenced when they chose "The Way Old Friends Do" to sing onstage together in 2016: "And after fights and words of violence, we make up with each other, the way old friends do"

Little Boots will be part of the live band (keyboards/backing vocals), and she's also been working with ABBA in the studio. Full post and studio pic with Benny: https://www.facebook.com/littleboots/posts/392293902267346

Cool! *Looks up Little Boots*

I Still Have Faith In You has really grown on me. Shut Me Down was the instant banger but ISHFIY deserves to become a standard

remember when those awesome new ABBA songs came out?

(been wanting to try out saying that, feels great)

Still feeling them

New song teaser sounding great.

I like the “f**k this 21st Century bullsh*t” look on their faces

https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/09/02/abba-2021-reunion-12d8b48a1226e153bd6d24dab72e04e4f7bd1a65-s1200-c85.webp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZhrf32Tq1A

SCHLAGER SCHLAGER SCHLAGER!

I love how they're absolutely refusing the temptation to go all drum'n'bass or whatever

OTM. Though at first I read that as, "I love how they're absolutely refusing the temptation to go all dumbass or whatever". The OTM still applied.

holy shit this one hit for me

I like that one, kinda ELO.

they apparently first tried recording this one in 1978 but weren't satisfied with it at the time

Holy shit, this could be off Ring Ring.

Yeah, part of the old demo version is included on the 23-minute "Undeleted Medley" that was released in 1994. The other one from that medley which will be on the new album is "Bumble Bee".

"distiny"

Yeah I was wondering if I might’ve first heard it there.

That hook is ridiculous. Listened twice and hummed it for hours.

Holy shit, this could be off Ring Ring.

It could and I'm loving that!

this is much more like it

Is there some practical explanation for why the previous two new songs charted high in the UK (and across Europe) but did not enter the US Hot 100? Has the Billboard chart gone rogue?

ABBA generally much more celebrated on this side of the pond than the US I can imagine?

Yeah, I assume it’s for the obvious reason (the tracks not being played on the radio here).

They both made the billboard global 200, which doesn’t include airplay, just streaming and sales.

Was this reunion a major news story in the US? It was over here!

Not that I’ve noticed.

Not quite the Beatles reforming but not far off it, put it that way.

I would've thought that after the two Mamma Mia! films every man woman and child in America would know ABBA, but yeah somehow that doesn't translate to radio play, which perhaps is the deeper mystery

their songs would sound very out of place on contemporary radio, regardless of how popular they are

Sadly feel their stuff is relegated to DJ wedding playlists at this point.

My daughter got excited when she heard about it and told my wife, but I don’t remember seeing any news alerts or stories about it.

America's relationship to ABBA is basically, like, lots and lots of people own 'ABBA Gold' on cd and play "Dancing Queen" sometimes and maybe they watched either or both of the Mamma Mia! movies, but that's the extent of it.

Pretty much

...and "Waterloo" & "Dancing Queen" get played on 'Classic Hits' radio from time to time.

One of my earliest music memories of any kind was seeing this TV 1978 special when it originally aired, featuring ABBA, Olivia Newton-John, and Andy Gibb. I just watched it again recently and was surprised that it was actually called Olivia!, with ABBA and Andy only getting second billing. Despite this, ABBA was big in the U.S. then, if not quite as much so as in the UK and throughout Europe. They had ten top-20 hits here and were all over the radio at the time, if not now.

Also, the segues between songs on that TV show are all-time. About half the show is elsewhere on Youtube in stereo, rare for 1978 TV.

lol what the hell is "when you danced with me"

There's a very good 4 or 5 song ep in this 10 song album.

From the Guardian review:

'When You Danced With Me' tells the story of a girl left behind in Kilkenny when a boy she loved “left for the city”. She’s spent years waiting for him to return, we’re told; presumably she’s oblivious to the existence in Ireland of train routes, driving tests or text messages. The Celtic-leaning melody in the intro recalls Abba’s incursions into other global settings, such as the Mexican battlefields in Fernando, or the Spanish-Peruvian musical moodboards of Chiquitita. The overall effect doesn’t prompt folkloric nostalgia, but mild nausea.

Pitchfork with a 7.4: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/abba-voyage/

Surprised to find that Bjorn doesn't play any instruments at all on this album.

i love "keep an eye on dan"

i may be a emotional schmaltz-loving dumbass tho as i'm crying through most of this album

oh yeah "no doubt about it" that's the stuff

i just love abba so much

i even think the gelatinous ballads are dope i'm helpless

Great record

Fun record. Witless Guardian review. First two singles probably the best tracks but the rest is great. I despair of people who can't be moved by good schmaltz.

I’ve been playing it over and over again today. It’s such a strange record, and like a lot of ABBA, a lot of it sounds off-kilter and naff, but that’s something to push through. “Little Things” in particular is… challenging… but then it segues straight into “Don’t Shut Me Down”, which immediately reframes the idyll. And then there are the subsequent songs about marital/post-marital strife, which sit all the better in its wake. B&B’s ventriloquising is unsettling in much the same way as “The Winner Takes It All” was us telling - all that self-denigration - but A&F interpret the sentiments beautifully, and in a way that suggests that they’re fully on board.

(“us settling” = “unsettling”… I may have had a drink or two)

Don’t get the hate for Little Things. Fits in the long tradition of sickly twee Abba songs haunted by a sense of loss.

Yeah, that one works for me. The two I’m still a bit cool on are Bumblebee and Ode To Freedom.

I'm having a lot of fun writing about Voyage, and the reaction to it, for a glossy gay lifestyle magazine. It does help enormously when you're not welded to the hot take.

:)