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Swedish pop sensation ABBA made a comeback on Friday with their new album “Voyage”, almost 40 years after they cut up up, with a digital avatar live performance finally deliberate in London.
Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-Frid—forming the acronym ABBA—haven’t launched any new music since their cut up in 1982, a 12 months after their final album “The Guests”.
“Voyage” went dwell at midnight Thursday in numerous time zones, to the delight of longtime followers worldwide.
“It doesn’t sound dated, it doesn’t sound 40 years in the past,” ABBA fan Emilie De Laere mentioned at a listening celebration in Stockholm for the Swedish band’s much-anticipated launch.
After years of hypothesis and a number of other dropped hints, the group lastly introduced the reunion and new album in September, and launched the singles “I nonetheless think about you” and “Don’t shut me down”.
The ten-track “Voyage” is just not all of the group will likely be releasing.
They may also unveil digital avatars—dubbed “ABBAtars”—at a live performance in London in Could, resembling their 1979 selves.
The holograms are the product of a years-long undertaking, designed in partnership with a particular results firm of Star Wars creator George Lucas.
Repeatedly delayed by technical difficulties, then by the Covid-19 pandemic, they may lastly be unveiled in Could.
‘ABBA sound’
The group initially dreamed up the concept of avatars, after which the music adopted go well with.
By 2018, ABBA had confirmed rumours of their return to the studio and that at the least two new songs have been being recorded.
However nice pains have been taken to maintain the music a secret.
“First it was simply two songs, after which we mentioned: ‘Nicely possibly we must always do a couple of others’, what do you say women and so they mentioned ‘Yeah’,” Benny Andersson, 74, defined when the album was introduced.
“Then I requested them ‘why don’t we do a full album?’,” he added.
He and Bjorn Ulvaeus, 76, have been selling the album in current weeks, with 71-year-old Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 75, opting to spare themselves from busy promotion schedules.
All promotion was halted for twenty-four hours this week after two folks died at a tribute live performance north of Stockholm on Tuesday night.
Along with the 2 songs launched in September, a 3rd monitor from the album was revealed in October, a modernised model of “Simply A Notion”, initially recorded in 1978 however by no means earlier than launched.
The newly launched songs can’t escape being in comparison with hits like “Waterloo”, “Dancing Queen”, “Mamma Mia”, “The Winner Takes It All” and “Cash, Cash, Cash”, however the band members will not be anxious about disappointing followers.
“We don’t should show something, what does it matter if folks assume we have been higher earlier than?” Andersson informed Swedish every day Dagens Nyheter.
To Swedish fan Peter Palmquist at the least, the brand new album has struck simply the appropriate notice between previous and new.
“It’s true to ABBA’s sound but it surely’s not nostalgic, staying to the place they’re however to the those who they grown into at this time,” he mentioned.
Based on Jean-Marie Potiez, one of many group’s most well-known worldwide specialists, age has given a few of the singers a brand new edge.
“Agnetha and Anni-Frid’s voices have misplaced their excessive notes, which is regular given their age, however they’ve gained in depth and sensitivity.”
“After they sing collectively, each of them, like on ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’, it’s the ABBA sound.”
Regardless of two divorces—Bjorn and Agnetha and Benny and Anni-Frid have been each married for a number of years—the 4 have remained good pals.
However “Voyage”, the band’s ninth studio album, will certainly be their final, the 2 Bs of the group confirmed in an interview with The Guardian on the finish of October.
(AFP)
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