The music fans are going crazy. With a news that’s hitting all the right chords one could have imagined. Yes, it’s the grand return of ABBA after 4 long decades with the new album that will see the reunion of sorts for singers Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad along with instrumentalists/songwriters Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus performing digitally via avatars. This was one comeback nobody could have imagined even in their wildest of dreams!
ABBA’s forthcoming new album “Voyage," is all set to be released on Nov. 5, which is a follow-up to their 1981 album “The Visitors,” which until now had been written as the swan song of the Swedish super-group. Nearly four decades after disbanding, Swedish superstars ABBA, one of the most successful music groups of all time, have announced their return with a new studio album and a new concert. To add more to the buzz, the band has created a website where the band has asked fans to register to learn more about their new “Voyage.” The live “hologram tour,” which the band initially revealed in 2016 and was originally slated for 2018, reunites the foursome for the first time since 1982 in “Abbatars.”
To accompany this much awaited virtual production, the band is also releasing five new songs. Surprise, surprise, all these is happening after nearly four decades after disbanding and vowing never to get back together. The new album will be featuring their performances captured by digital avatars. And that's not all. Fans of the legendary pop group can enjoy the quartet on stage at a show in the specially built stadium in London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, virtually.
ABBA had a string of hits in the 1970s and early 1980s after winning Eurovision in 1974 with "Waterloo". After the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Anni-Frid, whose initials make up the group's name, ABBA is one of the most successful band of all time. Their hits are evergreens. "Waterloo," "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)", "The Winner Takes It All" and many other songs from their eight studio albums graced the charts worldwide. Wooing listeners till now! Almost as famous for their over-the-top outfits as their music, the group notched up over 400 million album sales over 50 years despite parting ways in 1982 and resolutely resisting all offers to work together again, until now.
"First we did one song, then several. Then we said: why don't we make a whole album?" said ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus. Lyngstad said of their reunion: “Such joy it was to work with the group again – I am so happy with what we have made,” and called Andersson and Ulvaeus “exceptionally talented, truly genius songwriters”. Ulvaeus said of Fältskog and Lyngstad: “I was completely floored by the way they delivered those songs,” with Andersson saying: “I think hearing Frida and Agnetha singing again is hard to beat.” Two tracks from it, the stately and epic ballad I Still Have Faith in You and the shimmying Don’t Shut Me Down, are out now.
