It’s been the reunion we have all dreamed about, but thought would never happen. It was even once rumoured that the band were offered millions of dollars to reunite and make an album, back in the ’90s but they declined. Well, the wait is finally over. That beloved Swedish pop group featuring Benny, Bjorn, Anni-Frid and Agnetha are back on our screens and flying through our airwaves with two new songs after nearly 40 years.
What started out as a two-song release, quickly turned into a full album of songs to be released in November 2021, under the title “Voyage”.
The group had been dropping hints of a reunion for quite some time, but details were kept from the press until now.
The group has released two new songs, “I Still Have Faith in You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down,” for fans during an event online, which at one point had more than 200,000 people tuning in live.
There are also plans for a new concert featuring the group, performing digitally as avatars, with a live 10 piece band, to be performed in London at Queen Elizabeth Park, in a specially built state-of-the-art, purpose-built 3000 capacity arena called “Abba Arena” to “kick off” the event on 27 May 2022.
Whilst Abba themselves won’t be actually performing in the concert, their “avatars” will be. The “Abba-tars” was created following weeks and months of motion-capture and performance techniques with the four band members and an 850-strong team from Industrial Light & Magic.
Abba is without a doubt one of the most successful music groups of all time, having sold nearly 400 million albums worldwide.
Thanks to the musical “Mamma Mia” and Australian movie “Murials Wedding” the group has seen a resurgence in popularity.
More recently, ABBA’s music has trended on TikTok, as younger fans rediscover the group’s most popular hits, including “Dancing Queen,” “Chiquitita” and “Slipping Through My Fingers.”
“Content using the #ABBA hashtag on TikTok recently reached one billion views, without the catalogue officially being available on the platform,” the band said in its news release.
The band officially made its own Tic Tok account this week and as of Thursday, it had amassed more than 738,000 followers and 3.2 million likes.
In Benny’s own words, “we took a break in the spring of 1982, and now we’ve decided it’s time to end it”.
“Getting back into the studio has brought new life back into the group in more ways than one” Bjorn said in a statement.
“So, again, thanks for waiting! We hope to see you in the ‘ABBA Arena’ and yes — see — because we have infused a good deal of our souls into those avatars. It’s not an exaggeration to say that we’re back.
On Abba’s “Voyage” website, they describe the concert as one “that combines the old and the new, the young and not-so-young”. One thing’s for sure, that Abba magic we have all grown to love and that I personally once saw live at the “Sidney Myer Music Bowl” in Melbourne, is still very much alive.
