Abba announce first new music since 1982
Pop group
Abba have returned to the studio to record their first new music since the
1980s.
The Swedish
quartet said the new material was an "unexpected consequence" of
their recent decision to put together a "virtual reality" tour.
"We all
four felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and
go into the studio," the band said on Instagram.
"And it
was like time stood still."
No release
date has been set for the new songs - but one of them, titled I Still Have
Faith In You, will be performed in December on a TV special broadcast by the
BBC and NBC.
Abba's
spokesperson Gorel Hanser described the new songs, saying: "The sound will
be familiar, but also modern."
The studio
sessions were "like old times", she told Swedish newspaper
Aftonbladet.
"Easy
as anything. It didn't feel weird that they hadn't been in the studio together
for 35 years."
But Hanser
said the group would not perform live, other than as holograms in the
forthcoming Abba Avatar tour.
"No,
you can not expect them to join forces on stage again," she said.
"They will not do that."
The band
have resisted pressure to reform since they stopped recording together in 1982,
despite a reported $1bn (£689m) offer for to tour in 2000.
In an
interview with the BBC in 2013, Agnetha Faltskog said she preferred
to leave the band in the past.
"It was
such a long time ago, and we are getting older, and we have our different
lives," she explained.
News of the
new material comes in a bumper year for Abba fans. An immersive exhibition
based on the band's career is running on London's South Bank, while Chess, the
musical Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson wrote with Sir Tim Rice, is being
revived in the West End.
A sequel to
the film version of Mamma Mia!, starring Amanda Seyfried, Lily James and Cher,
will be released on 20 July.
Speaking to
BBC News, Rod Stephen, founder of Abba tribute act Bjorn Again, described the
new material as "a whole new beginning".
"I
heard about Abba releasing new songs and I was instantly, like everyone else in
the Abba community, really excited to know what the songs were and how they're
going to sound. Will it have that 1970s sound or will it be up to date?
"It's
brilliant really, because we love Abba's music to death. I just hope they're
great songs, I hope they're equivalent to Dancing Queen or Mamma Mia.
But, he
added: "I know Benny and Bjorn wouldn't release something in this way
unless they were good songs."
And,
speaking to the BBC's Adam Fleming last week, Ulvaeus hinted that there could
be new material. Here's what he said:
How did the
Abba avatar idea come about?
We were introduced
to an idea by Simon Fuller who is, as you know, an entertainment entrepreneur -
[creator of] the format of American Idol and manager of the Spice Girls and so
forth.
He came to
Stockholm and he presented this idea to us that we could make identical digital
copies of ourselves of a certain age and that those copies could then go on
tour and they could sing our songs, you know, and lip sync. I've seen this
project halfway through and it's already mind-boggling.
What does it
actually look like? Does it look like a younger you?
Yes. Real.
And they say once it's finished you'll never see that it's not a human being.
And what attracted me personally to this is of course I'm always curious,
scientifically-curious and this is new technology and we are pioneers. So I
thought, 'Yeah let's go for it,' and you know the other three went for it as
well.
What is the
actual format of the tribute show going to be? Is it going to be these
Abba-tars all the way though?
No, other
people as well. And as for the format I'm not entirely sure what it's going to
look like but some sort of tribute show with these Abba-tars for want of a
better word as the kind of centrepiece.
Will you
write new material for it?
We don't
know what the Abba-tars will sing yet but there's lots to choose from of the
old stuff and yeah, I'm not ready to say that yet.
So there
could be new songs…
I'm… it's up
in the air.
Stay tuned…
Yeah.
Why not
reform and have a reunion? The real you, rather than the virtual ones.
Yeah, why
not? Well… it never seemed like a good idea. It's not that we haven't had
offers over the years. But somehow we always thought that the Abba that people
have in their minds are the once-young and energetic group from the '70s. And
we just never felt the urge to go on tour, I guess.
On the whole
we toured very little. We had like 10 years together and of those 10 years
maybe we toured, like, seven months. Not more than that. So to go on tour as a
geriatric, I don't know!
Formed in
1972, Abba were essentially a Swedish supergroup, consisting of songwriters
Ulvaeus and Andersson from The Hep Stars and singers Faltskog and Anni-Frid
Lyngstad, who had scored success as solo artists.
But their
joint project completely eclipsed their previous successes. After winning the
Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo in 1974, the band sold almost 400 million
singles and albums around the world.
Mamma Mia!,
the musical based on their hits and produced by Ulvaeus and Andersson, has been
seen by more than 50 million people.
During their
most successful period, the band survived marriage break-ups between Ulvaeus
and Faltskog, and Lyngstad and Andersson, but they finally called it a day in
1983.
Their final
recording sessions, in 1982, produced the hits Under Attack and The Day Before
You Came, which featured on the compilation album The Singles.
Their last
public performance came three years later, on the Swedish version of TV show
This Is Your Life, which honoured their manager Stig Anderson.
FROM .bbc.com/news/entertainment
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