ABBA is back. And very soon we will know more.
“Thank you for waiting,
the journey is about to begin.”
ABBA, the hugely popular Swedish pop group, who won Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with “Waterloo”, last recorded music together in 1982. Now finally, after having a break for 39 years, they are back with something incredible.
On Thursday 26 August 2021, a website called ABBA Voyage appeared at abbavoyage.com, with the date 2 September 2021. The page invited visitors to “Register your interest to be the first in line to hear more about ABBA Voyage”. The website is accompanied by social media channels – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tiktok.
ABBA Voyage is a project which will be revealed on the evening of 2 September in a global launch event. We already know that the hologram show, a stage presentation featuring digital avatars of the ABBA members has been planned for years. In 2018 it was also announced that ABBA have recorded two new songs for the show, titled “I still have faith in you” and “Don’t shut me down”. Since then, there has been rumours and snippets of information that they have recorded more songs together. ABBA Voyage is a perfect title, which definitely suits for both a show, a possible album title and more applications.
The launch event on Thursday 2 September will have public events in several cities, at least Stockholm (Gröna Lund), Berlin, Vienna and New York. However, the event will very likely be streamed online around the globe. This way, the whole world will get the information about ABBA’s new journey at the same time.
Fans have spotted large billboards at several locations in London and Amsterdam, as well as the semi-permanent theatre under construction in East London. There are unconfirmed media reports saying that the show will open there in May 2022.
It seems likely that the launch event is both for the digital show as well as a countdown for a new single release on 3 September. A new unnamed ABBA single is listed on the Radio1 website.
On Sunday 29 August, a 10 second instrumental music snippet was posted on both the official ABBA and ABBA Voyage Instagram accounts. The syllables in the short piece of music match the words “I still have faith in you” and the classical style sounds very much like music composed by Benny Andersson. On the same day, the ABBA account posted a short video of Björn Ulvaeus, sitting by a mixing desk in a recording studio, saying a greeting: “Hi guys, I’m Björn from ABBA. Thank you for joining our musical journey here on Instagram, a journey that never ends.” The newsletter sent out to subscribers includes the Polar Music and Universal logos.
ABBA is loved by millions of people worldwide and this new project will definitely get the attention all over the world. We all hope we will hear new music written by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson and sung by Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad together. That’s where the magic happens.
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