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Abba Announce First New Music Ahead ‘Virtual Reality’ Tour Since 1982, Will It Live Up To Legacy?

 

The Oasis Reporters

April 28, 2018

Abba, the group.
They are regrouping, decades after.

The Swedish sensational Pop group Abba that sang so sweetly to the delight of music aficionados since 1972 have announced their return 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.”

The date for the new songs release is still under wraps, 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 told newsmen that the atmosphere in the studio was “magic”.

“It was like no time had passed at all,” she said. “It was like the olden days. They were happy, it was easy and warm-hearted, and it was actually quite moving. I wasn’t the only one with tears in my eyes.”

But the group would not perform live, other than as holograms in the forthcoming Abba Avatar tour, she announced.

“It’s a studio moment, I can promise you,” she said. “Don’t expect too much.”

Despite a reported $1bn (£689m) offer to tour in 2000, Abba resisted the pressure to reform ever since they stopped recording together in 1982.
This was because, ‘they were getting older, according to a member of the group,
Agnetha Faltskog, in a 2013 interview with the BBC because memories of the past seemed much better than recreating them in the present.

Abba Profile

Abba was formed in 1972, Abba in Sweden, 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. Winning the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo in 1974, and selling almost 400 million singles and albums around the world was a definitive turning point in their lives.

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 quits 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.

For now, they have gotten older with different lives being lived. Their fans may have virtual reality to look up to for recreating the legacy of Abba, seems a long road to travel.

Additional source: BBC

Greg Abolo

Blogger at The Oasis Reporters.

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