It’s hard enough to believe that the band, which for years refused to return to the scene, has now come up with the whole album. Her “revival” began in 1992, when the British band Erasure released a cover version of her songs on the album ABBA-esque and performed with her at the top of the British charts.
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It gained momentum when Muriel’s Married (1994) and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) appeared in the songs of the quartet and culminated when the musical Mamma Mia! A year later, ABBA reportedly refused a billion dollars for a concert tour.
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In 2008, the musical film Mamma Mia appeared on cinema screens! and the pressure for the band to return to the scene was written regularly. “Money is no object. We want people to remember us as we were. Young, exuberant, full of energy and ambition, “said Björn Ulvaeus at the time.
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ABBA’s new story began after members of the band met in 2018 to record two new songs for a television special. Later came the ABBA Voyage project, at the end of which the digital version of the band will perform alongside live musicians at a purpose-built location in London.
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Voyage offers ten songs. Some are new, others (even if only motives) caught from the past. No matter when they were created, they all connect to old times with sound. It is as if not forty years have passed between the penultimate album The Visitors (1981) and the novelty, but only two or three.
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Cover of ABBA’s new album.
Foto: Universal Music
Whether Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, the songwriters, are listening to modern pop, or he’s just passing by, the choice of sounding what was was was the only right one. Fans of the group do not long for modern synthetic sounds and re-produced experiments. They want songs that they crawl under their skin and they will be able to hum them.
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So everyone respects the classical structure and carries clear melodies. Unfortunately, they are usually not so strong, so they climb under the skin slowly and carefully. The disco-tuned Don’t Shut Me Down or the moving No Doubt About It are decent dance pieces. However, they are far from reaching the potency of such dance hits as ABBA offered at the turn of the seventies and eighties.
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The single I Still Have Faith In You is expressive and, in a good way, nostalgic, When You Danced With Me is inspired by Irish folk music, as evidenced by the lyrics about the Kilkenny Fair. Little Things offers a Christmas theme, unfortunately a dozen and intimidating. Just A Notion was created at the end of the seventies and it is, as it is said, in several places on the album, the original singing. It is one of the strongest on the record, precisely because it was written at a time when Ulvaeus and Andersson had a life form of authorship.
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However, the new songs are reliably secured by the voices of singers Agnetha Faltskög and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. Time has not grinded them so much, and although they are both more than seventy years old, they recall the sung passages from the days when ABBA directly enjoyed the fame.
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Let’s not look for any depth in the lyrics, this group has never been to that. They are mainly relational, but in Bumblebee, for example, the quartet touches on the problem of climate change.
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Everything is symbolically summarized by the last majestic song Ode To Freedom. She says that ABBA has returned, she has shown that she still has something to offer, but that is no longer enough to be the driving force of the pop scene today. The new songs are like the B-sides of the singles of the time, they do not reach their striking and timelessness. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant nostalgic trip that leads through a landscape of distinct pop.
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| ABBA: Travel |
| Universal Music, 37:03 |
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