ABBA Have Recorded New Music

Görel Hanser. I think she was second in command at Polar Music back in the day, and effectively their manager after Stig Anderson. I think she has her own company now, and still manages all official Abba business.
 
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Obviously, this is the tits, but this 'avatar tour' thing is a bit of a LETDOWN. I was hoping for at least ONE performance of them as they are today playing the new song, I don't want a computer-animated Agnetha miming all over it.

Do you know what? I don't.

For me this is perfect - new music, but I dont really want to see them on stage now ( not that the ABBAtar thing excites, either).

That's pretty much what Bjorn has been saying for years. I imagine this was too good a chance to turn down for him. It allowed them to explore if it worked without the pressure of ever performing it, and will create a lot more hype.
 
If that article is right and it was recorded last spring, I'm hopeful it could be very special, considering how precious B&B are, and the amount of time they have had on it.
 
I know what you mean and I certainly don't want them touring the world or anything like that, but it would have been nice to have got a LITTLE SOIRÉE CONCERT where they sung the song. Like Old Friends Do :weed:
 
Apparently people in my office have known FOR MONTHS because it's something the BBC was planning to reveal at Showcase back in February. How could they live with THAT SECRET thrust upon them for so long I do not know.
 
I was hoping for at least ONE performance of them as they are today playing the new song, I don't want a computer-animated Agnetha miming all over it.

Based on that terrible racket she made at that reunion thing which was mysteriously RARELY REFERRED TO, I think you MIGHT :side-eye:

Am I the only one who really DOES NOT want this? Or rather, am I the only one who can’t bear the stress of it potentially being absolutely awful and a total legacy ruiner? I mean dear God, what if there’s AUTOTUNE?
 
I don't think it will ruin their legacy. Plenty of things that have gone before could have done that, if it was going to happen. They survived AbbaMania 2, for fuck's sake!
 
But what if they sound like two bewildered old dears screeching along with the Tuesday night tribute act down the Lamb and Hen?

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD :argh::argh::argh:

PASS ME THE SEDATIVES MAUD
 
I think about 50% of Blondie's later stuff is average at best, but it doesn't take the sheen off their imperial phase.

Plus I do think the avatar business adds a level of distance.
 
There's only one place to go when you hear ABBA are to release new music, so YAY n shit!
 
Abba's return will be either genius or disaster – but nothing in between
Alexis Petridis

The Swedish four-piece, returning with new material after 35 years, have seen critics finally acclaim their pop brilliance – but they still aren’t immune from writing turkeys.

We live in an era where almost every legendary band that can re-form has re-formed, and where technology means not even death is a barrier to 2Pac or Roy Orbison taking the stage once more. The artists who refuse to return carry a certain cachet, and Abba were the most famous hold-outs of all, which makes their decision to record new material a surprise, especially because they don’t need the money.

The first time around, Abba were not taken seriously as artists. The general critical consensus was summed up by a photo of legendary US rock writer Lester Bangs, wearing a T-shirt that read “Abba: the largest-selling group in the history of recorded music” and an expression on his face suggesting this was evidence of western civilisation’s imminent collapse.

In the years since they split up, however, their stock has rightly risen to a dizzying altitude. Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson are regularly hailed as the greatest pop songwriting team of their era; the emotional depth and maturity of The Winner Takes It All – and indeed the personal psychodrama behind it – is pored over in a way it never was on release; their relatively overlooked final album, The Visitors, is acclaimed as a kind of Scandi-noir masterpiece. When the BBC made an Abba documentary a few years back, you got the feeling that rock critics and hip musicians alike were queuing up to sing their praises.

A burgeoning artistic reputation to match the skyscraping commercial success – you can imagine see why Abba might think twice about adding to their oeuvre. Then again, it’s not exactly a a flawless oeuvre. There was something fitting about the fact that their Swedish record label was called Polar: in their day, Abba strictly dealt either in pop perfection or records that made you want to rip your head off with embarrassment. The same album that contained Knowing Me, Knowing You, Money, Money, Money and the peerless Dancing Queen also featured the abysmal Dum Dum Diddle, a song about a woman who feels sexually threatened by her violinist partner’s instrument. “You are only smilin’,” she alleges suspiciously, “when you play that violin.” The same songwriter that crafted The Winner Takes It All also crafted Sitting in the Palmtree, a song about a man who deals with romantic rejection by sitting in a palm tree (“I will stay here among my coconuts”).

So if the new Abba songs are fantastic, there’s certainly a precedent. If they’re dreadful, well, there’s a precedent for that, too. Only if they’re mediocre will they come as a shock.


 
Nice to see middle aged straight music journalists are capable of gay hyperbole as well.
 
I think about 50% of Blondie's later stuff is average at best, but it doesn't take the sheen off their imperial phase.

This is it. There's loads of bands who descended into mediocrity and their imperial phase is still adored; Siouxsie And The Banshees, The Residents, Madonna, Pet Shop Boys (SOME SAY) etc.

I know I was being a bit octyish before but I don't think they can actually spoil it. Their best work is too embedded for 2 more songs to even register with most people.
 
And as for 'burgeoning artistic reputation', fuck the fuck off. And the general tone shows things haven't moved on with the critics THAT much. The big singles can't be denied (or at least without looking like a cunt), but the flip is 'of course, when they weren't great, they were really shit'.

Great or absolute shit. Even I feel that a significant chunk of their work is 7/10, while acknowledging some dross.
 
The big singles can't be denied (or at least without looking like a cunt), but the flip is 'of course, when they weren't great, they were really shit'.

...and if you point out that this is true of, say, Nirvana, they get right cunty...
 
I mean, short of an Irimia sisters or half the Conways reunion, what two voices singing together does the world need to hear more?
 
I hope Agnetha sorts her hair out first this time. Frida usually has a stronger sense of occasion.
 
I was 90% sure this would never have happened. Shook to my very foundations

*buys 42 copies of ABBA Gold*
 
WHILST I am mildly excited about this, the main problem is that it's bound to be "old men Benny & Bjorn", isn't it? Which means it'll be ballad Abba rather than disco Abba (still not a disaster!) but look at all their recent releases. It'll follow that style, won't it? I'll live with it if it's as good as "Story of a Heart", mind...
 
Story of a Heart is what I'm clinging to. But yes, midtempo is probably the best we can hope for.
 
:disco::disco::disco::disco:

The second single is a gloomy song titled 'Don't shut me down'.

'I still have faith in you' is supposed to be up-tempo!
 
The band has recorded two new songs - I Still Have Faith In You, which the world will hear for the first time when the avatar show is revealed on a TV special in December - and another song, Don't Shut Me Down, which is likely to follow as a single release when it premieres on the avatar tour.

"The first song is more of a ballad, the second song is more of an up-tempo song," Hanser said..
 

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