During a livestream announcing their return after 40 years, ABBA talked new music and virtual concert: ‘We’re not competing with Drake!’
It’s hard to think of any group of performers that got back together after 40 years apart, and ABBA has not half-stepped the announcement of their return. While it was first announced rather vaguely three and a half years ago, they waited until the time was ripe to do it officially: Via a global livestream that was also aired at special fan events all over the world (including one in New York just hours after record-breaking rainfall and flooding), we got two brand-new songs — the first new material from the group in nearly four decades — news of an album due on Nov.5, and what seems to be a completely groundbreaking virtual concert that will premiere in a specially built London arena next May. The center of the hour-long livestream was a long interview with the group’s songwriters, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, where they talked about the new songs, the album and the concert, which will feature avatars (if the official name isn’t “ABBAtars,” it should be) of the four members — Andersson, Ulvaeus and singers Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad — that were painstakingly created by more than 100 digital artists and technicians from George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic special-effects company. Of the album’s creation, Andersson said simply, “First it was just two songs, then we said, ‘Maybe we should do, I don’t know, a few others? What do you say, girls?’ They said yes, then I said why don’t we just do a whole album.” The lead song is the ballad “I Still Have Faith in You,” which actually has a similar feel to tracks from the group’s most recent album, “The Visitors” (odd as it seems to say that about an album released in 1981). Also like songs from that album, it’s about the members of ABBA and what they’ve meant to each other. “When Benny played the melody, I just knew it had to be about us,” Ulvaeus said. “It’s about realizing that it’s inconceivable to be where we are [today] — no imagination could dream up that, to release a new album after 40 years, and still be the best of friends and still be enjoying each other’s company and have total loyalty.
