![]() One of Us and Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) are two Abba songs among many featuring a fraught woman desperate for any man to pop along and quick-fix her loneliness. The overall effect doesn’t prompt folkloric nostalgia, but mild nausea.Īdmittedly, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson have never been the most enlightened lyricists on the feminism front. The Celtic-leaning melody in the intro recalls Abba’s incursions into other global settings, such as the Mexican battlefields in Fernando, or the Spanish-Peruvian musical moodboards of Chiquitita. She’s spent years waiting for him to return, we’re told presumably she’s oblivious to the existence in Ireland of train routes, driving tests or text messages. When You Danced With Me tells the story of a girl left behind in Kilkenny when a boy she loved “left for the city”. It is, admittedly, a little cheesy, but its tenderness still feels triumphant.īut rather than reflecting poignantly on the past, much of the rest of Voyage feels terminally stuck there. The second verse’s soft drum rolls (by Per Lindvall, veteran of Super Trouper and The Visitors) are among many fine, musical details that urge the women on. The opening, elegiac string phrase yearns for resolution throughout, before returning wistfully in the song’s final bars. ![]() An epic example of the “bittersweet song” Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog refer to in the lyric – in their different, yet still lovely, older voices – its meditation on how to confront and own the ageing process is precision-tailored, in glistening silver thread. It begins with I Still Have Faith in You, the other taster track released in September. And so it is hard to reckon with the disappointment that Abba’s ninth album delivers, as it prefers to languish in often bafflingly retrograde settings. ![]() Its impact was unexpected and exciting and it became Abba’s first Top 10 hit since 1981, charging Voyage with the promise of forward motion and glamour – qualities that felt wildly attractive in our messy, mid-Covid times. Next spring, dancefloor fillers, ABBA will perform a virtual residency – housed at a custom-built arena in east London for ABBA Voyage.In September, one of two album taster tracks, Don’t Shut Me Down, fulfilled this brief exquisitely, morphing from vulnerable Swedish noir to piano-and-horn-propelled pop-funk. The band had famously turned down $1billion in 2000, a sum which they were offered to reunite for 100 shows. Band members Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Bjōrn and Benny’s already sizable net worth will no doubt increase massively after their comeback tour. Swedish pop stars, ABBA became overnight, global sensations following their win on the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974. I Still Have Faith In You came close, landing at #14 on the main chart and topping the Official Vinyl Singles Chart. The band’s comeback has been greatly received, seeing Don’t Shut Me Down debut at #9 in the Official UK Singles Chart. ![]() The disco-popstars seem to have picked up exactly where they left off, pulling society into a monsoon of ABBA Mania. 'Just A Notion' was first recorded way back in 1978 but never released – until now. Recounting in a social media post, founding member Björn Ulvaeus said Just A Notion is “ a ridiculously happy song and hopefully it will cheer you up in these dark times!”ĪBBA releases a treasure from the past. Although the track had been originally written and recorded in the summer of ’78, it did not make the final cut.Īccording to ABBA, themselves, the track is a “ treasure from the past,”. According to the American music and entertainment magazine, the new track had supposedly been earmarked for sixth studio album Voulez-Vous. Just A Notion follows the already released Don’t Shut Me Down, and I Still Have Faith In You by the Swedish legends. All tracks appear on the forthcoming album, Voyage, due to release on November 5 th, the band’s first for forty years.ĭescribing the new track as “ a rollicking, feel-good number”, Billboard claims Just A Notion hits the same highs as peak-era ABBA. ![]() Following a four-decade long hiatus, ABBA Mania is set to sweep the globe yet again with some new music from the Swedish pop stars of yesteryears. ![]()
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