ABBA-Mania

Frida turns 75 tomorrow 

ABBA - In Their Own Words
A new-ish retelling of the familiar story, reliant on archive of the band, and some new stuff. Donny Osmond and Barbara Dickson were less familiar names offering their thoughts.

Their 1992 compilation "Gold" is the first album to spend 1,000 weeks in the UK album charts, and is the all-time 2nd-best seller, behind Queen's Greatest Hits.

misery guts wrote:They're back:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43924609

Pop group Abba have returned 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."
No release date has been set for the new songs - 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.

What a day.

Supposedly a big announcement is finally happening this week, a mere 3 years after this last update... 

It's for real - a new album, Voyage, and some kind of virtual world tour too! 

Of the two singles so far released, I Still Have Faith In You entered the UK chart at #14, whilst Don't Shut Me Down went in at #9, their first new top 10 hit since One Of Us in 1981.

The singles dropped down heavily in their 2nd weeks.

ABBA's Greatest Moments
A top 30 rundown with a multitude of contributors relevant and otherwise. The top 5 were:

5 - Waterloo winning Eurovision
4 - Knowing Me, Knowing You
3 - the Mamma Mia movie
2 - The Winner Takes It All
1 - Dancing Queen.

"Voyage" was released this week, and went to #1, as had their last proper pre-hiatus album The Visitors. They got the highest first week sales since Ed Sheeran's Divide, a few years back.

misery guts wrote:ABBA - In Their Own Words
A new-ish retelling of the familiar story, reliant on archive of the band, and some new stuff. Donny Osmond and Barbara Dickson were less familiar names offering their thoughts.

ABBA - Then and Now - In Their Own Words
Amusingly updated with the news of the new (final?) album, there was some new footage of band members talking, but a lot was pointedly from previous similar shows (one in 1999 came up a few times).

ABBA In Switzerland
A special from 1979 at the ski resort of Leysin. Besides the band running through several numbers (particularly from their then-current Voulez-Vous record) in a circus tent backdrop, there was a couple of guest performances, with Roxy Music doing Dance Away, and Kate Bush doing Wow.

Benny turned 75 last month 

Voyage has been a big success; amongst other things it's been credited for 2021 seeing the largest vinyl sales since 1991.

I picked up Arrival and More Abba Gold the other week, which I'm quite pleased to have done 

misery guts wrote:It's for real - a new album, Voyage, and some kind of virtual world tour too! 

The tour was launched last night in London, with all 4 band members present to witness what are called, ABBA-tars 

ABBA: The Missing 40 Years
How to keep re-telling the old story? This looked at the dwindling end to their initial run, their post-band projects, the 90s revival, and eventual reconciliation. Frida made a solo record with Phil Collins (and Phil's producer Hugh Padgham) because she liked "In The Air Tonight". Sure enough "I Know There's Something Going On" sounds like ITAT. Agnetha had mixed luck with her own. Erasure's tribute EP in 1992 helpfully preceded the Gold compilation which sold tons. Then there was Mamma Mia the musical and film, and so on.

ABBA - Best Covers Ever
A mixed selection, with Andy Bell willingly talking about Erasure's 1992 triumph which arguably helped start the ball rolling on the whole revival, Carla Bruni talked about doing The Winner Takes It All in an Edith Piaf chanteuse style, Neil Arthur talked about how Blancmange put a spin on The Day Before You Came, Adrian Utley discussed why Portishead made S.O.S. even sadder, and there were also takes from Madonna, Cher and Sinead O'Connor.

Lasse Wellander, long-time guitarist in the ABBA fold, died on Friday at the age of 70. RIP  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65232127

He worked with them from 1975, even up to their recent comeback album. I think I'm right in saying he made for one of the talking heads on some of the many tribute shows for their career in recent years. ABBA themselves paid warm tribute to his life and loss.

Emma Barnett meets... Bjorn Ulvaeus
Largely about the Voyage stage show, whether other acts might do their own, how long it took to get the movements, where the show might go in future, how it will live on after they all die, why Slipping Through My Fingers is a track he picks out as memorable, why they don't allow song use in commercials, turning down offers of a biopic, living in Stockholm, and recently buying his first record player for 40-odd years.

ABBA - Bjorn and Benny : The Interviews
Victoria Derbyshire met them in a studio, again to talk about the Voyage show, the dangers of AI, how easy it is to use ChatGPT to write an ABBA lyric, their unwillingness to appear at EuroVision in 2024, or tour again, their surprise at LGBTQ+ support for the music, having met in 1966, but not socialising these days.

One band member a bit busier is Agnetha, who recently put out a new track Where Do We Go From Here? possibly in connection with a bumped-up reissue of one of her solo records.

misery guts wrote:
ABBA at the BBC
Put together to complement the above, this featured 16 of their hits, including less familiar numbers like 'Kisses of Fire', which was nice. As they were rather too big a name to be live on Top of the Pops, it was a good show for videos.

More ABBA at the BBC
Partly to mark the 50th anniversary of their EuroVision triumph, another cobbling together of stuff from shows, with a few chat show bits, and the hype of their 2021 comeback .

Eurovision 1974 Celebration
Hannah Waddingham presented his intro for a repeat of the very contest (which I didn't watch). She talked about the venue, the host, the UK entry, the commentator, her experiences co-hosting in 2023, the tight voting and so on.

ABBA: The Movie
From 1977, director Lasse Hallstrom wraps a thin plot of an Aussie DJ pursuing the band around their tour of the country, with much concert footage of songs from the first half of their career. A few are fairly forgotten, which adds charm. Sadly, the DJ is played by an actor who has since become rather an unpleasant case, so the film's value is tarnished as a result.

When ABBA Came To Britain
A new round-up of various trips they made, when on the rise, at their peak, and then towards the end. Of course their Eurovision win was held in the seaside resort of Brighton, Super Trouper was inspired by a tour date in Glasgow, and one of their last telly appearances came in an interview with Noel Edmonds (amusingly the fan who was picked to meet them was present to talk about the melancholy nature of the show). DJ Fat Tony talked about the London club nights in the early 1990s that helped kick start the revival, and newsreader Gillian Joseph recalled being in one of the child choirs who helped perform I Have A Dream. So, a few different contributors than is often the case.

ABBA: How They Won EuroVision
The early years, pretty much, tracks like People Need Love and Ring Ring, the full saga of their Brighton triumph, and how things panned out later.

ABBA - Against The Odds
How the Swedish supergroup were often struggling to confound critics, at home and abroad. The story that Sweden tried to miss hosting the 1975 EuroVision, such was their dismissal of ABBA's success, and instead hosted an alternative contest with material slagging the band off, was pretty grim. Their disco album Voulez Vous was put in context with the horrendous Comiskey Park "disco sucks" event.

ABBA: 50 Years Of Pop
A largely Swedish cast gave their feelings on their most famous musical countrymen. This included Ulf from Ace of Base, Avicii's compadre, Nina from the Cardigans, Dr Alban himself, and various others too. So that made a nice change. Sweden seem to have come to terms, after early scepticism.

Bjorn Ulvaeus has remarried (his 3rd overall). Danish comedian Sandi Toksvig presided over the ceremony.