New Songs for 2023 ?

Being like a kid at Christmas.... I want all my presents NOW and 2023 is to far away.. I could be dead..lol....

Realistically... I imagine IF they do release those tracks, it’ll be sooner rather than later, as momentum for Voyage(Album) has dropped significantly, so who’s going to buy it again for those two tracks... Us of course, but we are such a small number, it won’t have much impact, unless that is Voyage goes down the streaming route which is unlikely.
So it’s going to be interesting if anything will happen over the next few months.

They could just be stand alone tracks/ singles, for that matter and not bother with Voyage......

I hope that if they do release these two songs that it's just a stand alone single. But do they do that any more? as it's all about down loads these days. That is if the songs are any good ? They were left of Voyage and Benny had said both songs need work. So he was not happy with what they have done so far on these two songs.

Bear in mind that the quotes from Benny in the Mirror were six months old. A lot has been said since then, as someone has already pointed out.

Also, the tendency these days is for shorter albums. This has probably got something to do with streaming but also because the maximum length of a vinyl side before sound quality is affected is about 20 minutes, and vinyl rules now (even though CD sales are still much higher).

20 years ago, albums were longer as vinyl didn’t have to be considered. ABBA probably wouldn’t have got away with a 37-minute album back then (it’s only about three minutes longer than Arrival, their shortest album), so the two tracks might have had to be finished for inclusion. Or, as I said before, they could have been used as b-sides and then added to CD editions of the album later on.

As it stands, it’s a repeat of what happened with I Am The City and Just Like That. We knew of those titles back in 1982, but it was 11 years before one of them was released properly and the other one still hasn’t been issued in full. We just need at least one of these two songs to leak so that some fans can proclaim it the best thing ABBA have ever done, and history will fully be repeated.

I don't understand why people don't like Little Things. When the album was about to come out I was hearing talk will there be a Christmas song, Well we got one but it looks like for most people it's not the right Christmas song so Abba can't win. I for one love the song I played the album last night and don't skip LT and we are in July.

^^^ The Matt pop mix of Little Things is brilliant, would’ve been a bigger hit
Ditto re the Album, apart from DSMD, I haven’t heard the album for weeks.....

I think there's a slight, tentative hope from some of us that there will be more from ABBA simply because, as welshboy says, those two songs for the Voyage project got added to for an album; and so we hope it will happen again, one last time. But of course such a hope entails not really believing it when Benny says 'this is it'.

It actually went from two songs to five songs and then finally a whole album. It is likely that by early 2019 there were five songs, with the other five possibly all recorded/completed in 2021. I seem to recall an interview with Benny during that period where he pretty much asked (in his usual aloof manner) why anyone would think there would be an album.

He’s perhaps a bit of a control freak and doesn’t want anyone to believe or even think it until it’s announced. I can’t really understand the logic of keeping two “quite good” ABBA songs unfinished.

That’s hilarious. He obviously thinks people will believe anything. ABBA collectively created a new legal entity, 1221 AB, in order to release Voyage and hold the rights to the master tapes.

What's the status of a new pop song? I suggest that it's primarily for entertainment in the present. Is the song effective, does it work, in the here and now? Whether or not it will come to be generally regarded as any good or a 'classic' only time will tell. So I find all this debate and uncertainty about a couple of songs already regarded by the composer as "quite good"- will they, won't they, be released? - difficult to understand. Get them out there while you can! If they're not liked by everyone, so be it. Little Things certainly isn't. There are surely a number of such songs in any artist's catalogue. And in any case, artists have been known to change their minds - as listeners do - for and against - about released tracks, including Benny and Bjorn.
I know it's a different era and genre, and he was a prolific genius, but Schubert - who died aged 31 - perhaps had a very different attitude to that prevalent in the modern commercial pop music era: he just kept on writing songs, and ended up with over 600 of them - along with 9 symphonies and numerous other works. Puts things in a bit of perspective, I think.
I hope you're right, welshboy, and that we'll get more from ABBA before it really is too late.

Some fans are fixated about new songs. Any new songs, likely to be the two unfinished Voyage tracks.

Why are people so obsessed with songs they haven't heard?

I too would like to see ABBA go out on a high - and wouldn't want two substandard songs released. Ok, we don't know the quality but some fans would want anything released. Only release if they are good.

If I was in Benny's position and had two tracks that I didn't feel were good enough for an album I wouldn't even have mentioned them.

And after 40 years of some fans demanding JLT be released, why say there are unfinished songs? I get the impression Benny likes to wind up ABBA's most fervent and vocal fans.

I love that they’ve come together in their latter years. I just wish that they wouldn’t hide behind this animated facade though. As wonderful as the ISHFIY video is, with the charming old footage, I think it would have been really authentic, and backed-up the song more powerfully, had they featured in the video as they are now. They don’t need to be ashamed of being in their 70’s: they look great as an older incarnation.

B&B always carried (unreleased) ideas across to the next album so these two songs could be that stepping-stone. Also, when they recorded Voyage there was a lot of COVID BS going on and getting people together (especially older ones) must have really dragged the creativity through the grass. Maybe another run at new songs could be a lot more fluid creatively next time. Perhaps Frida could get a nice Air B&B in Sweden and the four of them could sort something out quite quickly like the old days.