ABBA Voyage: General Discussion 2020

I don't think locking this thread is the way to go, although that's not my decision.

Either way, there'll be a flurry of activity once the new songs are released and hopefully not too many people will leap on it and start threads saying basically the same thing! What we'll need is possibly one new thread, entitled, "They're finally here!" or "New ABBA SONGS 2020" just to keep things neat and "tidy" 😆 fresh and in one place.

Surely the best thing to do, when the new songs emerge, is simply to create new threads for them under each song title?

If there is a studio album (we live in hope!), there is already a place to discuss those - the title can be added in to the existing range of albums.

PS What would you call a new studio album, if one was to emerge?? 'The Re-Visitors'?? :-)

ABBA- Reanimated.



That's not a bad idea at all- to create a thread for each of the two new songs. 

I hope the new songs, if there are just the two, will be commented on/reviewed in one new thread, not two. That way they can be more directly compared and contrasted with each other, which I think might be interesting. Even if we ever got a new album, I would still prefer it to be discussed in a single thread, at least at first. Individual tracks could then get their own individual threads later.
That's just my preference at the moment, anyway. 

Well, that would be ideal, Richard, but unfortunately there is a strong likelihood that some people may rush to create threads and it'll all become a bit of a mish-mash.

This is where staying on topic is the way to go, or at least veering back to the original gist.

I think given that if there is to be new album and that it would most likely be their final album that a good title would be Departure with Abba completing their musical journey. Or simply Faith given the fans loyalty over the years and belief in them.

In order not to make this thread more scattershot than it is already, I've set up a bit-of-fun 'final album' title suggestions thread (which I'm fully expecting to wither and die within the week!) in the 'ABBA Games & Polls' section.

I agree with you Tony, I would very much anticipate the prospect of completely new material from ABBA.

Adam, this is an interesting point. A sort of deluxe collector's edition set comprising of two discs. One disc an album of completely new songs and the other the shelved " Opus 10 " project. Now, that would be exciting but alas I don't think it will bear fruition no matter how hard we would like it to.

Plus there’s two myths there. Opus 10 never existed (in that it was never going to be called that).

Secondly, only three of the six 1982 songs were recorded for a possible album, those being Just Like That, I Am The City and You Owe Me One. In all likelihood, You Owe Me One would only have ever been a b-side (possibly for the first single, as was ABBA’s usual way).

The other three tracks were recorded specifically for single release to add to a compilation album, once album plans were abandoned (presumably a spare in case record companies didn’t like one of the two intended singles).

A separate disc of 1982 tracks is not needed. Five of them appear on the deluxe edition of The Visitors and JLT just ain’t gonna happen, except in your dreams.

A little more back on track..
my apologies I’m not that good at technical stuff as some of you may know, so perhaps someone can post what I’m going to say.
On the BBC website there’s an article on the Whitney Houston hologram tour to scathing reviews. At £40-£70 a ticket it’s not good reading .

Abbatars, will have a lot to live up to.. is it all going to be worth it or is there some technology ABBA are going to use that Whitney hasn’t.. by that review I certainly hope so...

The thing is, whatever differences in technical approach there are aside, the people behind the Whitney show have been hyping that one in much the same way:

"This one of a kind holographic experience will reunite audiences with the beloved Queen of Pop using state of the art technology, creating a “wow factor” that extends to an incredible experience to enjoy for years to come [...] a phenomenal hologram [...] Her fans deserve nothing less."

This leads back to a worry already voiced a number of times: aren't ABBA creating a rod for their backs with this sort of high expectation-building talk?  I thought towards the end of their first run as a group, they'd done well to distance themselves from their glitter past and to re-brand (horrid term, used for convenience) themselves as mature and sober and effacing, more pragmatic in terms of how they made their material relate to/comment on ordinary life.  At the end they were no longer in the business of trying to make us "forget the rain," as Bjorn said to one of the concert crowds in The Movie, but of trying to make us accept the rain.  With this touted ABBAtars show, they seem to be regressing back to becoming hawkers of escapism again (see also the way Bjorn was promoting that Mamma-Mia Party thing).  In any case, I wish they'd manage expectation a bit by admitting that this will remain an experiment to some degree, and it might not come off (but is still worth doing, to find out what it adds up to and what it can lead to).  I suppose, though, you can only ask cost-recouping top whack seat prices if you've promised people the Moon on a stick (or four sticks, in this case). 

This whole conceit is outright ghoulish and exploitative when the artist is no longer alive (how can we ever know that they would've been happy to be 'resurrected' like this, and in order to keep a number of people they undoubtedly never knew in life on a nice little earner?). With the core members of ABBA all still alive, the macabre aspect would be side-stepped for now, but I'm still betting the show will have a weirdly thin and lifeless feel to it, suspending disbelief being a conscious process and hard work, if you 'know the score' beforehand and you're being asked to do it for longer than a few minutes.

That Audrey Hepburn chocolate ad is another of the same sort. Creating digital effigies seems all sorts of wrong as a way of practising remembrance, or a way of relating where and who we are now to where we, and those now no longer here, were in the past. CGI likenesses trivialise the complexities of remembering, and of feeling regret, and of trying to make sense of the passing of time.