ABBA Voyage: General Discussion 2021 Sept - Dec

^^ Agreed. My jaw dropped at some of Frida's low notes! I found the lyrics online this morning and had a go at singing along. It is not an easy sing! For me, the melody is up there with When The Waves Roll Out To Sea. It's a really emotional song.

And Don't Shut Me Down is so different. It has those very direct narrative lyrics that Bjorn became so fond of, setting clearly-imaginable scenes. The way the two voices blend in the chorus is that 100% classic ABBA sound. And the piano flourishes are unmistakable. 

I love the album cover, with just the sun and planet. Very stylish.

I hope the marketing guys don't ruin it, like they did with the VOULEZ VOUS album cover. (With in-yer-face wording: "Features the singles 'CHIQUITITA' and 'DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW' ")

Well... Yesterday, hell kind of froze over, didn't it? Amazing, amazing, amazing. The most emotional moment for me (and it was up against a lot of stiff competition...) was when Benny uttered the confirmation that there'd be a new album. That's all that really matters to me TBH. I'm not bothered about chart positions, sales, the show, or even what the new songs actually sound like. A NEW ABBA ALBUM. Magical words. 40 - for-ty - years on. I keep having to remind myself what that means, in terms of my life and in terms of ABBA's, of course. It all feels like a HUGE thing. Closure. The circle completed with geometrical perfection. Loose ends tied.

And you can add me to the Disturbed Sleep Club. How on Earth could anyone get a decent night's shut-eye after the evening we'd just had? ISHFIY was going round and round in my head and I felt myself welling up every time I thought of that brutally simple but blissfully evocative synth line - you know, the one where you just can't help singing 'I Still Have Faith in You' to yourself, even though it's not actually on the record!

Definite preference for ISHFIY out of the two songs ATM, even though I'm usually an Upbeat Boy! DSMD is a good'un too, make no mistake. Sounds like a significant upgrade of OoU (which I never much cared for) with a dash of TDBYC sprinkled lightly on top. I like the fact that the songs just try to sound like ABBA in 2021 and (a) not like ABBA in 1978 or (b) like anyone else in 2021. They simply tick all the boxes for all of us in the ABBAverse and that's more than good enough for me.

I can definitely see ABBA trying to 'do a Cliff' at Christmas and storm the seasonal airwaves (if not the charts, but you never know...) with 'Little Things'.

Quite incredible. Light overwhelms the gloom - and how often have we been able to say THAT in recent years?

Was it said in the live stream that every move the ABBATars make was done by the real ABBA for this project? So what we’re seeing is essentially ABBA now in terms of movement, but just looking well over 40 years younger.

There’s still no word on what the 20 other songs that they perform will be. Studio versions? Live versions where available? It’s not going to be as straightforward as the 19 songs from Gold plus one other. Benny said they wanted to do some lesser-known songs. Under Attack was mentioned so might be in there. I would want Lay All Your Love on Me in it being as there was never a video or TV performance showing them perform it. Similar for Angeleyes but I doubt we’ll get that one.

Still, with over 100 songs in the bank, there’s plenty to choose from for a second show in the future.

I imagine they will favour up-tempo songs for a concert, so LAYLOM should be in there... unless they want to minimise movement due to limits on computing power

Among the lesser-known songs that B&B like, I have a feeling "I Wonder" will be in there, as it seems to find its way everywhere else.

I was surprised that when asked about songs that weren't released as singles but could have been big, they mentioned "The King Has Lost His Crown". In that category, "If It Wasn't For The Nights" would probably have been at the top of my list. And what about "Hasta Manana" in the early days?

P.S. Shocking prices being charged for ABBA Voyage albums by re-sellers on eBay.

Just a thought: isn't it time to call it a day on this great thread now that the new songs have appeared?
Maybe time to start a new thread called something like 'The Voyage album and the new ABBA songs' ?
And what about a moderator transferring our comments on ISHFIY and DSMD, to such a new thread?
Just thought I'd mention it.

Might be difficult… Zeebee is the moderator but he hasn’t been online in nearly a year (10 Sept 2020). Roxanne is the admin but likewise not been online since October last year. I keep wondering if the forum will just suddenly disappear one day, as the licence has to be renewed every year or so I think. There are no other moderators as far as I know.

I think it basically requires enough people to continuously stream the songs on Spotify or other streaming services that count towards the chart. Ed Sheeran fans must be doing that. All through the day and night. But most ABBA fans are of an age where they won’t do that - I’ve been using YouTube but it takes a hell of a lot more streams from that than it does from Spotify to count as one unit.

Charts are a lost cause. Even the album chart now isn’t promising - I don’t think ABBA will be able to compete with Ed Sheeran, even for one week, so looks like a number 2. His album is released a week before. It is possible they may be able to topple him for a week but I wouldn’t put money on it. As with ABBA, all pre-orders go into the first week’s sales, so we can hope that enough people do that with Sheeran’s and don’t wait until the second week.

How amazing would it be if 'Just Like That' is a hidden track on the new album considering Agnetha is 71 years old her voice sounds incredible its not changed at all since 2013 and Frida's voice is in better condition than I thought it would be and all day I am getting the feeling of what it was like to be an ABBA fan in the 70s and 80s and they are doing all their own backing vocals just like they used to.

Is DSMD the follow on from One Of Us.... ?

Ming-boggling indeed. Is there anybody who bought all of them? :-) I was quite determined to support the release as much as possible (at the time we thought there would be just a single or two) but honestly I haven't expected this. I still pre-ordered quite many - the coloured vinyls (not all of them though), the picture discs (thank you, The Rubber Ball Man for the link to the french site) and two versions of the CD. Oh, and the singles. After all, I have many of the classic albums in far more versions than this :-)

In response to Alan, I purchased all the coloured vinyl, where ever it was offered as "exclusive", plus the standard black vinyl and the cd box set with cards and poster, etc.
That's enough for me and my wallet!!!!
As you said "mind boggling" and way more than expected and I might add a bit more than really necessary, at least all at once.

FYI..

Just in case your interested !!

Both singles failed to make the official UK singles chart this week... However they did make number 8, ISHFIY ,and DSMD at 10 in the UK download charts, alas this means nothing..
That said its only one day and no physical sales ( I think ) so next week we could be talking something else.......

Gold rises to 12 in the official UK album Chart its 1009th week....