ABBA Voyage: General Discussion 2021 Sept - Dec

I doubt you have. You won't get it Wednesday....unless it's illegal

I have heard of this before, but only for reissues of albums/singles where the music is already available. Also HMV back in the day did send stuff out early, so that it arrived on the Saturday before the (then) Monday release date. I got a fair few new albums that way.

Thing is, what is to stop them? If they’ve been pre-ordered and paid for, there’s presumably a way of hiding the fact that they’ve let them go early. Risky though. HMV certainly wouldn’t do it but a rogue independent store might, if it meant you might then give them custom in the future.

I love the front-cover of the standard edition and think it's very classy, although normally I would have preferred a photo of ABBA on the front (as I would have for "Gold"). But I'm not keen on the ABBAtars images on the alternative edition. I'm hoping there will be a real photo of them on the back-cover - this morning on Facebook I've seen an image of the song titles superimposed over the image of them in their 'animation suits' but I'm not sure whether it is fan-made. I've also seen some other alternative covers featuring the new photos from The Guardian article but I imagine these are fan-made.

I do hope that "Little Things" doesn't have the word Christmas in it and isn't too seasonal, as I want to be able to listen to it at other times of the year. It is widely assumed that it will be a single but I don't believe that anyone official has even hinted at this.

First full review, I think, courtesy of Pop Justice...
1. When You Danced With Me: Chiquitita meets Arrival. Mid tempo. Frida & Agnetha both sing lead. The instrumental is lovely.
2. Little Things: Christmas ballad about how one wakes up in he Christmas morning and be grateful. Very good track, sounds like a happy version of Like An Angel Passing Through My Room. Frida & Agnetha on lead although Agnetha is more prominent. The song ends with children choir.
3. I Can Be That Woman: Agnetha leads. Love ballad. I need more listen to decide if this one's good or not.
4. Keep An Eye On Dan: Agnetha leads. Upbeat synth-pop. This song is very un-ABBA but it's really good. You guys are not ready for the chorus & amazing synth in this song. The vocals in this song left me thinking Agnetha in her prime would have NAILED this. The ending piano sounds identical to SOS. The boys sang backing vocal here.
5. Bumblebee: Frida leads. Folk ballad. I don't really remember much about this song butFrida's voice is absolutely stunning here.
6. No Doubt About It: Classic ABBA sound. Upbeat happy disco song. Frida sings lead. God she sounds amazing.
7. Ode to Freedom: Grand epic full orchestral ballad. Very emotional. If Voyage was the last ABBA album I'm happy this was the song to end it.

Here we go !!!!
The reviews begin....

I'm really intrigued now and cant wait to hear it.....

I have a 4 hour journey to Cornwall on Sunday.. I wonder what will be on constant play ? assuming i get my CD...aaagghh.... Ill be on my own so as loud as i can get it !! people will think I'm nuts as Ill know every word  ( well I think i do ..lol ....singing along...).

Now that the album reviews are starting to leak out, I will go 'radio silent' and withdraw from the forum for a few days until after I've listened to the album a few times. I don't really want to have any preconceptions of the album tracks before I hear them for the first time. And I'll probably then submit my own views on the tracks before I read other people's. This forum is going to go mad come 5th November, so I'll have to try to find a way of switching off e-mail notifications or sleeping my account.

I never get email notifications, so must have turned them off when I joined. It would drive me mad!

You have to be in the “Desktop” version to edit this on your profile. If you’re in the Mobile version, there should be an option at the bottom of the screen saying “Desktop”. Click on that.

Then go into Profile (this is on the horizontal list of options in green directly under the forum banner).

Edit Profile (a button on the right on your profile page)

Notifications (a tab in your options).

You’ll then see a list of notifications. In the Email column, change all of them to “Never” (assuming you want no notifications at all - it will still notify you within the forum of quotes of your posts etc).

Once amended, return to the Mobile version (assuming that’s your default option) by clicking on that at the bottom of the screen.

On YouTube I found an interview in Swedish with Benny called 'BENNY INTERVIEW (LONGER) (SWEDISH ONLY) (2021).

If you scroll down the comments to a person called Dracopticon you will find a translation into English.

Sorry if this widely known already and I am posting info everyone knows !!

Martin

I love reading the snippets about the album. It's like non-spoiling spoilers, if that makes sense. Interesting that they're frontloading the album with slower-paced material. I'm SO looking forward to hearing the album now!

I was out for a walk this morning and I played the three Voyage tracks on iTunes. When ISHFIY ended, DSMD started with a fade, basically beginning with Agnetha's vocal: this has never happened before. When I play DSMD alone, it starts as normal. But when I let the three tracks play in sequence, the fade happens. JAN starts as normal. 

It made me wonder if the children's voices at the end of Little Things cross-fade with the start of DSMD? It would be a nice connection with the lyrics ("A while ago, I heard the sound of children's laughter...") and a cute enhancement to the storytelling in the song.

Fantastic to see the album as it is! I was doubtful about the blue vinyl - I thought it might clash with the cover. But it looks good! Loving the hype sticker too. I notice that the first A in ABBA on the record label is white. I spotted that on a couple of the items in the Voyage shop and wondered if it was just a website error. I wonder if it signifies anything? Is it to be read as A Voyage?

Surely... (I'm not calling anyone Shirley, promise) Voyage follows the quasi-concept if not a whole concept album pattern as Super Trouper (technique; fade in to another song) or The Album (a fixed structure where on the second side the two songs are linked together lyrically and sonically) did. The whole concept album pattern seems to be regaining popularity over the years, and are somewhat widely embraced by contemporary artists of any kind.

You clever thing! That sounds like the right idea. I haven't seen the other side of anything yet - it's only what's visible on the retail sites. Maybe one of the people who got an early cassette could let us know if there's a corresponding white B on the flipside.

There’s some more information bout the new songs, but coming from Björn.

Björn Ulvaeus inför Abba-släppet: ”Nervös”


Translation
Björn Ulvaeus about ...
The Christmas song "Little things":
- When Benny played it for me, I immediately felt that "This is a Christmas song". It is not that we wanted to do a Christmas song, or that it would be "commercially good" to do a Christmas song right now. I just got such a clear picture of a "Christmas morning", this peace and quiet before the children have woken up, he says.
"Bumble Bee":
- The bumblebee is such a beautiful image for the vulnerable nature that we are talking about now. How species die out and how to watch a bumblebee under a blue sky on a summer day. And then the thought comes to "what if it no longer existed". It would be a kind of loneliness that man has never experienced before, when the species dies out and we are left.
"I still have faith in you":
- It is a bit existentialist, it needs to be in its narrative, I think. I am thinking of the journey we have made, and while it can be read just as if it were about us, it has other roots, about strange things, about "unions". I think people should be able to discover for themselves what it is about, says Björn Ulvaeus.
"Ode to freedom":
- What freedom is, it is very difficult to understand and there are any number of definitions. So I wish in the song that someone would write an ode to freedom that was good.
"Keep an eye on Dan":
- You have divorced someone and perhaps did not want to divorce, then you have your existence around the child that you share. And the very moment when you leave the child and leave, I think many people recognize that. I myself have been through it, of course, it comes from it.

The PopJustice person that’s heard the album later posted:

“Keep an eye on Dan is about Agnetha telling some guy to babysit her kid Dan.”

Possibly they’ve misunderstood it, as Björn’s explanation appears to imply that “some guy” is the ex-husband. It could indeed relate to his own experiences back then. Christian was just a year old when Björn and Agnetha separated at the end of 1978, and Linda was only five.

As a reminder, the lyrics include:
keep an eye on dan /
promise me you can /
he gets out of hand, if you let him /
so keep an eye on dan

Apparently “When You Danced With Me” has an Irish influence (again according to the PopJustice person).

Will ABBA be bringing on the uilleann pipes? Hope so. Kate Bush used them to great effect on many tracks, along with plenty of other Irish influences.

Also, there’s an ABBA Voyage concert trailer at 10am tomorrow, when the next batch of tickets become available.