On November 5, 2021, the pop group ABBA released their new album Voyage after a 40-year hiatus. The group had virtually disbanded, though there was no official news of their dissolution since the spring of 1982. Forty years is a long time. It contains Madonna’s entire career since her debut, which came after ABBA split up. There are a few important requirements for a band to return with a new album after a 40-year pause and reach the top of music streaming platforms’ new albums charts in 2021. First, all members must be able to perform. ABBA walked away after gaining immense global popularity in less than ten years, and all members of the band, whose ages range from 71 to 76 today, have no problem engaging in studio work and other pop group activities. Second, the band should not have been forgotten during the 40-year absence. Needless to say, ABBA is a champion in this respect. Their best-of album ABBA Gold, which was released in 1992, remained at the top of the UK’s album charts for 1,000 weeks. Mamma Mia! the musical was one of the first so-called jukebox musicals that paved the way for numerous similar works and even led to two film productions. 

The problem was the pandemic. Or rather, it was an opportunity. ABBA’s return is actually old news. They announced in 2016 that ABBA would return with a virtual concert. The idea was to have the members’ “avatars” (or in this case, ABBAtars) perform on stage and accompanied by a live band. Two new songs were set for release in 2018 and were slated to be included in the virtual performance. All of this started to come to life in the fall of 2021. ABBA’s new songs “I Still Have Faith In You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down” were released on September 2. The group’s virtual concert plan is quite concrete as well. Preparations for a concert in London in May next year are currently underway. There are many reasons for this long interval of over five years between the initial news and now, with the pandemic being one, and the quality of the ABBAtars being another. One thing is clear: ABBA members still enjoyed making and singing songs after 2018 – aside from the two new songs made to promote their concert, they ended up making a few more, and eventually made a whole album while they were at it. 

Meanwhile, the public has grown more familiar with the concept of a virtual concert over the past few years. In fact, a concert featuring ABBAtars seems more fitting for a virtual concert than with any other artist. There isn’t even a hint of uneasiness about the idea of a concert performed by virtual characters or having a hologram of a deceased performer on stage as a form of remembrance or commemoration. The ABBAtars were made based on the members’ appearance and fashion in 1979. The use of the ABBAtars eliminates the burden on ABBA’s elderly members of having to go on stage in this pandemic era while perfectly delivering the sense of nostalgia and reminiscence desired by the concert’s primary audience. This experience is wholly unique from those provided by the retro concerts that gained popularity in the 1990s, which were touching in that both the artists and their fans grew old and met again. The format also works with the fact that ABBA’s female singers refuse any and all forms of media exposure. The ABBAtars, on the other hand, we can see right now, as they appear at the end of the “I Still Have Faith In You” music video.

TRIVIA

ABBA

ABBA was ahead of their times in technological innovations other than the upcoming virtual concert. In the mid-1970s, the band was among the first to make single short video clips for promotional purposes, what we call a “music video” today. Their 1981 album The Visitors was one of the first commercial albums released in the form of a CD after digital recording and mixing.