It's Official: ABBA Is Reuniting

[sliderocker]

ABBA, Sweden's biggest contribution to the pop music world called it quits in the very early 80s, and resisted the hopes and wishes by fans the musical group would reunite. ABBA even turned down an offer of one billion dollars to get back together for seventeen concerts around the world. Nothing seemed to be able to entice the four ABBA members into getting back together.

Until now.

But, ABBA fans will have to wait until 2018 to see the group together again. The plan is for ABBA to have a series of concerts that's being described as Virtual and Live, which will present ABBA as they were in their prime and as they are now. They are working with music mogul Simon Fuller in making it happen.

Hard to believe. Now, if it can just happen without anything bad happening to any of the members. Frida and Bjorn will be 73 in 2018, followed by Benny at 72 and Agnetha, the youngest member, will be 68.

societyofrock.com/abba-announce-official-reunion-for-the-first-time-in-over-30-years/

[the Scribe]

They sure knew how to make great pop music. One of my very favorites! So this is exciting. I wonder if they have any new music ready to release?

[erik]

I really don't think this will be something on the road to making a new album; and even if it is, the consideration has to be how good they can artistically make it, and that other dreaded question "Will it sell?"

But there's no question that they were a highly successful group around the world. In fact they were probably the most popular group of the 1970s in every country in the world, save for one: the United States. One of the reasons for that is because they didn't mount any kind of tour here in America until 1979, and the other is that, well, there was a whole lot of competition here.

This isn't to say, however, that they weren't popular here at a very substantial level. They were probably the only winners of the Eurovision song contest to have even gotten a major hit here their first time out, when "Waterloo" reached #6 in August 1974. Overall, they had fourteen Top 40 hits here in the U.S., including their #1 hit "Dancing Queen", and "Mamma Mia", which, though it only actually got to #32 here in the summer of 1976, later became the title of a hit musical based on their hits, and then a ridiculously successful film with Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan, among others.

[the Scribe]

It is a different world and I don't think Boomers buy much music these days. ABBA would have to make their sound new enough to be marketable. If they could do that and keep their core sound that would be great.

[sliderocker]

Nov 2, 2016 0:47:37 GMT -5 the Scribe said:

They sure knew how to make great pop music. One of my very favorites! So this is exciting. I wonder if they have any new music ready to release?

Based on the limited information there is, one can't say for sure whether there will be any new music. I would hope so. Back when the box set, Thank You for the Musicwas released, it was said the four ABBA members were not keen on getting back together for a tour. A new album was more of a possibility. So, now we have a tour coming up in 2018, which will be a combination of live performances and viral (videos?) and no mention of any new music. But, as the tour is being planned for 2018, something tells me there is a possibility new music is being planned and may be in the works as we speak.

[sliderocker]

Nov 2, 2016 9:09:59 GMT -5 erik said:

I really don't think this will be something on the road to making a new album; and even if it is, the consideration has to be how good they can artistically make it, and that other dreaded question "Will it sell?"

But there's no question that they were a highly successful group around the world. In fact they were probably the most popular group of the 1970s in every country in the world, save for one: the United States. One of the reasons for that is because they didn't mount any kind of tour here in America until 1979, and the other is that, well, there was a whole lot of competition here.

This isn't to say, however, that they weren't popular here at a very substantial level. They were probably the only winners of the Eurovision song contest to have even gotten a major hit here their first time out, when "Waterloo" reached #6 in August 1974. Overall, they had fourteen Top 40 hits here in the U.S., including their #1 hit "Dancing Queen", and "Mamma Mia", which, though it only actually got to #32 here in the summer of 1976, later became the title of a hit musical based on their hits, and then a ridiculously successful film with Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan, among others.

With Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, if there is a new album, it will be up to the standards of their past as otherwise, they won't release it. The question being good artistically has been one question on Benny's and Bjorn's minds as well. They had also been concerned about wanting fans to remember ABBA as they had been, and not as their older selves. Maybe seeing other groups get back together in their golden years or sunset years caused them to have a change of heart about the idea. Maybe it was seeing members of other groups die off without ever getting back together, even if it was for one last time, and knowing their time might be short as well.

As for the music not being good enough, some of the ABBA songs that were only available as a B-side were judged by Benny and Bjorn as not being good enough for the album they were working on. I had to question their judgement on some of those songs. There were some B-sides I thought were more interesting than their A-sides. Agnetha Faltskog is also a songwriter and who had one writing credit on ABBA's unofficial first album, Ring Ring (which except for "Ring, Ring" and a couple of other songs, was a collection of songs recorded by ABBA before they officially became known as ABBA) to her name. She and Frida Lyngstad had been encouraged by Benny and Bjorn to write songs for the group. They were too intimidated by the songs being written by Benny and Bjorn to do that. ABBA's live concert set list did include a song written by Agnetha but never recorded by ABBA, "I'm Still Alive." Maybe Agnetha can be cajoled into writing something this time around?

Curiously, after ABBA split, it was always the guys who were against ABBA reuniting. Both Agnetha and Frida were in favor of getting back together, even during the time when Agnetha withdrew from the public eye for a while. Many fans thought she was the holdout to a reunion in earlier times, even though she just wasn't making any new music herself. She had been open to a reunion during that time if it came about, although Benny and Bjorn were the ones who were against a reunion of any kind during that time. I still have to wonder though, what's changed? I'm excited they are getting back together but why after all of these years, when there might have been better opportunities in the past for a reunion?