LONDON (AP) – ABBA is releasing its first new music in four decades along with a concert performance in which the “Dancing Queen” quartet will be fully digitized.
The upcoming album “Voyage”, which will be released on November 5th, is the successor to “The Visitors” from 1981, which was previously the swan song of the Swedish supergroup. And a virtual version of the band will start a concert series in London on May 27th.
“We took a hiatus in the spring of 1982 and have now decided it is time to end it,” ABBA said in a statement Thursday. “They say it’s foolish to wait more than 40 years between albums, so we recorded a sequel to ‘The Visitors’.”
The group developed the live holographic show using motion capture and other techniques together with George Lucas’ special effects company Industrial Light & Magic.
They call it “the strangest and most spectacular concert you can ever dream of”.
“We’ll be able to sit back in the audience and watch our digital selves perform our songs,” the group said. “Strange and wonderful!”
The planned show spurred the creation of the album, which contains the new songs “I Still Have Faith In You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down”. It started with meetings in 2018 and was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The show comes 50 years after the group was founded, which consisted of two married couples for most of its existence and whose name is an acronym from the first names of their members, Agnetha Fältskog, 71, Björn Ulvaeus, 76, Benny Andersson, 74, and Anni -Frid Lyngstad, 75.
Their music has remained omnipresent in the decades since their separation, also because of the stage musical “Mamma Mia!”. and the following two films.
In 2010 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Last week the group launched a website called “ABBA Voyage” and teased the new announcement. Tickets go on sale on Tuesday.
Google News Source * www.wfla.com – * Source link