Mamma Mia! ABBA makes new music after 35 years
STOCKhOlM: Sweden’s legendary disco group ABBA has announced that it has reunited to record two new songs, 35 years after its last single, sparking joy and surprise among fans.
“We all four felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the recording studio. So we did,” the group said in a statement yesterday after repeatedly vowing that it would never reunite.
The new songs – I Still Have Faith In You and Don’t Shut Me Down – were recorded last summer, the band’s manager Gorel Hanser told TT news agency.
The quartet split up in 1982 after dominating the disco scene for more than a decade with hits like Waterloo, Dancing Queen, Mamma Mia and Super Trouper.
“It was like time had stood still and we only had been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyful experience!” members Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson added.
The group, which sold over 400 million albums, have not sung together publicly since 1986.
The stunning announcement came as Sweden was mourning the death of another of its music sensations, Avicii, one of the world’s most successful DJs, whose real name was Tim Bergling.
Computerised avatars are set to perform I Still Have Faith In You in a TV special produced by NBC and the BBC to be broadcast in December, the group said.
“We have come of age, but the song is new. And it feels good,” they said.
The group said the “exciting ABBA avatar tour project had an unexpected consequence”.
Ulvaeus, 73, was married to Faltskog, 68, and Andersson, 71, was married to Lyngstad, 72.
The group dominated the 1970s disco scene with their glitzy costumes, kitsch dance routines and catchy melodies. They first found global fame after winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with Waterloo.
While they have appeared in public together on rare occasions, they have never reunited to perform as a group, and have vowed that it will never happen.
“There is simply no motivation to regroup. Money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were,” Ulvaeus said in a 2008 interview.
Hanser told TT that hearing them record the new songs was “just like in the ABBA days”.