Apr 3: A year ago, Abba fans received a totally unexpected surprise when the group announced that they had recorded two new songs for a “Virtual Abba” experience in collaboration with American Idol creator Simon Fuller. The project first announced in 2016, and was scheduled to premiere, via digital versions of band members, on NBC and ABC at the end of last year. Then came the delays.
Now, Abba’s Bjorn Ulvaeus says at least one of the new songs - which are called I Still Have Faith In You and “Don’t Shut Me Down” - will emerge in September or October. The group, one of the most successful in history, split up some 37 years ago.
Ulvaeus told Denmark’s Ekstra Bladettabloid that “it takes an extremely long time” to make a video with the avatars of the group members, adding “it has been delayed for too long.”
In January, the group’s Benny Andersson said in an interview posted on the fan site IceTheSite legal complications had delayed the release.
“When that press release [about the TV show and recordings] came out, everything was up and running smoothly, then it didn’t run as smoothly,” he said. “We are still trying to establish the agreement that needs to be done to be able to continue. We are good. It’s the other side, everything that has to be done, everything that has to be drawn. It’s delayed. It’s not our doing.” The group’s rep did not respond to a request to confirm this account.
In a separate interview, Andersson said that the group could record a third song as well.
“We may do another one when the show [launches],” he said in an interview posted last month. “And that’s gonna take another six – eight months. The reasons we did the new songs was to put them in the new show. Now when this show comes up these songs will be old because they [will have been released when the show launches]. So we said we need to do another one for the show.” He admitted that he had not yet spoken with singers Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad about the songs but said he thinks they would approve.
Abba is one of the most popular musical artists in history, having sold hundreds of millions of albums worldwide since their formation in Sweden 1972. The group’s simple-sounding but highly sophisticated songs have endured since the group, consisting of two married couples, split amid the breakup of the two couples in 1982. They set a template for pop music that has risen to prominence in recent years, exemplified by the work of countrymen Max Martin (who has worked with everyone from Britney Spears to Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake over the past two decades) on the commercial side and Robyn on the innovative side.
While songwriters Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus continued to work together (including a musical, “Chess,” with lyricist Tim Rice in 1984), the four members did not appear together publicly onstage again until 2016.
- Variety.com