Abba - announce virtual concert and new album

guitars4you

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58423452

 Agnetha has aged far less than Anni-Fred

Rabs

ICBM

guitars4you said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58423452

 Agnetha has aged far less than Anni-Fred

I would have said the opposite, bearing in mind Anni-Frid is 75 to Agnetha's 71 - she always looked much older during the band's heyday, and I would say looks less different now. They both look good for their years though. Bjorn still looks younger than Benny (even though he's older - in fact he's the oldest of all of them, 76), but I suspect a considerable amount of Just For Men was involved .

I'll have a listen to the new songs later... I'm slightly worried that I'll be disappointed though, they were such a big part of my childhood.

goldtop

On the strength of that (^) song, I'm underwhelmed; a pale imitation on the original Abba vibe.

Rabs

goldtop said:

On the strength of that (^) song, I'm underwhelmed; a pale imitation on the original Abba vibe.

Heres the other if you didnt click on the OPs link

Danny1969

I like it, still sounds Euro cool like the old Abba. 

ICBM

I've been brave enough to listen to both of them now...

Not bad. Not great either, more like some of the also-ran tracks on the old albums than new classics, but still unmistakably ABBA. They might grow on me - and there's an album's worth to come as well now. I'll almost certainly be buying it. Not sure I'm interested in the 'live' show though.

Tannin

This could have been a lot worse. This effort, while not ground-breaking or inspired, is pretty fair stock standard Abba.

Think about it - how many performers of that vintage are producing anything like the standard of work they were producing in their heyday? Consider the most recent releases from the surviving members of the Rolling Stones, Led Zep, King Crimson, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Dire Straits, Jethro Tull, Eric Clapton, the Who, the Grateful Dead, the Moody Blues, Neil Young, the Police ... and so on and on. 

Looked at in that light, this has to rate as pretty good.

(Disclaimer: not my kind of music, not a band I'd bother going to see in any decade, not even if you gave me tickets, but let's pay credit where credit is due.)

JerkMoans

Rehearsals for this Abba reunion going on near the retail park.

You could hear the drums from Nando’s.

ICBM

I've got the album now and I've listened to it properly at least half a dozen times.

There aren't actually any *great* songs on it, at least one that's a bit of a clunker, and a large helping of corn and a side order of cheese with a lot of the lyrics. But the whole album is wonderful.

It's an album made by, about, and probably for, older people. I suspect it won't really appeal if you're under 50 and haven't loved ABBA since you were a child, but if you have... it's an album about acceptance, and being at peace. They've never been afraid to work their own personal lives into their songs, and it's quite obviously an album made by two couples who split up forty years ago in somewhat acrimonious circumstances but have now come to terms with the past. If you always felt that The Visitors was a rather downbeat ending for their career with a whimper rather than a bang, you'll probably find a lot to like in it. If you never liked ABBA, don't start here!

If - as they're saying at the moment, without actually saying never - they don't make another one, it's not a bad way to finish.