Mamma Mia! ABBA to release first new music in decades

ABBA have announced they will release their first new music in decades. The band made the shock announcement on Instagram.

The band have been back in the studio for the first time since their last album The Visitors was recorded in early 1981. The new songs will be performed on an upcoming tour where the band will be represented by avatars.

“The decision to go ahead with the exciting ABBA avatar tour project had an unexpected consequence. We all felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the recording studio. So we did. And it was like time had stood still and we had only been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyful experience!” the band said.

One of the songs Have a Little Faith in You will be featured in a television special which will air in December.

“We may have come of age, but the song is new. And it feels good.” the band said of their latest work.

Earlier this week Björn Ulvaeus revealed details of the project that has brought the band back together. It involves a two hour TV special produced by NBC and the BBC which will see thew band represented by computer generated avatars which will look like the band did when they completed their last tour in 1979.

Announcing the project Ulvaeus said that all members of the band had been through the process of having their heads measured and photographed from every angle so digital artists could create ‘the ABBAtars’

The avatars will then head out on a world tour. The band members, who are now in their late sixties and early seventies, have over the years been offered millions of dollars to reform and tour and have always turned down the lucrative offers.

ABBA first came to international prominence when they won the Eurovision song content in 1974 with their song Waterloo.

They had a plethora of hits including Mamma Mia, Rock Me, Does Your Mother Know, Fernando, Ring Ring, Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man Before Midnight), Voulez Vouz, Dancing Queen, The Name of the Game and many others.   

The band comprised two couples Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Åse Fältskog, alongside Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. All four had successful careers in Sweden before forming the band.

Fältskog and Ulvaeus divorced in 1980, and Andersson and Lyngstad broke up the following year leading to tensions within the band. Their final album, the eighth of their career, did not chart as well as their previous works.

Andersson and Ulvaeus went on to write the the musicals Chess and Kristina, while both singers had successful solo careers. Fältskog took a break form music for 17 years before returning with an album of covers in 2004. Her 2013 album A saw her return to the top of the charts around the world.   

The band have kept their brand alive since they split in 1982 through their songs being featured in popular movies, the smash hit musical Mamma Mia, and it’s subsequent film adaptation.

The sequel to the musical Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again will be in cinemas later this year, while a new production of the stage musical will be at Crown Theatre in Perth in May.