“Mamma Mia! Here we go again”: Sweden’s legendary disco group ABBA announced yesterday that they have reunited to record two new songs, 35 years after their 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 after repeatedly vowing that they 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 that we only had been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyful experience!” ABBA members Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and Benny Andersson added in the statement.
The group, which sold more than 400mn albums, have not sung together publicly since 1986.
“I think it’s going to sound pretty much like their last songs from 1982, with quite a mild tempo, not like Voulez-Vous or Gimme Gimme Gimme,” Carl Magnus Palm, who has written several books about the group, told AFP. “Frida’s and Agnetha’s voices are the same, so it won’t be a huge difference.”
Palm said he was stunned by yesterday’s announcement. “I’m as surprised as everyone else ... they’ve always been so adamant that they weren’t going to make new music.”
The news came as Sweden mourned the death of another of its music sensations, Avicii, one of the world’s most successful DJs whose real name was Tim Bergling.
He was found dead a week ago in Oman where he had been on holiday with friends.
Computerised avatars are 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.
Bjorn, 73, was married to Agnetha, 68, and Benny, 71, was married to Anni-Frid, 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 won’t ever 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.