ABBA's phenomenon hand in hand with the victory march of 21st-century technology and marketing

Last week, the world's most sensational news in pop music in 2021 took a tangible shape in CD and vinyl formats - one of the world's most successful pop groups, ABBA, released their latest album, "Voyage", the Swedish quartet's first new studio recording in almost 40 years.

The first information about ABBA's new studio album was announced in September and seemed like an April fools' joke, but it didn't seem that way to many music lovers, and the album became the fastest pre-ordered, with 80,000 copies ordered in three days in the UK alone. At the moment, ABBA is hitting, beating and slamming all records: "Voyage" topped the UK charts in a moment and is looking at doing the same in other countries (unless Ed Sheeran gets in the way…). Western music critics have rated ABBA's performance with only three or four stars out of five, but this is not surprising, as the Swedish quartet was not very popular with critics even in its heyday. The same can't be said about the listeners.

It should be recalled that with the release of the new album, the ABBA Voyage concert was announced, which will provide a revolutionary - digital - viewing experience: Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad will perform together with ten musicians in ABBA arena in Queen Elizabeth Park in London built especially for this event - the premiere will take place on May 27, 2022. Although it was rumored a few years ago that the quartet had been promised as much as 1 billion US dollars for a return concert and the musicians had rejected it, this time they were probably given the opportunity to make the showbusiness history. "To tell the truth, the main inspiration to record again comes from our involvement in creating the strangest and most spectacular concert you could ever dream of. We’re going to be able to sit back in an audience and watch our digital selves perform our songs on a stage in a custom-built arena in London next spring. Weird and wonderful!” the quartet does not hide.

Already in the first three days after the announcement of the concert, 250,000 tickets were sold (the capacity of the new hall is about 3,000 seats). It is planned that by the end of 2022, a total of around 200 ABBA Voyage concerts will take place in the arena, with the cheapest tickets costing around € 50 (£ 59.50). Additional ticket sales have now been announced, covering the period from October 3 to December 4.

If, for example, 78-year-old Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones) and 76-year-old Ian Gillan (Deep Purple) are still trying to jump around the stage like young foals, ABBA has chosen a radically different and unprecedented approach - Agnetha (71 years old), Anni-Frid (76 on Monday), Björn (76) and Benny (75 in December) will have 3D copies of themselves, their avatars on the stage. Last year, the musicians spent a month in the filming studio, where their digital versions were created: the ABBA quartet wore special costumes, to which sensors were attached that captured their every movement and facial feature. In addition, recordings of ABBA's concerts from the 1970s were analyzed, adding to the new material the movements of musicians on stage at that time. As a result, "the audience will feel as though it's really them, when in fact they will not be" - this, together with the ten live and real musicians, could create something that we can't even imagine at the moment because nothing like that has been done so far. The 100-minute digital concert will feature major hits as well as new compositions, including "I Still Have Faith In You" and "Don't Shut Me Down."

By the way, the number of listens for the two songs on the music streaming site Spotify is fast approaching 20 and 32 million respectively - of course, it is not much compared to the Swedish quartet's most popular hits "Dancing Queen" (about 622 million), "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” (over 310 million) and "Mamma Mia" (267 million), but for other famous groups these are unreachable numbers. To set a comparison on whether it's a lot or not, you could look at the remaster of Led Zeppelin's super-hit "Stairway To Heaven" which also has hit the 620 million mark on the world's most popular streaming site. By comparison, our Brainstorm's hit "Maybe" boasts about 4 million listens, while the recent anthem "Zemes stunda" performed by an ansis and Kristīne Pāže - about 2.1 million.

Returning to ABBA and "Voyage", this is their first album since ABBA released "The Visitors" on November 30, 1981. It should also be noted that "Voyage" is released almost five decades after the band's debut album "Ring, Ring", which was released in 1973. As with previous albums, "Voyage's" authors and producers are Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, whose arrangements and lyrics are complemented by the timeless voices of Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. Despite the joy of seeing them again, it is still a wonder that such a stir has been raised - what if Led Zeppelin suddenly decided to come back?!

The release of ABBA's album is an Event from the point of view of the event itself - it is a victory march of 21st-century musical technology and especially marketing achievements. After all, the younger generation can't even imagine what people had to go through 40-50 years ago just to get a copy of ABBA's album on even on a cassette, forget about getting it on vinyl, but now, in 2021, on the day of "Voyage's" release, everyone in Latvia who wanted to listen to it could do that! Also about how the album was released - how it was packaged, how it was advertised, how it was presented, etc.

"I don't agree that this is just marketing because ABBA is still very, very relevant," says Sabīne Brice, a spokeswoman for Universal Music Baltics in Latvia. "Of course, [this project] also has strong planning, a strong team to drive it, this concert show is also a new added value, but ABBA is simply one of the most successful pop bands of all time and will remain so for decades to come. The band is listened to by people of all ages, including the TikTok generation, and is regularly played on radio stations. When "Voyage" came out, all the major radio stations in Latvia were full of joy and it really made everyone involved in the industry feel a sense of celebration.”

Yes, I guess it is so, and all that remains is to agree with what Ģirts Salmgriezis, a member of the European Parliament, posted on Facebook: “ABBA can prerecord and not sing anything live! It will be an eternal value. Latvian showbusiness can only keep learning.”