Maps of Music

Voyage (2021)

Where the lyrics of Voyage take you, and where it was really made.

Voyage is ABBA's first new album in forty years, yet the group never performed the songs on stage: the ABBA Voyage residency features digital avatars in place of the four band members.

Key places

Where Voyage was recorded (2021)

Recording site Master Plan — Voyage was recorded at RMV Studios on Skeppsholmen island in Stockholm. The studio is co-owned by Benny Andersson and his son Ludvig and opened in 2011. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Voyage: ninth and final studio album by the Swedish pop group ABBA
• Released 5 November 2021
• Ten songs written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus
• First album of new material in forty years, following The Visitors (1981)
• Supported by the dual single release of 'I Still Have Faith in You' and 'Don't Shut Me Down', issued with the album announcement on 2 September 2021
• 'Just a Notion' issued as the third single on 22 October 2021; 'Little Things' as the fourth single on 3 December
• Digital concert residency ABBA Voyage opened in London on 27 May 2022

Background

• ABBA informally split up in 1982 after the retrospective The Singles: The First Ten Years
• Renewed interest from the early 1990s, driven by ABBA Gold and Australian cult films, peaked with the musical Mamma Mia!
• Members refused to reunite for decades; in July 2008 Ulvaeus stated they would never perform on stage again
• Informal reunion at a private party in Stockholm on 6 June 2016
• In April 2018 the group announced two newly recorded songs
• Voyage is the first ABBA album produced and arranged solely by Andersson, with no instrumentation from Ulvaeus
• Ulvaeus still took part as backing vocalist, songwriter and associate producer
• Twelve songs were worked on; ten were finished for the final tracklist
• First ABBA album without drummer Ola Brunkert and bassist Rutger Gunnarsson, who died in 2008 and 2015
• Final appearance of lead guitarist Lasse Wellander before his death in 2023

Cover

• Cover design credited to Baillie Walsh

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• ABBA was a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
• Their name is an acronym of the members' first names; it was officially adopted in 1973.
• Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson first collaborated as songwriters in 1966 and became hit writers in 1969.
• Stig Anderson, founder of Polar Music, pushed the pair toward international success.

Members

• Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus were married from 1971 to 1980.
• Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad were married from 1978 to 1981.
• Fältskog sang lead and backing vocals; Lyngstad sang lead and backing vocals.
• Ulvaeus played guitar and sang; Andersson played keyboards and sang.

Career

• The group won the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 for Sweden with "Waterloo".
• Hits include "Dancing Queen", "Fernando", "Mamma Mia" and "The Winner Takes It All".
• They disbanded in December 1982 after their final public performance.
• ABBA Gold, released in 1992, became a worldwide best-seller.
• Mamma Mia! the stage musical premiered in 1999 and was adapted into a 2008 film.
• The group reunited in 2016 and released the album Voyage in 2021.
• ABBA Voyage, a concert residency with digital avatars, opened in London in May 2022.
• In 2024 all four members were appointed Commanders, First Class, of the Royal Order of Vasa.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Metacritic: average score 72 out of 100, based on 16 reviews, indicating generally favorable reviews
• AllMusic (Stephen Thomas Erlewine): three and a half stars out of five; praised the group for not chasing trends or modern production techniques, making the songs recognizably ABBA
• The Independent (Helen Brown): five stars out of five; said the group did not try to update its 1980s sound
• The Telegraph (Neil McCormick): said ABBA were known as a singles act rather than an album band and that none of the new songs matched their hit singles, concluding the album is out of time rather than timeless
• The Times (Ed Potton): four stars out of five; called it a reassuringly familiar blend of clear-eyed sentiment, outrageous musicality and indifference to fashion
• Rolling Stone (Rob Sheffield): four stars out of five; said the group returned with surprising musical vitality
• The Guardian: two stars out of five, under the headline no thank you for the music

Reappraisal

• AnyDecentMusic?: 7.1 out of 10, based on its assessment of the critical consensus

Records

• Debuted at number one in Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and England
• Billboard 200: debuted at number two, ABBA's highest-charting studio album in the United States and their first top ten album there
• Canada: highest-charting studio album for the group
• UK Albums Chart: opened at number one with 204,000 chart sales, 90% physical, and the biggest opening week for an album since Ed Sheeran's ÷ (2017)
• Fastest-selling album of 2021 in the UK
• Sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide by November 2022, according to IFPI figures for 2021 and beyond

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Pre-orders reached 111,000 in the UK by October 2021, a record for the biggest pre-ordered album for Universal Music UK, previously held by Take That's Progress (2010)
• ABBAtars were built with motion-capture suits worn by the band members and filmed with 160 cameras, with graphics later added by Industrial Light & Magic
• The ABBAtar tour was first set for 2019 but was delayed by technical issues, then pushed back to 2022 by the COVID-19 pandemic
• ABBA first announced they were preparing digital avatars in September 2017, and the avatars replace the four actual band members during the ABBA Voyage concerts
• Twelve songs were worked on for the album, and Andersson said the band chose to keep only the ones they felt belonged on the album

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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