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ABBA

Mamma Mia! Abba reunite as silicon dolls

The dream of many an Abba fan (almost) came true on Tuesday afternoon as the four members reunited at a Swedish museum – as life size silicon dolls.

Mamma Mia! Abba reunite as silicon dolls
The four members of Abba as silicon dolls. Photo: Nora Lorek/TT

To the tune of the Abba song ‘Arrival’, the silicon figures of Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid 'Frida' Lyngstad Reuss and Agneta Fältskog were flown in by helicopter, landing on the roof of Abba The Museum in Stockholm.

“It looks like the members are there in real life, it’s uncanny. It’s almost like the fans’ old dream that they will reunite at some point,” Catarina Falkenhav of Abba The Museum told newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

The Abba clones, which cost more than a million Swedish kronor to make, have all been designed with the approval of their human counterparts.

“It has been a nine-month process. We were allowed to meet all the members, which is unusual in this line of work,” sculptor Göran Lundström told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, adding that silicon lasts longer than wax, which is the material world famous London museum Madame Tussauds uses to create its wax figures of well known celebrities.

The exact measurements of Agneta, Björn, Frida and Benny were used to make the figures look as much like the four Abba members as possible.

“Our breakthrough was when we saw Björn’s test head. We felt then that this is going to be good,” Falkenhav told Dagens Nyheter.

The iconic Swedish pop group were elected into Sweden's Music Hall of Fame last year, more than 30 years after they parted ways. Today's event is the second whiff of the past on the Swedish music scene over the past week, after 1990s band Ace of Base announced they were set to release another album.

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ABBA

ABBA’s first album in 40 years shoots to the top of the UK charts

ABBA's first studio album in nearly 40 years has made it to the top of the UK charts, becoming the fastest seller of the year so far, the Official Charts Company said on Friday.

ABBA's first album in 40 years shoots to the top of the UK charts
ABBA's new album, 'Voyage' for sale in Stockholm at the start of this month. Photo: Jonatan Nackstrand/AFP

“Voyage” by the Swedish quartet of Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-Frid racked up 204,000 chart sales in the seven days since it was launched last Friday.

Sales gave the supergroup the biggest opening week on the UK album chart in four years since Ed Sheeran’s “Divide”, and fastest-selling album by a group in eight years.

The last fastest-seller was One Direction’s “Midnight Memories” in November 2013.

READ ALSO: Abba’s new album has arrived – tell us, what do you think?

ABBA, propelled to global fame by their 1974 Eurovision Song Contest win with “Waterloo”, split in 1982, a year after their last album, “The Visitors”.

“Voyage” is their 10th number one album in the UK: only seven other acts — The Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones, Robbie Williams, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie — have had more.

The group said in a statement: “We are so happy that our fans seem to have enjoyed our new album as much as we enjoyed making it.

“We are absolutely over the moon to have an album at the top of the charts again.”

The 204,000 sales comprise 90 percent physical copies, including 29,900 on vinyl, making it the fastest-selling vinyl release of the 21st century.

The previous record holder was the Arctic Monkeys’ “Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino”, which sold 24,500 vinyl copies in 2018.

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