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ABBA

Abba to reunite for televised tribute show – as avatars

Plans for a virtual reality tour featuring all four members of Abba will include a televised tribute, Abba member Björn Ulvaeus has revealed.

Abba to reunite for televised tribute show – as avatars
Abba wax dolls at the Abba Museum in Stockholm. Photo: Nora Lorek/TT

Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson 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.

The group, which has sold more than 400 million albums, has not sung together on stage since 1986 (with the exception of a short performance at a private party in Stockholm in 2016).

The avatars will perform an as yet unnamed Abba song during the tribute show, produced by British broadcaster BBC and US network NBC. Other top musical artists are also expected to perform.

“It's a kind of Abba tribute show, but the centrepiece … will be something I call 'Abbatars'. It is digital versions of Abba, from 1979,” Ulvaeus told AFP.

“It's the first time it's ever been done.”

READ ALSO: Abba plot virtual reality reunion tour

In order to create the avatars, “techno artists” from Silicon Valley measured the heads of the four Abba members and photographed them from all angles.

“With videos and lipsynching, they'll create digital copies of us from 1979,” he said, referring to the year the album Voulez-vous was released.

Ulveaus was in Brussels on Thursday to try to persuade European Broadcasting Union (EBU) member networks to sign on tot he show.

The EBU is the broadcaster of the Eurovision Song Contest, the competition that launched Abba on the international scene when it won in 1974 with the hit Waterloo.

“I hope that some of them (European broadcasters) will join us and make this … a global programme at the end of this autumn,” Ulvaeus said.

The show is expected to go on tour the following year.

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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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