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ABBA

Cher is releasing an album of Abba covers and all fans can say is Gimme, Gimme, Gimme

Starring in the film sequel to 'Mamma Mia!', is not enough for Cher, who got so inspired by the iconic Swedish group she is now releasing her own album of Abba covers.

Cher is releasing an album of Abba covers and all fans can say is Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
Cher, left, with Amanda Seyfried at the world premiere of 'Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again'. Photo: Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP

In a fresh burst of activity by the 72-year-old singer and actress, Cher said that her creative spririt was rekindled after singing one of the signature tunes on 'Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again', which is coming out this week.

“After I did 'Fernando', I thought it would be really fun to do an album of Abba songs, so I did,” Cher said on the NBC television daytime show 'Today'.

“It's not what you think of when you think of Abba, because I did it in a different way,” Cher said without revealing a tracklist or release date.

The album would be Cher's first studio work since the dance music-driven 2013 album 'Closer to the Truth'. The former half of folk duo Sonny and Cher enjoyed a career revival in the 1990s and holds the record for the longest gap between number-one songs on the US chart at nearly 25 years.

Cher in recent years has mostly concentrated on a residency show in Las Vegas. She had not appeared in a film since providing her voice to a lion in the 2011 movie 'Zookeeper'.

The original 'Mamma Mia!' stage musical and then film weaves together Abba songs to tell the story of Sophie, who plans her wedding on a Greek island alongside her free-spirited mother, Donna, and sets out to identify who her father is, with comic results.

For the sequel, Cher depicts the mother of Donna, played again by Meryl Streep, as she figures out how to act like a grandmother.

The film comes shortly after Abba itself unveiled new music, 35 years after the last single by the godparents of bubble-gum pop.

READ ALSO: First images of the Abba reunion released

 

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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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