Voyage

I never expected ABBA to make another album in my lifetime. Heck, I couldn't believe that of the four members, Agnetha would be the one to release another solo album (2013's "A"). So, imagine my surprise to read about the release of "Voyage," in 2021. I was excited. Those who have read up on the group know that ABBA never officially disbanded in 1982/83. Their last album, "The Visitors," didn't fare well when it was released in 1981. Frida & Agnetha pursued solo careers, while Benny & Bjorn went to work on the musical "Chess" and other projects. They never officially said ABBA was over. The liner notes for "The Visitors" deluxe edition says the energy was running out and Frida is quoted as saying, "We haven't packed it in as a group - we've only taken a long break." No one expected that "break" to last 40 years, but they came back, and I must say, it's a worthy comeback. The classic ABBA sound is here, updated for the 21st Century, but it is unmistakably ABBA. Frida & Agnetha still sing lead vocals with Benny & Bjorn providing back - up vocals, instrumentations, as well as being producers on the album. Here is a track-by-track breakdown. Frida sings lead on the majority of tracks, beginning with "I Still Have Faith In You," while Agnetha sings lead on only two, and the entire group sings together on two tracks. The title track speaks to the fact that ABBA is still alive and well and can still churn out great songs. Frida sings: "There was a union, of heart and mind, the likes of which are rare and oh so hard to find." She constantly asks, "Do I have it in me?" to which the group answers, "We do have it in us, new spirit has arrived, the joy and the sorrow, we have a story, and it survived." Yes, indeed it has. "When You Danced With Me" is a fun tune that has that classic ABBA sound and is just all-around fun. Frida sings lead vocals here. "Little Things," also sung by Frida, is a Christmas song that features the Children's Choir of Stockholm International School. "Don't Shut Me Down" is classic and is one of the singles from the album. Agnetha sings lead here and she hasn't lost her touch. I was happy to hear her hit those moderately high notes, something she never did on her album "A," (which I still love by the way). The part I really like is the chorus when all four sing together: "And now you see another me I've been reloaded yeah, I'm fired up don't shut me down." That really screamed ABBA to me. It reminded me of songs like "Me and I" and "If It Wasn't for the Nights." "Just A Notion" is an interesting inclusion as it's an unreleased track from 1978, recorded during the "Voulez - Vous" sessions, but left off the album. They were able to go back and remaster this track, with all four members singing vocals. It works, at least for me it does. You can listen to this and even though you know it was recorded in the late '70s, it still manages to sound contemporary and doesn't sound out of place on the album. It does make one wonder though, 'Well, if they're going to do that, then why didn't they bother to re - record "Just Like That?"' With today's technology, they could have re-recorded it and it would still sound great. I personally think there's no excuse for its absence. I know Benny and Bjorn are perfectionists & they've never been satisfied with it, but still. If you're going to release a song you recorded from the '70s, why not do the same for one in the 80s? We'll probably never find out, sadly. "I Can Be That Woman," is a lovely slow ballad sung by Agnetha about a relationship gone wrong and the woman's desire to repair it. "You're not the man you should've been, I let you down somehow, I'm not the woman I could've been, but I can be that woman now." Great song. It reminds me of songs like "One Man, One Woman," "Slipping Through My Fingers," and even "One of Us." I like the background vocals from the other members as well. It totally makes this song sound like a classic ABBA ballad. One of my favorites from this album. "Keep an Eye On Dan" is an interesting song that speaks about child custody after a divorce. Frida sings lead vocals here and the song has a bit of a disco urgency about it, if that makes sense, that I love. This song totally sounds like an ABBA song for the 21st century. I love the drums throughout this song, and I like Frida and Agnetha's voices blending here. They sound so strong and haven't lost their touch. There's even a little easter egg at the end of the song as it ends with some of the same few notes that begin "S.O.S." Listen closely, and you'll hear it. There are actually a lot of little easter eggs in the form of snippets from their classics interspersed throughout the album. You just have to listen, and you'll pick them up. "Bumblebee" is nice little song that almost sounds like a hymn. Frida sings lead vocals here. At one point, Benny and Bjorn wrote and sang lead vocals on a song titled "Free as a Bumblebee," which has never been released, but can be found online. That one was more of a pop song, while this is, as I stated, more like a hymn. I'm thinking that "Bumblebee" is the offspring of that in a way, although they are two very different songs. "No Doubt About It" is a rocker that sounds a lot like early ABBA songs such as "Waterloo," "Ring Ring," and even "The King Kong Song." This is one of my favorites on the album. Frida sings lead vocals here, but I really love it when the chorus kicks in and Agnetha joins in. Just hearing the girls' voices in harmony on the chorus is incredible. They've still got it in them. "Ode To Freedom" ends the album with all four ABBA members on vocals. A nice little song that, like "Bumblebee," has a hymn-like quality to it. All in all, "Voyage" is a great final album for ABBA. I'm sure this is the last studio album we will ever hear from them. Their legacy is secure as it has been for decades, but I'm glad I got to hear a new album from them in my lifetime as I believed it wouldn't happen, but here we are 40 years later, and the Super Troupers of pop/rock are back at it again. If you love ABBA, you'll love this album.

I've been a fan of ABBA since I was a very young child, starting with the album Voulez-Vous. ABBA has always been a part of my life from that point. I purchased all of the older albums, and can remember so well the Christmas that I received their last studio album "The Visitors." I never thought I'd hear new ABBA music again in my lifetime, thinking as Frida once said when asked about the possibility of ABBA reuniting, "That ship has sailed." Here we are in 2021, and ABBA have graced us with a new album, "Voyage." And it is stunning. If you are "truly" an ABBA fan and have listened to all their other albums, you will recognize that Voyage fits in beautifully. Every track on Voyage is a nod to their past but in the most perfect way. It is disheartening to see some people make comments wishing for a more upbeat album and ranking this album lower because of that. Go back and listen to practically any of ABBA's other albums. They always balanced upbeat songs with slower songs, more thoughtful ballads full of hurt, regret, and reflection (Voulez Vous may by the exception to this). This album takes a little piece of everything we always loved about ABBA throughout the years and presents it one package. For instance, you have the folksy/Celtic influence of Benny's past in the new song "When You Danced With Me." If you think this style of music is new to ABBA, go back and listen to the album "Arrival," specifically the ending instrumental track "Arrival" and the song "Dum Dum Diddle." Check out the song "The Piper" from the Visitors for more similar influences. Then you have the upbeat, more modern ABBA sound that all the fans of ABBA Gold tend to think of in the new Voyage track "Don't Shut Me Down." This is an homage to their "Voulez Vous" days. One of my personal favorites on the album, "Keep An Eye On Dan," is about the trauma of divorce when a child is involved, and it has a smoldering underlying electronic groove and brings to mind older songs such as "The Day Before You Came," and parts of it also remind me a little bit of "Eagle." You have the pastoral ballad "Bumblebee" which is in a similar style to their songs "Like An Angel Passing Through My Room" and "Slipping Through My Fingers." Another outstanding track, "I Can Be That Woman," centers on a difficult relationship and is delivered with such emotion by Agnetha, in a similar style as "The Winner Takes It All," or "Disillusion," but without the danceable undertones of "The Winner Takes It All." And of course, the epic ballad "I Still Have Faith In You" which has become an instance ABBA classic. And then you have two more upbeat songs, "Just A Notion" and "No Doubt About It" which take you back to the earliest days of ABBA. The closing track is a sweeping orchestral number called "Ode To Freedom," which is a gorgeous and lushly layered track that could almost serve as a country's national anthem. For those saying they wish it was a more "upbeat" album, listen to some of their older albums. There was always a balance between upbeat, mid-tempo, and slower songs. You can't judge this album by ABBA Gold. Voyage is another timeless masterpiece by ABBA, an unexpected gift in a time where the world has seen more than it's share of despair and uncertainty and it is certain to become a classic just like all their other albums.

good cd

It is nice to get another Abba CD after so many years. I have been looking forward to it since I heard that it was on the cards. To get the negative over with, I do not like the fact that it comes in a cardboard sleeve. This seems to be the thing with CDs these days. I don't like it as it is hard to remove the CD without putting a tear in the carboard! As for the music, I guess that you could say that it is typical Abba.....great vocals and a variety of styles of music. Some are more in the tones of a ballard (think Fernado), and some are more disco like. There is a song (Little Things) that has a Christmas theme, which is probably appropriate considering it's release date and is quite cute. 'Don't Shut Me Down' has more of a disco beat, which I like. 'I Can Be That Woman' goes through a failing relationship, hoping to work things out and of course , there are more songs. This review is written after only listening to the album once, and will hopefully give and insight insight into what to expect. Just buy it...especially if you are an Abba fan.

The album is an intricate completely genuine master piece written by two of the best song writers and two of the best female singers in popular music as Björn Ulvaeus facetiously said “ Voyage is the follow up album” to their brilliant, moody last album "The Visitors from 1981." That album was not as commercially successful as their previous albums but undoubtedly their most mature and deep touching upon issues like Cold War Paranoia , totalitarian tendencies and of course the dramas and nature of human relationships especially divorce as by then both couples’ marriages within the band broke down. 40 years later the four introvert Nordic pop legends are still at it: their lyrics reflect a mature , wise, dignified yet humble approach to the human story except they now, naturally, deal with the concept of aging , as well as the passing of time, past hurts, bringing to the open decade long bottled up emotions. As a life long ABBA fan I never thought that they could write an album after The Visitors. as it sounded so melancholic, so sad, so final. But now it's 2021 and we have a brand new ABBA album. They created this album in secrecy, completely on their own terms ignoring trends and the markets. . But they still have stories to tell and Bjorn and Benny still compose songs that only Agnetha and Frida’s combined voices can propel to the artistic level of ABBA. Voyage is a Swan Song for ABBA as it was officially announced but the album itself is a catalogue of brilliant pop music that will be in our hearts and minds as well as in the Chronicles of Music until there will be people who appreciate "The Song".

I fell in love with ABBA back in the 1970s when I was 10 years old. As an American I soon found out I was one of the few of my countrymen who “got” this group. Most of my friends were indifferent to ABBA or knew nothing of them at all. One of my teachers made fun of them and a classmate laughed at me when I said ABBA was my favorite group in the world. Consequently, I kept my fandom to myself. Anyone who truly knew me knew of my deep love for this Swedish pop group made up of unassuming but truly talented songwriters (Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus are finally getting much deserved recognition for their artistry), musicians/producers and singers (Frida Lyngstad and Agnatha Faltskog are two of the world’s most underrated vocalists who sing beautifully separately but a magical fusion occurs when they sing together that is very hard to match as evidenced when other singers cover ABBA’s songs). ABBA was never a pretentious band. They only wanted to give you a reason to smile. In short, they wanted to entertain us. Their early pop hits certainly did that, and these are the songs most of us think of when they think of ABBA. However, with each year they continued to record, their music matured as did the subject matter. Their pop hits reflected this growth as did their album tracks, which contains some of their greatest work. When they stopped recording in 1982, I was heartbroken. I was resigned to the idea they would never get back together. I never imagined it was just a 40 year break. What group does that? ABBA did! During the long decades they were away, I followed their solo careers and musicals because it was the closest thing we could get to the actual thing. I knew if they got back together they wouldn’t have the same energy and the vocals would have lowered with age. But, I didn’t care! I wondered what ABBA would be like now at this point in their lives. I knew the talent was still there because I followed them individually. When Voyage was released last year, I was thrilled and preordered my copy from Amazon. When I listened to it for the first time, it was like getting together with old friends again. I’ve had almost a year of listening to it. Plenty of time to honestly say, I now know what ABBA is like now. Gone are the twenty and thirty year old artists we remember. This is ABBA in their seventies not ABBA from the 70s. And…that’s okay. Voyage picks up where they left off with their previous studio album The Visitors. That means there’s some mature themes and some songs that grove a little and a nice tip of the hat to some classical music. A couple of the songs (Little Things and Bumblebee) are more along the lines of what the composers Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus have done since ABBA’s last recording in 1981. I Can Be That Woman sounds like a small turn toward country music and Ode to Freedom is one of those unusual album tracks that seems odd for a pop album but somehow ABBA pulls it off convincingly as they did back in 1976 with the song Arrival. I’m not going to review the entire album. Bottomline: This is where ABBA is now…in their seventies. Clearly, they worked hard on it. It wasn’t slapped together. And, you can hear they enjoyed working together again. I’m not in my seventies, but I know people who are. I cannot help but think that doing this album at this point in their lives (not to mention the ABBA Voyage avatar show now playing in London) is quite a feat. If this turns out to be their last creative output, as a longtime fan I’m okay with it. Bravo, ABBA, Bravo!!!

When I first started listening, I was a little disappointed. I was looking for songs like their huge sing along hits of their past albums. These are songs about changes as people age. Life, marriage, fighting couples, couples disappointing each other, divorce, trying again, mistakes that were made on both sides, and children at Christmas. I could not understand some of the words, so I looked up the lyrics which made the songs even better. The lyrics to a few songs were poignant and were meant for people who have experienced the ups and downs of marriage and the changes in the world. These are not age 20 something party songs like their old albums. Little Things is a Christmas lullaby about children and Santa and the family's memories. Keep An Eye on Dan is about a newly divorced mother who has to drop her son off at his father's house for the first time for weekend visitation. Bumblebee is about..... A Bumblebee, so it is a song about the changes in our planet and how it is enjoyable watching the bee in the garden and worrying about people who may never get to watch a bumblebee. Maybe she is worrying that her children will miss things she enjoyed. Nothing in the song is heavy, politically. My favorite song is I Can Be That Woman. It is about a husband and wife and the trauma in their marriage over the years. Each person disappoints the other and neither is who they wanted to be. The man's anger, cursing, yelling, kicking chairs, and the woman's drinking is at fault, and finally they are ready to change. The dog, Tammy, is so affected by the husband's anger, and the wife's drinking. You realize, immediately, that if the dog is affected, then any children are also affected even more. So this is not ABBA from the past. It is about the voyage made over the years in a marriage/partnership. You will not be dancing around and singing these songs, but the songs still showcase the vocal ranges of the women singing. Agnetha (blonde) and Anni-Frid (Frida) still have beautiful voices. Agnetha's voice was clear as a bell in the old albums, and her voice has almost exactly the same clarity. She still has great control of her voice and still has great vocal range. At the time this album was made, Agnetha was age 71 and Frida was 76 years old. Very few singers can still sing the same when they are in their 70s. Bjorn and Benny arranged the songs, wrote the lyrics, and produced the album. I am now glad that I bought the album.

Nice album by ABBA, as an ABBA fan I was doubtful they would be able to recapture the magic of their older albums, but my did they prove me wrong to have doubted in the first place. Catchy tunes, some happy, some danceable, some others a little bit sad, but it's all what ABBA is and represents. Beautifully printed in a gatefold jacked with pictures of the members that look straight out of a TRON ad (in the best way possible). Vinyl pressing sounds great: no skips, no surface noise, no pops or cracks.

El disco ha llegado a tiempo. Yo puesto el disco (por cierto. dentro del sobre de disco estaba un poster) en mi Cambridge audio reproductor CDs y... empieza la magia de mi grupo favorito. Es increíble cómo es posible crear un sonido y una melodía tan buenos en los tiempos modernos. Al mismo tiempo, escucha con frescura. Un disco increíble. Emociones increíbles, como si la banda no hubiera estado en pausa durante casi 40 años. Buena compra, excelente musica, Muy recomendable.

Non potevo non avere questo vinile, per cui per il mio compleanno a inizio 2022 l'ho preso a scatola chiusa! Mai ascoltata una canzone. Appena metto la puntina sul disco e parte la prima canzone "I still I have Faith in You", dico: "si sono loro!" La melodia in chiave moderna, quella dei nostri tempi, ma sempre inconfondibilmente ABBA. Tutte le canzoni sono nel loro iconico stile, certo non le sentiremo nelle radio nazionali di grido, musica non per i giovanissimi ma per quelli di mezza età come me (classe 1968) o quelli che ricordano i loro grandi successi ascoltati in discoteca o alla radio e se ne sono innamorati. Mi piace molto "Don't Shut me Down". Comunque troverete le canzoni e le musiche familiari e piacevoli soprattutto perchè ricordano le melodie dei tempi dei loro migliori successi. Ultima cosa importante, malgrado gli anni, le voci non sono invecchiate! La copertina è di tipo FOC, una volta aperta a sinistra ci sono 16 foto dei loro visi (da giovani) in vari profili, a destra al centro della pagina ci sono i nomi dei musicisti e collaboratori. La busta è in cartoncino spesso e riprende il design della copertina, da ogni lato ci sono i testi delle canzoni... un poster e una cartolina completano il tutto. Qualità del vinile buona, nessun rumore o tic, direi perfetto per essere un vinile standard non 180 grammi. Per me è un bell'album, penso che lo sia anche per i nostalgici di un tempo che non torna più, è la sintesi della loro carriera e per me si sente molto. Avendo comprato su Amazon la loro raccolta con tutti i loro dischi, di cui ho fatto anche una recensione, lo affiancherò al cofanetto della raccolta. Da avere!

Super

By picking out the new album, scretches were made by sand or something like that.

メンバーが70代になってからの制作ですが、往年のABBAサウンドを彷彿とさせる魅力的な楽曲が収められています。