“The voices are like 40, 45 years ago, they are intact, the ABBA magic is still there I guarantee it“, rejoices Thursday, September 2 on franceinfo Jean-Marie Potiez, official biographer of the group for French-speaking countries and author of ABBA: Agnetha Björn Benny Anni-Frid. The pop group announced their comeback after forty years of absence with unreleased songs and a series of concerts.
franceinfo: Is this really the return of ABBA?
Jean-Marie Potiez: Absoutely ! And I can tell you without exaggerating, it’s going to be the musical event of the year because you have a band that sang for ten years, which broke up for forty years and come back with new songs, forty. years later. They had not said their farewells, they had said: we are going to do something else. It was not an official separation.
It is an unprecedented event in the history of popular music
Jean-Marie Potiezfranceinfo
This return had started in 2018 and then the pandemic delayed things. There was a project of songs with holograms, a world tour in holograms but the members of ABBA were not satisfied with the result. So it’s all been delayed, and then it’s happening today.
Is it a marketing stunt?
No. It’s very important to say that behind all of this, it’s not a question of money, it’s a question of fun. Initially, they had decided to remake one or two songs for this project with holograms. And they ended up in the studio. Björn said it back then, in 2018, in a press release: “We felt like we were back forty years during the great ABBA years, the pleasure came immediately, we did one song, two songs and maybe more…”
But are we going to find ABBA in these new songs, will we still be in the disco, in your opinion?
ABBA is not a disco group, ABBA did dance songs and they approached disco at some point in their careers. But I’ve heard two tracks and there’s one going to be the hit this fall, that’s all I can tell you so far! The voices are like 40, 45 years ago, they are intact, the ABBA magic is still there, I guarantee it.
“In these troubled times, it will do us good to hear these songs, to hear the magical voices of Agnetha and Frida again.”
Jean-Marie Potiezfranceinfo
This joie de vivre, this happiness that there is at the same time in their interpretation, their arrangements, their melodies … And they give happiness to people!
Are there any young ABBA fans today?
Yes, there are young fans, thanks to the revival of the 90s but especially thanks to the films Mamma Mia! 2010s, the musical that’s still playing around the world and then covers: Cher made two ABBA cover albums. There are plenty of artists who cover their songs. Clara Luciani says: my influences are disco, and it’s the ABBA group and they give me the excitement. The young people discovered ABBA thanks to the covers and they want to listen to the originals which have not aged a bit.