PRIVACY   CONTACT ABBA News Archive 2021 Here are the old messages from our ABBA- News page from the year 2021. Books have been moved to the Book List and obsolete announcements for TV shows and concerts have been deleted. December 23, 2021 December 16, 2021 December 11, 2021 ABBA's album 'Voyage' is Germany's # 1 album of the year! With over 235k album sales the first week it became the best international launch in over six years. The album even sold more than the rest of the Top 100 combined during launch week and has gone double platinum! 'Voyage' spent 3 weeks at # 1 on the Official German Chart, making it the longest chart topping album this year. Photo © Tove Floss December 8, 2021 The German magazine Bravo has a new special edition "Bravo Helden" about ABBA. You can buy it in many stores or order it from Amazon. The special edition contains 96 pages with exclusive interviews (for example with Bubi Heilemann) and reports plus great photos. We are very proud of the 4 pages with Regina and the ABBA- Fan Club. What a fantastic honour! November 24, 2021 Björn attended the 11th awarding ceremony of the Honorary Members of the University Cloister of the Arts, Alcala de Henares, Spain, today. In this picture he acknowledges where the titles of the Honorary Members of the University Cloister of the Arts are given. Photo © Shutterstock ABBA has earned its very first ever Grammy Awards nomination (the US National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences) for "Record of the Year" for "I Still Have Faith In You"!! The Grammys are the most prestigious music awards in the country. Congratulations to Benny, Björn, Bernard Löhr & Björn Engelmann for this incredible honor! The ceremony will be held on January 31, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. Thanks to Michael Polito! November 23, 2021 Magazine Special 'Pop Classics - ABBA Das Sonderheft' is still available here and from Amazon. We will have magazines to give away for ABBA Fan Club Members soon. More infos to follow. November 19, 2021 Congratulations to ABBA! The success story for ABBA Voyage continues! ABBA Voyage sold more than one million albums worldwide in the first week of its release! The streaming is more than 190 millions! ABBA Voyage is at # 1 once again this week in Germany! There are 3 ABBA albums in the German top 25 at the same time! ABBA Voyage was the the most successful start of an album for more than 2,5 years in Germany and the biggest album release of an international act for the past six years. ABBA Voyage will be at # 1 of the charts of the year 2021 (to be published in the beginning of December) ABBA Voyage is at # 1 in the UK, being the tenth #1 in the album charts in the UK. It has the biggest first-week-sales of the past 4 years and it already is the fastest selling album of the year! Additional, no other vinyl was sold faster in this century than ABBA Voyage! ABBA Voyage is at #1 in the album charts in the USA - the biggest chart success ever for ABBA in the USA! No other band than ABBA has sold more records within one week only! ABBA Voyage is the biggest album debut of the year 2021 in Australia! ABBA Voyage got Platinum in Germany and is also Gold and Platinum in other countries! ABBA Voyage is already the 'biggest international album of the year' in Germany, United Kingdom, France, Japan and Australia! Many thanks to Universal, Germany! Photo © Baillie Walsh November 17, 2021 Here are the official US charts, showing Voyage at #2 on the Top 200 chart and #1 on the Album chart. Thanks to Michael Polito!     On 3 December the Christmas song 'Little Things' will be released as a single. A Thank You note from Frida: Voyage is #1 in many countries! November 15, 2021 Voyage has debuted at #2 on the US charts - the highest position for any studio album in the group's entire career and their very first top ten album!!!! Voyage also has the distinction of being: The biggest selling album of the week The largest sales week for an album by a group in the United States for the entire year of 2021 Special thanks to our US correspondent Michael Polito! November 13, 2021 Frida gave BBC Radio 2 an interview. Thanks to Mikel! Voyage became number 1 of the German Album Charts selling more than 200,000 in one week - which is more than all others in the Top 100 added together! November 4, 2021 Helen Sjöholm has been interviewed by Nöjeslivet. To the question "are there any future plans for Benny Anderssons Orkester" Helen says: "No, not anything that I know about. Now it is 'ABBAtars' and this whole release that has created so much which is fantastically fun. That's what will last for a while now. Sure, it would be fun to do something, but I do not know. It's a bit of a national folkpark institution." Will Helen see the ABBA show in London? "It would be great fun, but not for a while now. I have hard to imagine it, if you can get away it would be fun but I do not know." Aftonbladet has published a short preview of a longer interview with Benny. The full version follows later this week. Benny praises Björn's lyrics and says that Björn's ability to tell a story in 3.5 minutes is fascinating. He mentions KNOWING ME, KNOWING YOU and THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL as such songs. Benny tells that on the new album lyrics handle for example shared custody and a woman who has had an alcohol problem. The writer of the article thinks that NO DOUBT ABOUT IT sounds like like a big ensemble number in a musical. When asked about a potential third MAMMA MIA! film Benny tells, with a big laughter, that after hearing VOYAGE Judy Craymer has said that it is a new album of which they can make a new film. Benny had replied that "I don't think so". But adds that one must never say never. Thanks to Pentti Koponen! November 3, 2021 ABBA are on the cover of this month's German Rolling Stone magazine. A store in Berlin is opening Thursday at 23:59 for the ABBA Voyage album release. Berlin trams with ABBA Voyage livery Many thanks to Gareth!         November 1, 2021 Here is a great interview with Benny in English. Thanks to Pentti Koponen! 'I Still Have Faith In You' is the title song of the German RTL TV charity donation marathon 2021. Here is a little interview with Björn. On Monday, November 1, the German TV NDR will report in 'Mein Nachmittag' about ABBA's comeback and 'Voyage'. ABBA 's Fan Club leader Regina Grafunder will be connected live from Melle, talking about the comeback! Broadcast is from 16:10 - 17:00 local time. This week's Sunday New York Times features a fantastic Voyage article (also available online) called "ABBA Takes a Chance With Its Legacy", including an in-person interview with Benny & Björn, as well conversations with their collaborators/management, and interesting facts and insights about ABBA's history and career, particularly in the States. It is written by Elisabeth Vincentelli, who besides being a respected performing arts critic and features writer, is the acclaimed author of two ABBA books and will be featured in an upcoming exclusive interview by our US correspondent, Michael Polito. Benny is again collaborating with director Marie-Louise Ekman and actress Marie Göranzon. Ekman will direct August Strindberg's classic play 'Fröken Julie' (Miss Julie) starring Göranzon with premiere at Dramaten theatre in Stockholm on February 24, 2022. Dramaten's press release states "Music by Benny Andersson" while press articles write about "new music by Benny Andersson". The two ladies and Benny have worked together for example on "Försökskaninerna" at Dramaten in 2017. Thanks to Pentti Koponen! Helen Sjöholm, who is going on tour, has given a long interview for Expressen. ABBA's comeback was also discussed: Benny Andersson said in connection with the ABBA comeback that just a few minutes before going to the studio, it struck him that he had not asked the "girls" if they can sing... "Yes, and they obviously could. There is timbre, things that fill a voice with age, even if you do not reach the same clarity. It was my thing that I sing clearly and cleanly. I can no longer do that in the same way. You have to forget the keys. You have to. It is not possible to have the ideal of sounding like an unspoiled 25 years old, nor is it interesting to continue like that." Many reviewers have actually praised the voices of Agnetha and Anni-Frid now, precisely because you hear the time in them. "Yes, and it would have been uninteresting if it had been mixed away. But now it goes right into the heart, at least for us a little older who grew up with their unison, and get to hear the voices to come to us now." Speaking of the ABBA comeback: Were you as gladly surprised as the rest of us or did you have some "inside information"? "I had some 'inside information'. I had heard one of the songs a long time ago, and even sang a little on it. Benny has material that is constantly evolving. So parts of one of the songs I myself have done a demo. But I had not heard the fully mixed result, so it was the same nice premiere shake for me." You have to watch out for the question of a "Kristina från Duvemåla" with avatars. So that it can live forever... "Hahaha! Oh my God. It's a fun happening that they do. But for Kristina, I believe living one as the form. But that sensor suit? Give it to me!" Thanks to Pentti Koponen! October 29, 2021 German radio station SWR1 did a Top 1058 Hitparade during this whole week. Here are ABBA's results: 9      Don't Shut Me Down 16     I Still Have Faith In You 65     Dancing Queen 75    Thank You For The Music 135   The Winner Takes It All 202   Mamma Mia 290   Chiquitita 382   I Have A Dream 399   Fernando 404   Our Last Summer 412   Waterloo 465   Eagle 534   Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! 658   One Of Us 680   The Day Before You Came 749   Slipping Through My Fingers 1051   Move On 1208   SOS 1270   Super Trouper 1278   Knowing Me, Knowing You 1341   Angeleyes 1517   When I Kissed The Teacher 1534   Lay All Your Love On Me 1606   Happy New Year 1652   Does Your Mother Know 1742   Money, Money, Money 1749   Happy Hawaii 1818   Take A Chance On Me 1963   Voulez-Vous ABBA are the highest newcomers. The complete list in PDF format (712 KB) can be downloaded here. October 28, 2021 On Saturday November 6, Björn and Benny will appear in the German TV live show 'Wetten dass...' (ZDF at 20:15 local time) to promote the new album 'ABBA Voyage'. In December 2013 the ABBA editor Regina Grafunder and her husband were contestants of the show. This time there will be no pure ABBA competition, but one will include 'a bit ABBA'. The Finnish magazine Suomen Kuvalehti has interviewed ABBA THE MUSEUM curator Ingmarie Halling in the eve of ABBA Voyage release. Ingmarie tells how Mick Jagger visited the museum and was shocked when he studied ABBA's tour maps. ABBA toured only five months during their career and Jagger couldn't understand how someone can sell so many records without being constantly on the road. ABBA's regular guitarist Lasse Wellander was Ingmarie's boyfriend and she got to know ABBA via him in 1975. She listened to Deep Purple, Santana and Frank Zappa. ABBA was not something for Ingmarie, but she of course realized right away that their songs were extremely good. In the middle of 70's Ingmarie worked at Riksteatern theatre. When ABBA was about to tour in Australia in March 1977, Frida phoned Ingmarie and asked if she liked to join them. Of course Ingmarie did, she was young and carefree and being on tour was the best thing that she knew. Apart from fixing hair and make-up Ingmarie did many other things. For example tour costumes and maintaining them was her responsibility. Costumes were tight and tore easily, Ingmarie washed and repaired them. Her sewing machine is in the tour dressing room of ABBA THE MUSEUM. Many concerts were done at sports arenas, the smell of sportsmen's sweat was rather strong and Ingmarie's job included to make the rooms cozy and fresh. After Australia Ingmarie followed ABBA on all of their tours. Ingmarie was working as producer at Viasat Sport when she was chosen as chief of ABBA THE MUSEUM. Today she concentrates on being curator instead of running daily leading. She is still in constant contact with the ABBA members, especially Frida is her good friend, they see each other quite often. Ladies have played a crossword game that reminds Scrabble with their mobiles. Frida always wins which Ingmarie finds annoying. Thanks to Pentti Koponen! October 19, 2021 ABBA's fan favourite 'Just A Notion' is out Friday, Oct 22. The song was first recorded back in 1978 but never released - until now. Listen to a snippet of the song here. The CD Single can be ordered in your local record shop or here. Our new ABBA Fan Club Magazine Nr. 94 is out now. We celebrate ABBA's journey together with you after 39 years in this special edition - ABBA Voyage. Read all the news about ABBA Voyage on 36 A4-pages! All members have the chance to win an ABBA Voyage Package. Because it happens for the first time in 31 years of the ABBA Fan Club that we announce a brand new ABBA album, we have a very special present for you: An extra big poster, 42 x 60 cm! The poster shows the brand new ABBA photo, on the back side older individual photos with signatures by the ABBA members! Content: News Extra with all the news and exclusive photos Competition - win the new ABBA CD singles and an ABBA Voyage Package Special report: On a journey with ABBA Björn and Benny interview with Zoe Ball Songbook 2021 - I Still Have Faith In You, Don't Shut Me Down, Just A Notion Reader's Stories: Fan Reactions from the historical ABBA event on September 2, 2021 Exclusive interviews with Agnetha (by Carolina Norén), Bernhard Löhr and Janne Schaffer Special report: ABBA Voyage - The Catalogue ABBA Voyage Show - A Revolutionary Concert Have lots of fun with the magazine and like always we are looking forward to your feedback!                     October 18, 2021 Björn and his daughter Anna presented on Friday the renovated bath and spa house Varmbadhus in Västervik which is located close to the Slottsholmen hotel. Björn also commented the approaching Voyage release: "I am very much looking forward to November 5, our pre-orders are completely outstanding, even physical products. This is going to be really fun." Thanks to Pentti Koponen! October 14, 2021 's editor Regina attended last Friday Mamma Mia! The Party's Gothenburg premiere. Apart from talking to Björn, who was joined by his family, she enjoyed the show as well. The audience loved the show! Björn held a short speech after which the cast performed 'Don't Shut Me Down'. During his stay in Gothenburg last week Björn visited the studio of Per Svenner, one of the drummers of THE PARTY. Svenner also works with Björn on PIPPI PÅ CIRKUS which opens next summer. Beautiful photos of this visit have been published on Per Svenner's Instagram account @persvenner where he writes: 'Sometimes it happens that you have to pinch your arm. Today was one such day. Björn Ulvaeus was at my home in my studio, playing and singing. Together with great friends and musicians we created for the future.' Special thanks to Pentti Koponen! October 2, 2021 Today, it's been a month since ABBA announced their wonderful news about their new collaboration. We heard the first two songs from their forthcoming album 'Voyage' and the first details about the new show in London. We are extremely happy and proud to announce our next ABBA magazine, number 94, which is in production at the moment. It will be a special edition containing all the new information we have collected since the announcements, and as you can imagine, we have been extremely busy preparing this very special issue for you! We really want to celebrate this miracle and hope that you will all join in! Watch this space, as we will provide you with further information as soon as the magazines have arrived from the printer and are ready for despatch. We wish you all a great weekend! October 1, 2021 Swedish marketing and communications magazine Resumé published in September a large article about marketing and launching of ABBA Voyage. Görel Hanser is one of the persons they interviewed. Görel described her role in the Voyage project this way: "I am some kind of liaison center, you could say, between the record company Universal, the production company Aniara which produces the show, the (ABBA) members and handle all requests. There are many emails because so many things must be approved. All members are very involved in the work. Everything should be launched with the same language and tonality." Apart from Aniara and Universal two British companies are assigned to take care of the packaging and support the strategy of Voyage. These are the full service creative agency TMW Unlimited and PR-agency Dawbell. Swedish company Isotop is responsible for the homepage. When asked how it feels to work with the ABBA project after 40 years, Görel says: "It is great fun to be involved in such a modern process. 1982 was a completely different world. Now basically everything happens via social media. I learn a lot from working with all young people from their enthusiasm and knowledge. Last time it was fax and phone calls. Today everything happens so much faster. There was a pressure even then, but it looks completely different today." Media has speculated that there's a huge PR machine behind the launch of Voyage. Görel says that the reality looks different: "There are only a few persons who hold on the threads and try to make sure that this is as good as possible. If we take the press release, for example, it's the ABBA members who write it themselves. It is them who know best what to include and what not." Görel's comments on the launch on September 2: "Can you say anything else than that it was a success. It was not very obvious. One can have one's hopes and hope that this will be well received, those they believe in the very best. That was the attitude we had." Thanks to Pentti Koponen! September 20, 2021 Agnetha gave the Swedish radio an interview for 'Svensktoppen' talking about ABBA's comeback. ABBA are number 1 of the Swedish charts 'Svensktoppen' with 'Don't Shut Me Down'. September 2, 2021 SENSATION! The new album Voyage with 10 songs will be released on November 5, 2021 ! Here is the new song  I Still Have Faith In You!  You can watch the ABBAtars appearing at 3:40! And here is a lyric video of  Don't Shut Me Down! The 1 hour stream including a long interview with Björn and Benny Tickets for the ABBAtar Voyage Concert in London (starting in May 2022) will be available from September 7 and earlier from this link! September 1, 2021 Congratulations to all ABBA Members who have won our ticket raffle for the historical ABBA event on September 2, 2021 in Berlin! The historical moment will start at 6:45 PM (European time) live online. Here is the link to the live stream: https://linktr.ee/abbavoyage We all look forward to ABBA's upcoming journey! Today's issue of the German newspaper Westfalen-Blatt has a report about ABBA, where Regina is mentioned with a picture. August 26, 2021 Today was officially announced that 'the wait (for the new ABBA songs) is nearly over'. There is an official website about the new songs, where you can register yourself for a newsletter: www.abbavoyage.com 'ABBA VOYAGE' - ABBA invites you to a historical event on September 2, 2021! A historical evening awaits all fans as the group invites to a unique event after four decades! It will be celebrated around the globe with the title "ABBA Voyage" - from London to Tokyo, Sydney and Berlin! Exclusively for our members we will raffle off tickets for the historical ABBA event in Berlin. You can read more infos on our Facebook page. All our members will get a newsmail about it. July 23, 2021 Roland Johansson and Göran Brandels are organising an exhibition about the Hep Stars and Tages in Örebro on September 4, 2021. Special thanks to Birte Ehlers. July 9, 2021 Our new ABBA Fan Club Magazine Nr. 93 is out now. The magazine includes 36 A4-pages with very exclusive, unpublished photos in unique quality. Like always, the summer issue Nr. 93 contains news, special reports, exclusive unpublished photos, very interesting interviews plus one more great poster in the middle of the magazine with a fantastic summer photo from ABBA in Stockholm 1975. Content: News Extra with all the news and photos Competition with great prizes The song of our life Songbook - Single Tracks by Agnetha, Björn & Benny from 1971 Special report about the new ABBA songs: ABBA - New music in sight... And the sky seems the limit Special report about ABBA gold & platinum records - read more about the manufacturing of gold & platinum records in an exclusive interview with Anders Hedström, the son of the company Hedström's founder Reader's Story - Gäst Hos Hagge with Frida. A wonderful report from our member Terese Wedelin, who met Frida during the show and backstage and gave us great unpublished photos Special report about Agnetha's 'A' with an exclusive interview by Fredrik Thomander, who worked on the production of the album Have lots of fun with the magazine and like always we are looking forward to your feedback.             July 7, 2021 ABBA Gold has amassed 1,000 weeks on the UK chart - the first album to do so. June 10, 2021 New beautiful French book by the brilliant ABBA author Jean-Marie Potiez called 'ABBA Agnetha Björn Benny Anni-Frid'. Jean-Marie tells the history and genesis of each of ABBA's albums and their solo members, recorded between 1964 and 2017. The luxurious book contains photos of ABBA, record sleeves, articles etc. We already had the pleasure of looking through this fantastic book and highly recommend it. The book's size is 30 x 30 cm (!) and contains 208 pages. More about the book in ABBA No. 93. You can order it here. German Heel Verlag has published another high quality ABBA calendar for 2022. When we made them aware of the reversed image on the cover and two images inside, the calendar had already been printed. They are completely sorry for that as they didn't know it. In the future Regina will have a say and make sure that this won't happen again. You can win a copy of this beautiful calendar in the next issue of ABBA No. 93. You can also order a copy here.                 May 23, 2021 The ZAP Group sent us a link to a video with Björn, where he talks about music streaming services and the music industry. May 10, 2021 Björn has announced in newspaper interviews that the new ABBA songs will be released this autumn. Here is the New York Times article. April 25, 2021 April 20, 2021 Special thanks to Birte Ehlers who made us aware of this open letter to Putin that was, among others, signed by Björn! A fantastic sign from the stars, many thanks! Björn was interviewed by the BBC via Zoom and discussed a number of topics, including ABBA's plans and his thoughts about an ABBA biopic. The full interview can be watched here. The new edition of Kult! contains an article about Björn and a giant poster of him. April 5, 2021 March 3, 2021 Our new ABBA Fan Club Magazine Nr. 92 is out now. The magazine includes 36 A4-pages with very exclusive, unpublished photos in unique quality. Like always, the spring issue Nr. 92 contains news, special reports, unpublished photos plus one more great poster in the middle of the magazine with an exclusive ABBA photo from their last German press conference in 1982. We also have a little exclusive interview with Björn for you. Content: News Extra with all the news and photos Competition with great prizes Exclusive interview with Björn, with his handwritten answers Special report about 30 Years of ABBA , final part Special report: ABBA's performance on Show Express, final part - have fun with many more exclusive and unpublished photos Special report about ABBA's Fernando with discography Reader's Story with ABBA discography from Canada Songbook - Single Tracks by Anni-Frid Lyngstad from 1971 Have lots of fun with the magazine and like always we are looking forward to your feedback.                     March 2, 2021 Here are two new photos of Björn enjoying the winter in Stockholm Source : ZAPgroup Instagram     We have deleted some old messages. If you found this page by a search engine, don't miss the whole site! You will find the old messages from the last years in our News Archive 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004.

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