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Post by Liebezeit on Nov 5, 2021 19:36:49 GMT
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Post by bennybjorn on Nov 5, 2021 22:47:34 GMT
Updated list: - 80%, Eddie - 74%, Bennybjorn - 72.5%, JeniLP - 70.5%, Richard - 69%, Liebezeit - 66%, Johnny - 65%, Foreverfan - 62%, Thisboycries - 50%, Livingstoneagle Metacritic now edged up to 73%. I should have placed a bet! www.metacritic.com/music/voyage/abba |
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Post by Liebezeit on Nov 6, 2021 3:40:15 GMT
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Post by paulman on Nov 6, 2021 12:51:42 GMT
overall impression of the album 40%
best song : Don't Shut Me Down (80%)
Just A Notion. (90%)
No Doubt About It (70%)
others: I Still Have Faith In You (30%)
When You Danced With Me (40%)
Little Things (20%)
I Can Be That Woman (30 %)
Keep An Eye On Dan (40%)
Bumblebee (30%)
Ode To Freedom (10%)
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Post by bennybjorn on Nov 6, 2021 15:01:34 GMT
Well, somewhat bizarrely, The Guardian have published a new review of the album. This one gets 3/5 (previous one was 2/5) but reads much more positively. www.theguardian.com/music/2021/nov/06/abba-voyage-review-full-on-and-frothyI don't if this is actually another review from the same paper prompted by the criticism of the original review or (more likely) it's probably the Observer review (their sister paper) from tomorrow's edition. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2021 9:02:28 GMT
My overall score is 75%.
I had predicted 65% - so better than I thought. Little Things and Bumblebee drag the score down a bit.
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Post by swededreamz on Nov 7, 2021 17:54:02 GMT
Hi first ever post.
Superb review in The Sunday Times as well as The Mail on Sunday in the UK.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2021 19:57:49 GMT
Lina and Liebezeit, I love both your posts. Thank you! |
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Post by Michel on Nov 9, 2021 9:25:00 GMT
Het Parool www.parool.nl/wereld/de-nieuwe-abba-een-meeslepende-en-emotionele-ervaring~b8e48b6b/The new Abba: an immersive and emotional experience
Pop music's most unexpected comeback is a fact. After forty years of silence, a new ABBA album is released today. Voyage contains everything that made the Swedish quartet so attractive in its heyday.
“We've been completely blind to all contemporary trends,” said Björn Ulvaeus of the approach to Abba's ninth and final studio album. On Voyage it is all too clear: the band has successfully accomplished that mission. It may be 40 years ago that the last group album was released with The Visitors, Voyage sounds as if the band has not left the studio after that record.
The new album has everything that made Abba so attractive in its heyday: the sugary sweet melodies, the shamelessly catchy choruses, Scandinavian melancholy and above all those still softeningly beautiful harmonies of Agnetha and Anni-Frid.
At most, lyrically, something has changed. The perspective of the lyricist – Ulvaeus – is that of a middle-aged man. Not nearly eighty as in reality, but a man who makes up the balance halfway through his life. The Christmas song "Little Things" is about the young children playing with their new toys.
Closer to the skin come the lyrics of "I Can Be That Woman", a melancholic piano ballad in which two ex-partners, marked by life, meet again after years of being apart and pronounce: Sorry for the wasted years. The song — which even features either one of them's dog without getting too weird — sounds like the sequel to "When All Is Said And Done", which appeared on The Visitors and documented the separation of Benny and Anni-Frid.
There are more songs that generously wink to the past. "Just A Notion" (the only song that isn't new, but was written in 1978) seems to be "Happy Hawaii"'s sister from 1976; on "Little Things" we hear the echo of "Slipping Through My Fingers" and synthesizer bomb "Keep An Eye On Dan" borrowed snippets of "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!"'s intro.
The best songs are the poppy "Don't Shut Me Down", the roaring synthesizer party "When You Danced With Me" and the majestic opening ballad "I Still Have Faith In You". The lyrics – We do have it in us/New spirit has arrived/The joy and the sorrow/We have a story and it survived – cannot be about anything else than the four ABBA members themselves.
It is clear: also for the four seventy year olds – they married, had children, divorced and conquered the world en passant – this reunion must be emotional. That charge alone makes Voyage an immersive listening experience.
None of the songs will be as famous as "Dancing Queen" or "S.O.S.", but they don't have to be. This unanticipated reunion is for all enthusiasts – and who isn't? – more than enough already. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2021 14:02:58 GMT
overall impression of the album 40% best song : Don't Shut Me Down (80%) Just A Notion. (90%) No Doubt About It (70%) others: I Still Have Faith In You (30%) When You Danced With Me (40%) Little Things (20%) I Can Be That Woman (30 %) Keep An Eye On Dan (40%) Bumblebee (30%) Ode To Freedom (10%) What??? Clearly somebody who likes just the uptempo ABBA songs |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2021 14:09:20 GMT
Hi first ever post. Superb review in The Sunday Times as well as The Mail on Sunday in the UK. What star ratings for them? So far Independent ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Mirror ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Irish Times ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Irish Independent ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Daily Mail ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Times ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rolling Stone ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Telegraph ⭐⭐⭐ NME ⭐⭐⭐ Observer ⭐⭐⭐ Sydney Morning Herald ⭐⭐.5 Guardian ⭐⭐ Too much focus on the Guardian and that Sydney rag. |
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Post by Liebezeit on Nov 13, 2021 14:31:02 GMT
An American awaits the Billboard to be updated... a great success indeed.
The video might already be posted already in the general discussion, but rightfully, I don't want this to get lost in a swarm of tangent conversations.
Frida on the 'sour critics'. Brief yet right to the point.
"I'm so happy that people are touched by what we do - apart from some very sour critics - but we don't care about them!"
As the younger generations say: "She don't miss"!
at 11:30
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Post by Liebezeit on Nov 13, 2021 14:37:29 GMT
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Post by bennybjorn on Nov 16, 2021 14:56:18 GMT
Mojo review just in.
3 stars. Reads like a fair review although, oddly, doesn't mention the best song (DSMD).
Guess Metacritic will be including a lot more reviews soon.
Expect its current 73% score to drop a little but will hopefully still stay above 70.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2021 12:44:30 GMT
Here is my review on Voyage! A little bit late, but I needed some time to judge them properly. I Still Have Faith In You – 9,5/10 I love everything about this song, Frida’s vocals are beautiful, as are the lyrics. All four of them made this a really heartwarming song which reminds us of their story. When You Danced With Me – 9/10 Such a fun song! It took a second to grow on me at first, but I love the lyrics and the nostalgic and classic ABBA sound of the song. I’d almost say this would fit in a modern version of the ‘Ring, Ring’ album. Little Things – 9,5/10 Very sweet, they really captured the feeling of waking up on a Christmas morning and the excitement around Christmas time. Reminds me very much of my childhood during elementary school. A bit emotional as well!  Don’t Shut Me Down – 10/10 Agnetha’s vocals and her talent for storytelling! This one has the classic ABBA sound without a doubt. What I really love about this song as well is that the lyrics can be interpreted in more ways than one and some have even said that it’s a continuation to ‘One Of Us’. Just A Notion – 10/10 Very happy and classic ABBA, of course! Overall a really fun and danceable song. I am really glad they included and finally released it. I Can Be That Woman – 9,5/10 I love the story behind the song and Agnetha does really well at telling it to us. To this day, she manages to sing in a way that reaches into your heart. The song has such a fragile, vulnerable and emotional sound and I believe it is also a hopeful reminder that you (and others) can and do change. Keep An Eye On Dan – 10/10 Classic ABBA sound, once again. As Björn has mentioned, the lyrics have a touch of their personal experiences with divorces that involve children, and I think that is a beautiful thing. The lyrics are really unique and the sound is unmatched! Bumblebee – 9/10 I have never heard a song more peaceful than this one, it almost makes you forget your worries. Even though it is a nod to environmental activism as well, I also feel as though it is a reminder for us to take a second to breathe and appreciate the little things in life. And what a voice Frida still has! No Doubt About It – 10/10 This is one of my favorites on the album. The lyrics are relatable and the way Frida is able to deliver this song and those notes made my jaw drop! If this song was released back then, I would almost bet all my money on it that Frida would go wild performing this one on stage.  Ode To Freedom – 9/10 The lyrics on this song are so profound and well written and the sound of it is more than peaceful. I feel as though it is their way of thanking us and saying farewell, which is something heartbreaking, but we have at least gotten this gift of an album. Overall, a perfect album to me. Although not every song has a 10/10 rating, I give the album as a whole a 10/10! It was a wonderful experience listening to it for the first time. |
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Post by bennybjorn on Nov 23, 2021 10:00:58 GMT
It looks like the Metacritic Voyage page has been updated and now has 14 reviews (think there were just 6 before).
The average score has dropped but only by one to 72 which I expect the band are pleased enough with.
Anything over 70 is considered 'generally favourable' (60 to 70 is 'mixed').
You usually need to get over 80 to do well in end-of-year polls, Mercury prize etc. so they're not in that bracket but still a pretty decent performance.
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Post by bennybjorn on Nov 23, 2021 23:06:17 GMT
Well, when I said in the post before this that you need an 80%+ score on Metacritic to win awards, I had forgotten that songs can get awards, too, and not just albums.
So we hear today that I Still Have Faith is up for a Grammy. This is great news intrinsically but, as I mentioned before, I strongly believe that the amount of critical acclaim (or the lack of it) that the album attracts will have a strong bearing on weather the group feel like doing more stuff. It was brave of them to add to their amazing body of work by releasing new songs (and risky too) so I'm really chuffed that it seems to have paid off.
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Post by Liebezeit on Nov 25, 2021 14:46:18 GMT
I'm somewhat of a fan of Anthony Fantano / The Needle Drop and I'm glad he got the chance to review the album.
He describes it as "meager", "not fun" but he does respect that ABBA's hiatus has been 40 years and doesn't expect it to exactly pick it up where they left off.
He does sort of give praises to the content of the songs itself, though "idyllic ... it's sterile", "underwhelming... straight out boring".
He's a bit more expectant of ABBA to rekindle with their disco era - typical American reviewer - but he does bounce back with expecting "Europop cuts".
He also agrees with one of my opinions on Little Things. I feel less alone right now: "Fourty years later, the band really has some guts to put the song Little Things ... And you're hitting the fans with, like a Christmas banger!"
Overall, he does fit the criteria of a prediction I laid out earlier: songs are overall good, but the mixing and arrangement, and palettes are meh ("watching a bad nature documentary" - each to his own.)
Fantano says 5/10. His reasoning is quite harsh and take no prisoner in here. "Severely missing", so he says.
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Post by Liebezeit on Dec 10, 2021 14:06:02 GMT
American news outlet National Review was more receptive to the ABBA Voyage album than I expect. Kyle Smith, critic-at-large, has at least done some research on ABBA and refuted an article from The Spectator (UK) just earlier the past months - so huzzah! "Building art out of contentment (as opposed to rage, lust, joy, despair, etc.) is nearly impossible, but Benny and Bjorn just about manage. Mostly, the album is intended to build excitement for the hologram concerts ABBA plans to stage next year, which promise to be dazzling. ... Voyage also serves as a much-deserved chance for Ulvaeus and Andersson to take a long bow before the world. (They’ve been publicizing the album while the women demur. None of them want to tour.)" -Kyle Smith www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/welcome-back-abba/And yes... there was another initial review, but I think that was made for the online version considering the author of the second review is specialized in the online version. Two for the Price of One. www.nationalreview.com/2021/11/dont-go-wasting-your-emotions-on-abbas-voyage/ |
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Post by bennybjorn on Dec 21, 2021 10:57:25 GMT
Voyage gets a top 50 albums of the year placing in the Independent (#34). Think it's the first time I've seen it in an end of year review. www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/albums-of-the-year-2021-b1978598.html"Ulvaeus has said that this is the last we will hear from Abba: they’ve owned the traumas and triumphs of their past with admirable honesty on Voyage. It’s a terrific, family-friendly smorgasbord of a record that delivers all the classic Abba flavours. I think we can let them go now. Tack for the music, guys!" |
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Post by bennybjorn on Dec 21, 2021 11:31:07 GMT
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Post by bennybjorn on Jan 6, 2022 19:48:03 GMT
Not sure if people were aware that DSMD (just!) made it into Billboards top 100 songs of 2021. www.billboard.com/lists/best-songs-2021/"One of the year’s most gratifying LP releases was ABBA’s Voyage comeback set, a delightfully low-stakes set of shimmering pop confections with precious little imprint from the 40 years that had passed since the pop legends’ previous album. “Don’t Shut Me Down” was the set’s arguable highlight, a mildly meta plea from the group to an ex lover not to reject the new-and-improved version of themselves upon their return (“I’m asking you to keep an open mind/ I’m not the same this time around”). When they’ve shown up with a reggae-tinged, sweetly sax-y bubblerock gem like this, who could turn them away? — ANDREW UNTERBERGER" |
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