ABBA are launching a comeback – but they won’t be the ones singing or dancing.
Instead, virtual ‘Abbatars’ are being created to represent the four members of the Swedish pop group for an upcoming digital gig, it was reported last night.
Singer Björn Ulvaeus, 72, revealed the news during a speech in Brussels. The two-hour show is expected to be broadcast by the BBC in Britain and simulcast across the globe.
ABBA (pictured in 1975) may perform together again as digitally reproduced ‘Abbatars’
A world tour is planned for 2019 or 2020, which could generate hundreds of millions of pounds in ticket sales, according to the Times.
The band will appear as they looked at their musical peak in 1979 thanks to high-tech imaging equipment.
‘We thought we looked good that year,’ Ulvaeus said.
Silicon Valley experts are using old videos to replicate how the band danced, dressed and sang so they can be programmed to reproduce hits such as Waterloo, Mamma Mia and Dancing Queen.
Ulvaeus described the effect as ‘simply mind-boggling’.
‘You’ll hear the voices of Abba coming out of the mouths of the Abbatars,’ he said.
A digitally reproduced version of the band will perform hits like Waterloo, Mamma Mia and Dancing Queen
‘You won’t be able to see that they’re not human beings. It’ll be spooky, I assure you, but great fun and no one has done it before.’
The television special is being produced by American network NBC and sold around the world by BBC Studios. Details of the show are yet to be revealed but it is believed other famous acts will perform Abba tributes before the Abbatars sing one classic track as the finale.
The band sold more than 400 million albums but have not performed since 1986, apart from at a private party in 2016.
The four members – Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, 71, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 72, and Agnetha Fältskog, 68 – have resisted reunions but are all behind the Abbatar project.
If successful the technology could allow bands to stage concerts anywhere in the world without
The four members of the band have resisted reunions but are all behind the Abbatar project
If the technology is embraced by fans it will allow artists to stage concerts anywhere in the world without leaving their homes.
Ulvaeus said US ‘techno artists’ had scanned the band last year.
‘They photographed us from all possible angles, they made us grimace in front of cameras, they painted dots on our faces, they measured our heads,’ he told broadcasting executives last week.
‘Apparently, a cranium doesn’t change with age the way the rest of your body falls apart.’
The singer said there was an ‘existential dimension’ to the project, as the band explored the idea of being young again: ‘The wisdom that we hopefully possess now in combination with the youth of the Abbatars.’