Pop group Abba is joining with Universal Music and American Idol creator Simon Fuller to create a new virtual reality venture. The partnership will create a new way for fans to experience the music of the iconic pop supergroup in a way never before possible, according to its members.
Abba is one of the most successful and most loved pop groups of all time. The Swedish group, which consists of four members, Benny Andersson, Frida Lyngstad, Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus, actively recorded from the years 1972 through 1982 and have sold an estimated over 500 million records worldwide, including chart-topping hit singles like "Dancing Queen", "Mamma Mia", "Take a Chance on Me", "Waterloo" (with which they won the Eurovision Song Contest) and "Fernando".
The group's members started off as two married couples, but both couples split up towards the end of the group's run. Although Abba stopped recording and performing together, they never officially disbanded, and now they have reunited not to record a new album or embark on a concert tour, but to create a new virtual reality experience built around their iconic music.
The group has partnered with Universal Music and Simon Fuller, the creator of "American Idol" and other hit TV shows and now founder and CEO of XIX Entertainment, a company he says has spent the last few years developing "hyper-realistic digital humans."
Exploring VR And AI
"We are exploring a new technological world, with virtual reality and artificial intelligence at the forefront, that will allow us to create new forms of entertainment and content we couldn't have previously imagined," said Fuller.
Although it has been over 30 years since Abba split up, they have remained in the forefront of pop culture through their timeless, infectious music. In 1999, the hit Broadway musical Mamma Mia debuted, and utilized the group's most famous songs in a full-fledged storyline. The show was then made into a successful feature film starring Meryl Streep in 2008.
Despite the fact that Abba has not recorded or performed together for over 30 years, all four members have actually remained friendly with each other and have appeared at several Mamma Mia events, including the film premiere. As recently as 2014, Fältskog stated that a reunion of the group was possible. Whether the new virtual reality experience will include that reunion or simply feature the group's previous recordings and performances remains to be seen, as the group's members have been coy so far in their descriptions of exactly what the VR will entail.
"Our fans around the world are always asking us to re-form and so I hope this new Abba creation will excite them as much as it excites me!" said Lyngstsad, while Andersson described the project as "A time machine that captures the essence of who we were. And are."
