Listened to the new ABBA album, and — I'd say it's… …all in all, absolutely an interesting experience?
Probably going to have to listen to it quite a bit more, because wow, there's a *lot* going on in it. Absolutely perfect if you're into upbeat and/or major key stuff dealing with complicated feelings or just outright grim subject matter, damn.
…spoliers? Re.: Voyage (ABBA, 2021).
Addiction, failed marriages, the Anthropocene extinction, some hetnorm domesticity stuff (that feels like a serious throwback to at least one song that Benny and Björn recorded before ABBA), and maybe BPD as well?
Also, the same kind of bittersweet love songs they've been doing the whole time, of course.
…spoliers? Re.: Voyage (ABBA, 2021).
Initially, I was thinking, like— "wow, this is a huge shift for them", but I think the main change, aside from forty years of aging and working on music, is just that they're being a lot more direct about themes they (at least ever since they became an actual band) tended to be way more indirect about. Intense emotions and discussing fairly non-spicy politics-adjacent things in a ~show don't tell~ framing has been a thing with them for forever, I think, so??
…spoliers? Re.: Voyage (ABBA, 2021).
Also, it was a bit of a relief when, on the last song, they were like "yeah no we're too distant from most people's struggles to make bold assertions about what Freedom™ means" as opposed to, like, actively milkshake ducking on the last song of their last album ever. fhdkjasdfaksjfd
(But still, of course, kinda a pessimistic liberal cop-out going on there.
So, par for the course? They've raised awareness in some songs, but never really urged action, hm.)