Brand-new ABBA music?! Yeah, kinda. It’s a song that’s never seen the light of day before, and which will be included on their new ‘Voyage’ album, released next month.
But?… Well it’s actually an old demo from the sessions they had for the ‘Voulez-Vous’ album, but which inexplicably got scrapped, and which fans have been crying out for through the last – and we kid you not in this case – 43 years. It’s been revisited, reimagined and reproduced. And it’s their new single, out today!
And what’s it like? Well with all that being said, it will comes as no surprise to hear that it’s “classic ABBA”. But then there are a lot of styles of pop that could be classified as classic ABBA. With ‘Just A Notion’, it falls into our very favourite category – upbeat, deliriously happy schlager-pop that exudes joy from every note. This is very much in the same family as ‘I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do’, ‘If It Wasn’t For The Nights’, and even ‘Waterloo’. And it now sits alongside them as though it had been there all along. We already absolutely adore it like we’d always had it on repeat. And it’s a chorus we’re gonna be humming for the next 43 years, blatantly. ABBA are well and truly back.
What do they say? Björn: “Wikipedia says this track was recorded in September 1978, which sounds about right. That puts it in between ‘ABBA the Album’ and ‘Voulez-Vous’, and it would have been included in the latter had we not decided against it. Why did we decide against it? In hindsight, I don’t have a clue. It’s a good song with great vocals. I know that we played it to a publisher in France and a couple of other people we trusted and as far as I can remember they liked it very much. So it’s a mystery and will remain a mystery. Now Benny has recorded a new backing track to which we’ve added drums and guitars, but all vocals are from the original 1978 tracks. In a way, it demonstrates what we plan to do with ABBA Voyage in 2022. There, we will have a live band playing, but all vocals will be from the old recordings. ‘Just a Notion’ is a ridiculously happy song and hopefully it will cheer you up in these dark times!”
Written by? Benny and Björn, of course.
More from ABBA? The ‘Voyage’ album arrives in a mere two weeks, on November 5th.
You can find ‘Just A Notion’ on our Best New Pop playlist.
