t’s been a great couple of years for ABBA fans. Not only are the band playing live again, albeit in the form of incredibly hi-tech holograms, the Swedish four-piece also released their first new record since 1983, Voyage, two years ago.
And now, there’s yet more ABBA-adjacent material to enjoy – Agnetha Fältskog is relaunching her solo career.
On a newly created solo Instagram page, the singer announced that her new single Where Do We Go From Here? will air on August 31 at 8.30am, on Jo Wiley’s BBC Radio 2 breakfast show.
“If it’s anything as amazing as Dont Shut Me Down I’ll be VERY happy!!” commented one fan, referring to one of ABBA’s 2021 comeback singles.
Several fans also pointed out that Fältskog’s 2013 album A ‒ her last solo release ‒ featured a track with the same name.
The Sun reports that the ABBA member has just signed a deal with Kylie’s label BMG, meaning that more new music could be on the way.
“Agnetha loved being back in the studio with ABBA and it inspired her to relaunch her solo career,” an insider claimed to the paper. She has been in regular contact for months with the team at BMG in London and they have helped develop her new sound.
“After a long time working on new music, there is finally a body of work which she loves and which is ready for release.”
Fältskog’s first solo release, a self-titled, Swedish-language debut, came out in 1968 before the formation of ABBA. After the band went on hiatus in the early Eighties, she put out a string of English-language albums. A, which reached No.6 in the UK charts, is her most recent solo record.
Otherwise, she’s best known as a quarter of ABBA, the Swedish pop group who rose to fame after winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with their now-classic hit Waterloo. Originally, the band consisted of two married couples – Fältskog was married to Björn Ulvaeus, while Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad were also married – but as their fame grew and grew, the cracks began to show. As each relationship came under mounting pressure, ABBA’s music became darker and more introspective. One of their final singles before quietly disbanding, One of Us, is entrenched in heartbreak. “I dealt you the blow,” they sing, “One of us had to go.”
By the Nineties, ABBA began to enjoy a kind of revival thanks to an EP of remixes by the synth-pop band Erasure. The Mamma Mia! films, which are soundtracked by ABBA’s music, only fuelled interest in the group further. Eventually they reunited for new album Voyage in 2021. The Voyage live show ‒ a huge, hi-tech production featuring realistic avatar performers based on the band in their Seventies heyday ‒ is still running regularly in London today, a year after opening.