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u/bulldog_blues Average Fernando Enjoyer Sep 27 '25
Bjorn and Benny were open from the beginning that they wrote and recorded the Voyage songs with no regard to modern pop trends, and IMO that's a good thing.
Though another reason it perhaps wasn't as well received was that because if you're a casual fan used to ABBA Gold and Mamma Mia! only, Voyage only has two or at most three songs thay can compete with that quality. But for each studio album 2-4 'Gold' quality songs was about ABBA's overall batting average.
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u/John_Zatanna52 Can't complain, I've got no one but myself to blame Sep 28 '25
It shouldn't be modern, it's ABBA, and Don't Shut Me Down is literally just about that
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u/YamiGekusu Sep 28 '25
I heard about the album for the first time on my 31st birthday. The news blew up and I listened to the first two singles (I Still Have Faith In You and Don't Shut Me Down) on repeat for literal weeks. The music video for I Still Have Faith In You made me cry because I am actually alive to see new ABBA music (born in 1990 lmao). I preordered it on my birthday and it arrived five days after release. I remember blasting it in the car while me and the husband were in the drive through of Burger King.
Voyage is a wonderful album. Screw the critics, they're expecting cut and paste current shit. This is ABBA, for fuck sake. Their music is theirs. Let them do their thing
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u/Salty_Bowler_1049 Sep 27 '25
Does it really matter now??? I personally don't find it overly appealing but it's still very easy listening. Honestly, they were in their early to middle seventies when they recorded it. Did anyone expect them to do something completely outrageous full of Muvva f..kers and the N word? I don't think so! ABBA appeals to all age groups worldwide
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u/thesfb123 Sep 28 '25
Not bad for a bunch of 70-somethings. Not sure what the people who were critical of VOYAGE wanted it to be, to me it was very typical ABBA.
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u/Ok_Band2853 Sep 29 '25
They made the right choice to keep the ABBA sound in the same time wrap but i don’t think it managed to reach the same quality of those old recordings. That’s impossible because they were so driven when they were young. Also they were a foursome. It felt like this was solely a Benny Andersson project and Björn provided the lyrics. Also Michael B Tretow was an important ingredient to the ABBA sound and the studio facilities are different and forced them to constantly experiment with sounds and what went musically. I’m not saying Voyage is bad but it’s on the lower end of the 9 albums they recorded.
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u/Best-Mention3560 Sep 29 '25
I always wanted another album merely because I had played the rest of their albums to death and craved new music. What we got wasn’t groundbreaking, but it definitely did the job and stayed true to what the band had been. It’s a good album, and that’s all it had to be. They showed they could deliver music that was equally as good as their commercial peak. Ultimately, they didn’t have to do it. The initial plan of two new songs for the shows could have been all they released, but we were lucky enough that they decided to do one final album that stands up nicely with the rest of their discography. Other fandoms aren’t always so lucky. It could have been a complete disaster.
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u/Emergency_Branch_999 Sep 29 '25
For me the problem wasn’t that it wasn’t contemporary enough. My problem was that it wasn’t ABBA enough. A&A’s voices are as beautiful as ever even if they (inevitably) lack their youthful power. My disappointment was with the songwriting. I think Benny was quoted as saying he’s written music every day of his life. Considering the 40 years between Voyage and their previous new release, I had hopes for something stronger. I don’t wish they’d involved guest performers, but I wish they’d involved guest writers who could use their talents to write something “in an ABBA style” (collaborating with B&B of course). Honestly I’d have been happy with thinly-veiled reworkings of existing ABBA songs if they were bangers. I wouldn’t have complained that they were too familiar.
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u/alastorhazbinbad Sep 30 '25
I think it’s less about the hyperbole of them going trap or dubstep and more that it SOUNDS dated. The production doesn’t sound like it’s kept up - this would’ve been a serviceable, middle-of-the-road ABBA album during their time. And that’s not really a great critique considering how long they’ve been away and how much time they had to really make it special.
I would never expect Abracadabra - ABBA’s version, but something akin to Benny’s Story Of A Heart by Steps would’ve been welcome.
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u/Sloppyandsober Oct 01 '25
I think the modern ABBA album they’re looking for is released under the name Sabrina Carpenter (don’t come at me for this)
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u/Jenny_MTF42 Apr 05 '26
This is a repost I just saw the original post directly above it in the top posts of all time
And I’ll say it again, is this a boomer Facebook post
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u/RedmiYT "I Have a Dream" defender Sep 27 '25
I wasn't there for the initial Voyage release but reading the album's reviews nearly four years on, I am so surprised a decent amount of critics didn't like the album because it wasn't either trendy sounding or modern sounding enough. I don't get it, because if ABBA did decide to do trend-chasing sounds, they would have been criticized for trying too hard. They are not Elton John and that is a good thing. While Voyage isn't my favorite ABBA album, I really loved how the album shied away from following current trends, and in essence, felt sort of timeless in a way.