Super, Troupers! After 40 years, the Swedish pop legends' new album is out. And yes, it's Abba-solutely fab

There was always going to be one big question surrounding the release of Abba’s first album in 40 years.

Could the Swedish super troupers come up with songs to hold a candle to classics such as Dancing Queen and Knowing Me, Knowing You?

On the evidence of Voyage, out today, the answer is, by and large, a resounding yes. The quartet’s first album since 1981’s The Visitors rekindles the heartfelt storytelling and melodic genius that helped turn the group into one of pop’s greatest success stories – a band who sold more than 400 million albums in their heyday and later captured the hearts of a younger generation through the Mamma Mia jukebox musicals.

There were always two sides to Abba, who confirmed their return in September by announcing Abba Voyage, a series of concerts featuring digital avatars of their younger selves. On the one hand, we had the gleeful, stack-heeled stomp of hits like Waterloo. On the other, there was the melancholy depth of The Winner Takes It All and Slipping Through My Fingers. Both extremes are in play here.

As the band were winding down activities in the early 1980s (they never officially split) they found themselves chasing that decade’s electronic music fashions rather than setting the trends as they once did.

But they claim to have worked on Voyage ‘absolutely trend-blind’, thus allowing Agnetha Faltskog, 71, Bjorn Ulvaeus, 76, Benny Andersson, 74, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 75, to play to their traditional strengths.

Several songs here feature a familiar wall of sound built around guitars, keyboards, percussion, orchestral flourishes – and, best of all, Agnetha and Anni-Frid’s peerless vocal blend I Still Have Faith In You would make a perfect curtain-raiser when Abba Voyage opens in London next May.

There was always going to be one big question surrounding the release of Abba’s first album in 40 years.

Could the Swedish super troupers come up with songs to hold a candle to classics such as Dancing Queen and Knowing Me, Knowing You?

WHY? November 5th is the red-letter date in the history of science! Time travel was even invented at the site of the iconic "Gamble House".

See how it all adds up? :)

Y? Shield eyes from light

What a "Voyage"... because you know how the Torah begins "with Rush" who was 70? Seriously, the first 4 letters [בראש]. The first letter is a big bet. A big gamble house.

Compare "ABBA"s Voyage - the famous mirrored B's -- to the Golden EIB microphone:

Let there be light.

The diamond ring effect is seen when only one bead is left, appearing as a shining "diamond" set in a bright ring around the lunar silhouette.

November 5th, 2021:

Friday night and the lights are low
Looking out for a place to go
Where they play the right music
Getting in the swing
You come to look for a king...

You are the dancing queen
Young and sweet
Only seventeen
Dancing queen
Feel the beat from the tambourine, oh yeah:

Exodus 15

20. And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines, dancing:
21. And Miriam answered them, Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider has he thrown into the sea:

Good is famous for being 17 [טוב, tov = 17], and for making its first appearance here:

The 33rd word in the Torah is the Hebrew word tov meaning "good." It refers to the light that was God's first creation: God saw that the light was good (Genesis 1:4).
https://www.aish.com/tp/i/m/48962056.html

It's all orchestrated.

Knowing Me, Knowing You ~ ABBA

Behold I come quickly, "Bereshith" -- "in a little bit of a rush."

Ohhh....that ABBA.... Thought you meant this one:

Well I did. :) The King of the World permeates everyone and everything, after all.

Take "Pollyanna" for example. While the name is ironically used in the negative to describe a person who is unrealistically optimistic and refuses to face the truth, a little reading up reveals that the Glad Game *is* the mindset for living. Hashkafa..

Always seeking out the good. No wonder Pollyanna gets a bad rap. She tapped into the Way of the Patriarchs which goes up just by its very nature.

Interesting that the author, surnamed Porter no less, "was an American novelist, most known for Pollyanna (1913) and Just David (1916)."

Just -- it's an adverb as well as an adjective. You think in 1916 the writer was aware of the Hebrew word swap with a nevel becoming a harp and a kinnor coming to mean a fiddle?

Because it you look at the story line, there's David, just being David.

Hmmm:

David is a ten-year-old boy who plays the violin and does not know his last name. He leads an idyllic life in the mountains with his father, until his father becomes gravely ill, forcing them to go down into the valley. With his father's health worsening, they spend the night in a barn. Just before he dies, the father gives David a large number of gold coins, telling him to hide them until they are needed.

His fiddles were extremely valuable; the one he inherited from his father [which he had loaned to a blind friend] was a Stradivarius. If I had to identify the living parable, it's the Kinnor HaMashiach that ended up living in its "new state" in the Ashmolean Museum which was named for a man named Elias.

Which brings me back to Pollyanna. Turns out that it's a Hebrew name (Polly = Molly = Mary):

A female given name from Hebrew derived from Polly and Anna; rare in the real world.

Yet as a famous name and principle, Pollyanna is spelled in Hebrew "as is" (WYSIWYG, I AM WHAT I AM):

פוליאנה

You see all the good found in that name?

Peniel, Penuel, Elijahu... it goes on. It even adds up to Jacob, 182.

In fact, it really is the simple meaning of the sound, of poly (many, much) + anna (Hannah, grace).

Funny how a name can be Hebrew, Greek, and Latin all at the same time. A total round-up of everything good, the Yechida.