Voyage

Voyage is the upcoming ninth studio album by Swedish group ABBA, scheduled to be released on 5 November 2021. It is the group's first album of new material in 40 years following The Visitors (1981) and their disbandment in 1982.
The album was announced on 2 September 2021 in a YouTube livestream. ABBA announced in 2018 that they had recorded two songs, "I Still Have Faith in You" and "Don't Shut Me Down", which were announced as the lead singles from the album in the livestream. The group also announced the ABBA Voyage digital avatar concert alongside a 10-piece band, beginning on 27 May 2022, to be held at London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
A website, abbavoyage.com, went live on 26 August 2021, billboards were erected in London, and social media accounts titled "ABBA Voyage" were set up to promote the announcement.
Its track listing contains 10 songs, two of which, "Just a Notion" and "Bumblebee", were previously included in demo versions as part of the medley "ABBA Undeleted" from the Thank You for the Music box set released in 1994.
Production
Background
ABBA had unofficially split up in 1982, and despite renewed interest in the band from the 1990s onwards, following the worldwide success of their greatest hits album ABBA Gold, the musical Mamma Mia! and the subsequent film of the same name, the members had repeatedly refused to reform, reportedly turning down an offer of $1 billion in 2000 to perform again. In July 2008, Björn Ulvaeus told The Sunday Telegraph, "We will never appear on stage again. There is simply no motivation to re-group." He repeated the statement in an interview in 2014 while promoting the publication of ABBA: The Official Photo Book.
On 6 June 2016, ABBA did reunite, singing "The Way Old Friends Do" at a private party in Stockholm. Two years later, in April 2018, they announced they had recorded two new songs, "I Still Have Faith in You" and "Don't Shut Me Down".
Songs were initially intended to support a TV special produced by NBC and the BBC, but this was later changed to the "ABBAtar" tour announced months prior.
ABBAtars
The digital avatars of the band that will appear during the ABBA Voyage concerts, dubbed the "ABBAtars", were first announced in September of 2017, with Benny Andersson saying that it would take time to make their faces, and Ulvaeus saying that he was excited about how technology is advancing. The tour was originally set for 2019, but due to technical delays and the COVID-19 pandemic, it was pushed back to 2022. The ABBAtars have the same technology of the Tupac Shakur pseudo-hologram from 2012, with 3D avatars accompanied with a live band. The members themselves were in motion capture suits for the avatars, with graphics by Industrial Light & Magic.
Commercial performance
The album recorded 40,000 UK pre-orders in the first 24 hours following the announcement of its release. Three days after the album was announced, it received over 80,000 pre-orders in the UK alone, breaking the record for the biggest pre-ordered album for Universal Music Group UK, which was previously held by Progress (2010) by Take That.