Established in 1969, the studio’s fate has remained in constant limbo. In 2019, property developers purchased the building and proposed plans to replace it with a seven-story apartment building.

The city of Stockholm eventually got involved to halt the process due to the “historical and cultural values in the building and its technical prominence as one of the highest valued studios for analogue recording in the world.” While the city’s decision was made on December 20th, they only just now announced it publicly.

Baggpipe wasn’t only home to ABBA. The Beatles also recorded there, along with contemporary artists such as Lady Gaga, Swedish House Mafia, and Wyclef Jean. The studio calls itself a “sister studio of Abbey Road” and was built as an acoustic copy of the London-based studio. Five Billboard #1 songs have been produced there.

Baggpipe Studios Chairman of the Board Mikael Gordon Solfors said of the news, “We cannot enough show out gratitude and happiness that the decisionmakers in Stockholm municipality understand the value of the facility that we use and the thousands of work opportunities that we provide worldwide.”

A man appearing to be in his 80s fell from the seventh story of the Uppsala Konsert and Kongress Hall and landed on two people. The two were a man and a woman, both in their 60s. The man died from his injuries while the woman was taken to the hospital. According to police, she sustained non-life-threatening injuries. None of the parties have been named as of this writing.

The incident occurred about 30 minutes before the band were scheduled to appear on stage at 7:30 PM local time, according to a police spokesperson. About 1,000 people were in attendance.

Immediately following the fall, police shut down the hall and began questioning witnesses. Magnus Jansson Klarin, a police spokesperson, told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) that officers are investigating the situation to determine whether or not a crime was committed.

“We received a call about someone having either jumped or fallen from a high altitude,” Klarin said. He went on to say they “currently have no reason to think a crime had been committed in relation to the man’s fall.”

The news comes as ABBA is set to release their first new music in almost 40 years, along with a concert scheduled for next year.

Universal Music UK has confirmed that Voyage has now taken the title for the label’s biggest-ever album preorder, surpassing fellow pop group Take That‘s works III and Progress.

ABBA plan to take Voyage to even greater heights with what the band refer to as a “revolutionary” new concert. The show will see them perform digitally with a 10-piece band, in the purpose-built ABBA arena in Queen Elizabeth Park in London beginning on May 27th, 2022.

Directed by Baillie Walsh, the concert employed motion capture to digitize ABBA with an 850-person team from George Lucas‘ company, Industrial Light & Magic. Tickets for the concert are on sale today, and can be found at this link.

Two new singles from the forthcoming Voyage album have already been released. “I Still Have Faith In You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down” have already breached the UK Top 10 Single chart midweek, and they garnered over 20 million views combined on YouTube.

ABBA’s Voyage album is available for preorder on the official ABBA online store.

Two years ago the Swedish foursome performed together for the first time in 30 years at a private event in Stockholm. Several months later they teased a 2019-2020 virtual tour that they later announced as the the “Abbatar” tour, and they claim to have written two new songs while working on it this year.

#abbaofficial #abba

A post shared by @ abbaofficial on Apr 27, 2018 at 4:11am PDT

Here We Go Again

ABBA formed in 1972 and consisted of  Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The group saw nearly unparalleled commercial success in the early ’70s, and to date their estimated record sales range from 140-500 million units.

Likely owing in part to Andersson and Lyngstad’s divorce the group broke up the year after the release of their 1981 album, The Visitors. Aside from brief appearances in connection with the 2008 film Mamma Mia! and its 2016 sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, they have not reunited for new gigs or releases prior to their recent announcement.

ABBA have yet to reveal the title of the second track, nor have they disclosed release information for either of them.

Source: Resident Advisor