The Uncanny Abba!

Batutta

Batutta

Major Contributor
They recreate vintage Abba with CGI and performance capture at the end, and I gotta say, they are like millimeters away from traversing the uncanny valley here. Almost. The song is sappy as all hell but I'm a big old sap and having been married for 25 years it made me a bit misty eyed.

 
Kinda weird, huh? Even weirder, check this out (from The Guardian):
The group – Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Björn Ulvaeus – have also announced a new concert experience in London, also called Voyage, beginning in May 2022. Digital versions of themselves (not holograms, their team asserted) will appear nightly alongside a 10-piece live band at a new 3,000-capacity venue in the city’s Olympic park, called the Abba Arena. Tickets go on general sale on Tuesday 7 September.

[snip]

Abba’s digital avatars were created using motion capture technology... Wayne McGregor, resident artist at London’s Royal Ballet, choreographed the band’s performance, and an 850-strong team from George Lucas-founded effects company Industrial Light & Magic designed and animated the de-aged avatars from the footage.​

Rest of the article: Abba reunite for Voyage, first new album in 40 years


And a 4:26 VNR:



Batutta, let us know what you think of the show. Because we all know you're going. :laugh:
 
As someone who has seen "Mamma Mia, the Musical" three times, all I am asking for is a faithfully recreated 1970's Agnetha's tush. Har-har-har-har.
 
When it's ABBA it's a risk to do thing like this but it's not going to disappoint the fans and the new songs I've heard are really decent - as if the 40 year absence hadn't happened. I expected something avataarish but it's really good I think!
 
DLD said:
As someone who has seen "Mamma Mia, the Musical" three times, all I am asking for is a faithfully recreated 1970's Agnetha's tush. Har-har-har-har.
Click to expand...

She is the blonde, correct?
She was quite a pretty young lady in the early days. I never realized it until I saw a performance where they were dressed in some cute cat outfits. I was like, those girls are darling, especially the sweet faced blonde with blue eyes
 
firehawk said:
She is the blonde, correct?
She was quite a pretty young lady in the early days. I never realized it until I saw a performance where they were dressed in some cute cat outfits. I was like, those girls are darling, especially the sweet faced blonde with blue eyes
Click to expand...

Yes,Agnetha Fältskog is the blonde. She's 71 now.

The worst thing about this video is her husband getting into the frame.


They played in Milwaukee on September, 29th, 1979. I could have gone but we had almost no money at the time. We just arrived in the US. Their live show wasn't supposed to be all that good anyway. Although that misses a bigger point. They were ABBA. The US had Bee Gees. The world had ABBA.
 
Why's the quality so good here?

Sometimes seeing some of these 1960s/70s restorations or whatever they are is captivating.
 
That "probably" began with the Beatles live show at Shea, where there was more screaming from the female fans than any audible sound from the group's 50 watt Vox amps. George Martin took the footage to the studio, dubbed some, added other, rerecorded third. When the live concerts went to the 8-16-24 track modules - Deep Purple's Made in Japan (August 1972) was recorded on two 4-track units, which allowed 8 microphones - one each for the vocal, organ, bass and lead and four (snare, floor tom, two high hats) for the drummer - then remixing any audio became much easier.

And the drum kits grew to gigantic proportions.
 
Wow the quality of the Sydney video does not look old.

I think this is the video I was talking about DLD (it's been a few years so I'm not sure)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ7Mbdquc8s
It certainly looks vintage quality.

And here is another that looks better quality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUrzicaiRLU&list=RDNJ7Mbdquc8s&index=3

Perhaps part of it is the stuff shot on videotape vs film in how good it is able to look today?

Of course, Agnetha looks pretty either way :thumbsup:

They were certainly a remarkable group
 
Both were remastered off old film clips. ABBA's videos were directed by their compatriot Lasse Hallström, who went on to fame and fortune (and Lena Olin) as the director of several well respected Hollywood films such as What's eating Gilbert Grape and the Cider House Rules. If they were shot on 16mm, then remaster is of a reasonable quality, albeit not up to the level of something originally shot in 4K (for which they would have had to use, at least, a Vista Vision camera)

Which reminds of the old Led Zeppelin CD's from the mid-80's, which were copies of their archived tape masters and of no better quality than the tapes themselves. It took several more years of the technological advance for all the preexisting tape noise to be eliminated. Back then, IIRC, it took a week or so of processing to do a 35-minute album. Now, it can be done with a click of a mouse.
 
Really like this - the 2/4 bars and that SOS outro. Love Abba or hate them, they're great songs and very clever to just carry on with what, 30 years absence just wiped out.
 
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