ABBA’s Avatars and the Future of Pop

Premiering in a custom-made arena in London’s Olympic Park in late May this year, ABBA Voyage is a 100-minute concert that is an economic, technological and artistic game-changer. In the U.K., culture critic Caitlin Moran admitted to being brought to tears by “the perfect pop experience — like a disco in heaven.”

Featuring the band’s founding members — all still alive — as so-called ABBAtars developed by George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic, the band spent five weeks filming in Stockholm’s Filmhuset to capture their movements and expressions. (Septuagenarians Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus shaved their beards so as to bring their physical appearance closer to that of their imperial phase.)

The show sets sail with two deep cuts — “The Visitors” and “Hole in Your Soul” — before the Benny Anderson avatar addresses the audience to say they never dreamed they would return in the 21st century looking so good. Live musicians back the avatars as they launch into “SOS,” the first of many bangers to get the crowd dancing.

ABBA Voyage director Baillie Walsh is an industry veteran whose resume includes era-defining videos with Oasis, Kylie Minogue and Massive Attack, along with the 2013 feature film “Springsteen & I.” Walsh’s insight into the role played by fans and audiences in the live arena made him an ideal candidate. Most of the concert maintained an impressive level of energy both on and off the stage, as multiple generations of audience members mouthed their favorite lyrics or sang them aloud.

If Springsteen embodied the past and future of rock in 1974, the ABBAtars do the same for pop in 2022. The show seduces with the prospect of witnessing global superstars in optimal form, sidestepping the toll that mortality and aging exact from all human beings, even rock stars. The question is, what’s next? ABBA Voyage will surely be imitated and franchised. But that is merely the beginning.

Modern-day rock and pop, and the multibillion-dollar industries around them, are disproportionately centered in the English-speaking world. But the first so-called vocaloid concert, named thus for the inclusion of a digital rather than human singer, was staged in Japan in 2009 and featured avatar Hatsune Miku. The magic was made with vocal samples from voice actress Saki Fujita in combination with an on-screen projection of the animated virtual idol. In the East, events of this kind have attracted legions of paying customers seeking to worship at the altar of a virtual pop star. Hatsune Miku remains the biggest global vocaloid star, a chart-topping pop idol in Japan. Performances and music are shaped by her fans: Vocal samples are available for anyone in the world to download and adapt to create new songs, which can then be incorporated into her musical library with the possibility of becoming global breakout hits.

Western audiences have not yet fully embraced the vocaloid turn, the format largely restricted to the use of holograms. In 2012, slain hip hop legend Tupac Shakur appeared in hologram form alongside still-living Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, his digital voice shouting, “What the f*** is up, Coachella?” (The festival did not begin until three years after his death.) There have since been multiple hologram tours of dead legends ranging from Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison to Whitney Houston.

But the technological advances showcased in ABBA Voyage underscore the fact that we have leapt into a new era of music and technology. (Music journalist Michael Hann contrasted the Whitney Houston hologram concert and ABBA Voyage as being “like the difference between a rickety ghost train at a bank holiday funfair and a state-of-the-art ride at one of the Florida theme parks.”) There are now hints of what this new era holds, with at least one major show launching this fall. And you won’t need to travel to London — or anywhere else — to experience it.

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Representing a major jump in a brave new digital world, ABBA Voyage has the potential to prepare crossover audiences for the metaverse — which, according to professors Un-Kon Lee and Hyekyung Kim, is “the permanent immersive mixed-reality world where people and objects can synchronously interact, collaborate and live beyond the limitations of time and space, using avatars and the immersion-supporting devices, platforms and infrastructure.” The metaverse has, up until now, largely remained the preserve of the video game enthusiast.

Yet Bloomberg Intelligence suggests the potential market opportunity for the metaverse could reach $800 billion by 2024, while the accounting giant PwC has predicted that the market of extended reality would reach $1.5 trillion by 2030. Artists are taking note.

A teaser of music in the metaverse era came recently with the announcement of the David Guetta Experience. Slated for fall 2022, this global, virtual event invites audiences to join the French DJ “on a mission to save the future of music — in every possible universe.” To put that into less abstract terms, a high-definition 3D avatar of Guetta will lead fans on a journey in the metaverse that will include musical appearances by Snoop Dogg, Akon and Ne-Yo. The adventure will be sound-tracked by a unique DJ set mixed by Guetta specifically for the experience.

If DJs dispensed with the need for live musicians in clubs, the David Guetta Experience seems to eliminate the need for DJs in any brick-and-mortar venue. Guetta wants to have his cake and eat it, describing performing in the real world as an “incredible” experience, while also saying that the chance to have fans join him in the metaverse “is literally out of this world.”

It remains to be seen if the metaverse experience will be as enjoyable as boogying down to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” after a drink or two at your local disco.

Do you think technology can fully replicate — or exceed — the concert experience?