LONDON: ABBA is releasing its first new music in four decades, along with a concert performance that will see the “Dancing Queen” quartet going entirely digital.
The forthcoming album “Voyage,” to be released Nov. 5, is a follow-up to 1981’s “The Visitors,” which until now had been the swan song of the Swedish supergroup. And a virtual version of the band will begin a series of concerts in London on May 27.
“We took a break in the spring of 1982 and now we’ve decided it’s time to end it,” ABBA said in a statement Thursday. “They say it’s foolhardy to wait more than 40 years between albums, so we’ve recorded a follow-up to ‘The Visitors.’”
The group has been creating the holographic live show, using motion capture and other techniques, with George Lucas’ special-effects company, Industrial Light & Magic.
They call it “the strangest and most spectacular concert you could ever dream of.”
“We’re going to be able to sit back in an audience and watch our digital selves perform our songs,” the group’s statement said. “Weird and wonderful!”
The planned show spurred the making of the album, which features the new songs “I Still Have Faith In You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down.” It began with sessions in 2018 and was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The show will come 50 years after the founding of the group that consisted of two married couples for most of its existence, and whose name is an acronym of the first names of its members, Agnetha Fältskog, 71, Björn Ulvaeus, 76, Benny Andersson, 74, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 75.
Their music has remained ubiquitous in the decades since their breakup, in part because of the stage musical “Mamma Mia!” and the two films that followed it.
They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
Last week the group launched a website with the title ” ABBA Voyage,” teasing the new announcement. Tickets go on sale Tuesday.
ABBA back after 40 years with new album, virtual stage show
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ABBA back after 40 years with new album, virtual stage show
- The forthcoming album ‘Voyage,’ to be released Nov. 5, is a follow-up to 1981′s ‘The Visitors’
- The group says the they created the “weird and wonderful” show with George Lucas’ special-effects company, Industrial Light & Magic
Climate activist arrested for attacking Monet painting in Paris
- Action is the latest in a string of protests aimed at drawing attention to global warming by defacing art
PARIS: A climate activist was arrested on Saturday for sticking an adhesive poster on a Monet painting at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris to draw attention to global warming, a police source told AFP.
The action by the woman, a member of “Riposte Alimentaire” (Food Response) — a group of environmental activists and defenders of sustainable food production — is the latest in a string of protests aimed at drawing attention to global warming by defacing art.
In a video posted on X, the woman — introducing herself as a “concerned citizen” --- is seen placing a blood-red poster over the “Coquelicots” (Poppy Field) painting by Claude Monet, a French Impressionist artist.
In the video she said of the poster covering Monet’s art that “this nightmarish image awaits us if no alternative is put in place.”
She added: “At four degrees, we can expect hell,” a reference to forecasts saying that Earth’s temperature could rise by 4 Celsius over pre-industrial levels by 2050.
Monet’s painting, completed in 1873, shows people with umbrellas strolling in a blooming poppy field and is part of a special Musee d’Orsay show called “Paris 1874, Inventing Impressionism” that features 130 works by 31 artists.
A restoration expert examined the painting which suffered no permanent damage, the Musee d’Orsay told AFP, adding that it had been put back on the wall.
“The exhibition is entirely accessible to the public again,” a spokesperson said.
The museum would file a criminal complaint, the spokesperson added.
Some of Monet’s works have sold for tens of millions of dollars, with his painting “Meules” (“Haystacks“) even fetching over $110 million including fees at an auction in 2019.
Riposte Alimentaire has claimed responsibility for several attacks on art in France in a bid to draw attention to the climate crisis and deteriorating food quality.
They included an attack on the world’s most famous portrait, the “Mona Lisa,” in the Louvre in January when two protesters hurled soup at the bullet-proof glass protecting Leonardo da Vinci’s masterwork, saying they had a right to “healthy and sustainable food.”
The attackers were sentenced by a Paris court to carry out volunteer work for a charity organization.
Already in 2022, a man had thrown a custard pie at the Mona Lisa because, he said, artists were not focusing enough on “the planet.”
In February, Riposte Alimentaire protesters again threw soup at a painting, this time in Lyon, southeast France, targeting another Monet painting, “Springtime.”
Last month activists also belonging to the group stuck flyers around “Liberty Leading the People,” a painting by Eugene Delacroix in the Louvre.
In April, two of its members were arrested at the Musee d’Orsay, which is dedicated to 19th-Century art, suspected of preparing an action there.
Riposte Alimentaire calls itself a “French civil resistance movement which aims to spur a radical societal change for the environment and society.”
“We love art,” the movement has said, “but future artists will have nothing to paint on a burning planet.”
Monet appears to be a favorite target for climate activists elsewhere, too, with paintings by the Impressionist having previoiusly come under attack in Potsdam, Germany, and in Stockholm.
Jennifer Lopez cancels summer tour: ‘I am completely heartsick and devastated’
- The tour was scheduled to kick off on June 26 in Orlando, Florida, and conclude in Houston on Aug. 31
NEW YORK: Jennifer Lopez has canceled her 2024 North American tour, representatives for Live Nation confirmed to The Associated Press.
“Jennifer is taking time off to be with her children, family and close friends,” they said in a statement.
The tour was to be her first in five years, in support of her first solo album in a decade, “This Is Me... Now” and its companion film.
The tour was scheduled to kick off on June 26 in Orlando, Florida, and conclude in Houston on Aug. 31. Live Nation shared that attendees who purchased tickets through Ticketmaster will be automatically refunded.
Lopez offered her own statement to fans on her OntheJLo website and newsletter, writing, “I am completely heartsick and devastated about letting you down. Please know that I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t feel that it was absolutely necessary.”
She continued: “I promise I will make it up to you and we will all be together again. I love you all so much. Until next time…”
“This Is Me... Now” was released early this year, 20 years after her hit album, “This Is Me... Then.” Lopez told the AP that the new album was a “miracle” and “a second chance. And I’d love to capture this moment in time the way that album captured that moment in time.”
Kodi, star of ‘Dog on Trial,’ takes home Cannes’ top dog prize
- The Griffon mix was praised for his “breathtaking” performance as Cosmos, a guide dog for a visually impaired man
- Xin, the greyhound who made a star turn in Chinese director Guan Hu’s “Black Dog,” was awarded the Palm Dog’s Grand Jury Prize
CANNES, France: There was lots of tail-wagging and face-licking as Kodi, this year’s winner of the Palm Dog, the canine equivalent of the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, went up to receive his red collar for the French comedy “Dog on Trial” on Friday.
The Griffon mix was praised for his “breathtaking” performance as Cosmos, a guide dog for a visually impaired man, who goes on trial over an attack, in a case whose outcome could mean death.
“This film is very significant because it not only explores the bond between humans and dogs but it takes a satirical, comedic but quite profound look at the way that we domesticate dogs and the way that we relate to dogs, and the way our justice system relates to dogs,” said critic and jury member Anna Smith.
Xin, the greyhound who made a star turn in Chinese director Guan Hu’s “Black Dog,” was awarded the Palm Dog’s Grand Jury Prize.
Xin was in Cannes to don the red collar for the film about an ex-convict tasked with ridding his town of stray dogs who befriends one of them.
The unofficial awards show, which was created in 2001, is now in its 24th edition.
Kodi succeeds last year’s winner, Messi from Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” who converted his star power into a French TV show in which he, through the voice of French humorist Raphael Mezrahi, interviews people at this year’s festival.
Other past winners include Brandy, a pit bull belonging to Brad Pitt’s character in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and Tilda Swinton’s spaniels, who co-starred with her in a film directed by Joanna Hogg.
Massive cradle of baby stars revealed in new space telescope images
- The European Space Agency released the photos from the Euclid observatory on Thursday
- Euclid will spend the next several years observing billions of galaxies covering more than one-third of the sky
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: A massive cradle of baby stars has been observed in new detail by a European space telescope, adding to its celestial collection of images.
The European Space Agency released the photos from the Euclid observatory on Thursday.
They were taken following the telescope’s Florida launch last year as a warm-up act to its main job currently underway: surveying the so-called dark universe.
From its perch 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, Euclid will spend the next several years observing billions of galaxies covering more than one-third of the sky.
The shape and size of all these galaxies can help scientists understand the mysterious dark energy and dark matter that make up most of the universe.
“Euclid is at the very beginning of its exciting journey to map the structure of the universe,” the space agency’s director general, Josef Aschbacher, said in a statement.
Among the newly released pictures is one of an enormous cradle of baby stars some 1,300 light-years away known as Messier 78. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. Euclid’s infrared camera peered through the dust enveloping the stellar nursery, revealing new regions of star formation, according to ESA.
Daily marijuana use outpaces daily drinking in the US, a new study says
- In 2022, an estimated 17.7 million people reported using marijuana daily or near-daily compared to 14.7 million daily or near-daily drinkers,
- The number of daily users suggests that more people are at risk for developing problematic cannabis use or addiction, says researcher
For the first time, the number of Americans who use marijuana just about every day has surpassed the number who drink that often, a shift some 40 years in the making as recreational pot use became more mainstream and legal in nearly half of US states.
In 2022, an estimated 17.7 million people reported using marijuana daily or near-daily compared to 14.7 million daily or near-daily drinkers, according an analysis of national survey data. In 1992, when daily pot use hit a low point, less than 1 million people said they used marijuana nearly every day.
Alcohol is still more widely used, but 2022 was the first time this intensive level of marijuana use overtook daily and near-daily drinking, said the study’s author, Jonathan Caulkins, a cannabis policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.
“A good 40 percent of current cannabis users are using it daily or near daily, a pattern that is more associated with tobacco use than typical alcohol use,” Caulkins said.
The research, based on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, was published Wednesday in the journal Addiction. The survey is a highly regarded source of self-reported estimates of tobacco, alcohol and drug use in the United States.
From 1992 to 2022, the per capita rate of reporting daily or near-daily marijuana use increased 15-fold. Caulkins acknowledged in the study that people may be more willing to report marijuana use as public acceptance grows, which could boost the increase.
Most states now allow medical or recreational marijuana, though it remains illegal at the federal level. In November, Florida voters will decide on a constitutional amendment allowing recreational cannabis, and the federal government is moving to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.
Research shows that high-frequency users are more likely to become addicted to marijuana, said Dr. David A. Gorelick, a psychiatry professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.
The number of daily users suggests that more people are at risk for developing problematic cannabis use or addiction, Gorelick said.
“High frequency use also increases the risk of developing cannabis-associated psychosis,” a severe condition where a person loses touch with reality, he said.
