‘Gold’ – the 2nd best selling album in the UK

ABBA’s Gold: Greatest Hits has overtaken sales of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to become the UK’s second biggest selling album of all time, according to the Official Charts Company’s sales data.

While both albums have now sold over 5.1 million copies in the UK, ABBA’s 1992 ‘Best Of’ collection has nudged ahead of The Beatles’ iconic 1967 album by nearly 15,000 copies. An estimated one in five British households owns a copy of either Gold or Sgt Pepper’s.

 Björn Ulvaeus said, “It’s feels unreal – outselling the greatest record of all time!”.

Gold, which features all nine of  ABBA’s Official Singles Chart Number 1s including Waterloo, Mamma Mia, Fernando, Dancing Queen, Knowing Me Knowing You, The Name Of The Game, Take A Chance On Me, The Winner Takes It All and Super Trouper, has spent a total of eight weeks at Number 1 on the Official Album Charts.

The announcement coincides with this year’s Eurovision Song Contest being held in Malmö, Sweden; ABBA famously won Eurovision in 1974 with Waterloo, which became their first ever Number 1 single on the UK’s Official Singles Chart.

Official Charts Company Managing Director, Martin Talbot, said: “The British people took Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-frid to their hearts from the night that they won the Eurovision Song Contest on British soil, in Brighton, 39 years ago. So it is perhaps apt that their huge Gold hits album has reached such heady heights, all these years later.”

Queen’s 1981 Greatest Hits album remains the UK’s biggest selling album of all-time with 5.9 million sales. Adele’s landmark 2011 album, 21, and Oasis’ 1995 second album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, complete the Top 5.

In related news, Agnetha Faltskog has scored her highest charting solo album of her career, with the new release A entering the charts at number 6. Agnetha’s previous UK best was 2004’s My Colouring Book, which peaked at Number 12.

Related links:

• Official Charts Company – ‘ABBA overtake the Beatles to score UK’s second biggest selling album’
• ABBA Gold – the UK’s biggest selling CD

Thanks to Niclas Ericsson for the link.

Contestants entered the arena on a bridge symbolising the Öresund Bridge – Photo: Dennis Stachel (EBU)

We Write the Story was revealed last night during the opening ceremony of the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest final, staged in Sweden’s Malmö Arena.

The anthem, written by Benny and Björn and produced in collaboration with Swedish DJ Avicii, was performed by a large choir together with contestants from all 26 participating countries.

We Write the Story accompanied, firstly a video showing the journey of the competition from Baku in Azerbaijan (last year’s hosts) to Malmö, and then a grand Olympic-style procession of all the contestants into the arena.

We Write the Story – Avicii, Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and choir.
(Music: Benny Andersson, Lyrics: Björn Ulvaeus, Arranged by Benny Andersson and Göran Arnberg)

Justice and Peace and Liberty
We write the story
We can fulfil the Legacy
We write the song
Welcome a new Enlightenment
We write the story
We can re-cast and re-invent
We write the song

We are humans
Born free and equal
On this one earth lies our future
Reason and conscience
May they rule the world one day

Justice and Peace and Liberty
We write the story
We can fulfil the Legacy
We write the song

True to the ones who lit the light
We write the story
We have a torch to reignite
We write the song

Welcome a new Enlightenment
Welcome the glory
We can re-cast and re-invent
We can be strong
We have a choice in everything
We write the story
We have a voice and words to sing
We write the song

We are humans
Born free and equal
On this one earth lies our future
We are keepers
Reason and conscience
May they rule the world one day

Justice and Peace and Liberty
We write the story
We can fulfil the Legacy
We write the song

True to the ones who lit the light
We write the story
We have a torch to reignite
We write the song

Welcome a new Enlightenment
Welcome the glory
We can re-cast and re-invent
We can be strong
We have a choice in everything
We write the story
We have a voice and words to sing
We write the song

Free and equal
Reason and conscience
We are humans
We are one

Copyright © 2013 Mono Music AB / Kopparnäset Förlags AB

The full 3 hour televised broadcast, which also featured a performance of The Winner Takes It All by Swedish artist Sarah Dawn Finer (aka ‘Official EBU Host’ Lynda Woodruff), can be viewed until 17 June 2013 by following the link below.

We Write the Story was recently recorded in Benny’s Stockholm studio and is available to download now on iTunes.

The official DVD set of the song contest, which was won by Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest with the song Only Teardrops, will include the semi-finals of 14 and 16 May, together with last night’s final and will be available in June.

Related links:

• We Write the Story on iTunes
• SVT play (available until 17 June 2013)

An ABBA The Museum souvenir brochure signed by Benny, Björn and Frida could be yours!

This competition is now closed. Thank you for entering and congratulations to Sue Rao who was the lucky winner.

ABBA The Museum opened on 07 May 2013 and on that same day, Björn, Benny and Frida signed some glorious full colour 29cm x 29cm museum brochures and gave one to icethesite to give away to one lucky competition entrant!

Packed with over 40 pages of full colour pictures and text detailing the story of ABBA from ‘pre- to post-’ the brochure is an absolute must-have!

All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning a signed copy is tell us below which ONE of the following ABBA The Museum exhibits you are most looking forward to experiencing…

• Having a photo taken on the ’Greatest Hits park bench’ and/or in the ‘Arrival helicopter’
• Seeing the iconic original costumes up close
• Trying on the costumes virtually
• The big red ‘Ring Ring phone’
• The Polar Studios and mixing desk challenge
• Dancing and singing with the ABBA holograms
• Hearing the museum audio guide narrated by the ABBA members themselves
• Viewing the room sets, such as Benny and Björn’s song-writing hut, Stig’s office and backstage dressing room
• Visiting ‘the Folk park’ and learning about the pre-ABBA musical backgrounds
• Other…(please tell us)

There is no right or wrong answer but we only want ONE choice of exhibit and ONE entry per person please. Duplicate entries will be disqualified from winning.

The winner will be selected at random and contacted by email (so be careful when entering your email address) soon after the closing date of Friday 17 May.

Good luck!

Related link:

• ABBA The Museum is open (updated with photo gallery)!
• ABBA The Museum – Official website

Attending the ceremony were various luminaries of Swedish society and plenty of music acts too. Included among the guests were Björn, Benny and Frida of course, (Agnetha is in London promoting her new album A) and Micke B Tretow, Görel Hanser, Peter and Nanne Grönvall, Ludvig Andersson, this year’s Swedish Eurovision entrant Robin Stjernberg, Sarah Dawn Finer, Svenne & Lotte, Carola, Ludvig Andersson, Tommy Körberg, Owe Sandström and Gunilla Backman to name just some!

Gallery:

Video:

Related link:

• ABBA The Museum – Official Site

Björn Ulvaeus

UK regional newspaper The Blackpool Gazette was granted an exclusive interview with Björn in conjunction with Mamma Mia! taking up residence in Blackpool in 2014.

Despite the publication repeatedly referring to Björn as Björn “Ulvares” and at one point Anni-Frid as “Anita”, it was still quite a scoop for Entertainment Writer Steve Canavan just as long as he didn’t ask Björn whether ABBA would reunite or what his favourite ABBA song is!

Part 1

Björn Ulvares [sic] knows a thing or too [sic] about creating a hit. As part of the song-writing hit machine that were ABBA he rode on a 1970s wave of spandex, catchy tunes and worldwide fame. But even he admits the success of his music’s offshoot Mamma Mia! took him and songwriting partner Benny Andersson by surprise.

Björn said: “It’s astonishing the success of the show – it’s incredible. It’s difficult to understand that more than 50 million have seen it around the globe.

“I could have never have guessed the phenomenal success… never.

“(When we started) we were looking for a small theatre in London, not even in the West End, but never thinking it would run more than a year if we were lucky.

“I never anticipated anything close to this.”

Björn is delighted the show is heading to Blackpool next summer – a place he regrets ABBA never played – although countless tributes acts have tried to make amends over the years.

In an exclusive interview, Björn told The Gazette: “I know it’s a big summer resort, I’ve read about it in the papers.

“We never played in Blackpool – but I wish we had. It sounds a good place!

“I think the music will be perfect for the resort because I know it is dubbed the Las Vegas of the North so it sounds great.

“People should get up and dance, that’s what Mamma Mia! does with you.”

The show’s arrival is a huge coup for the resort. Not since Cats 10 years ago has the town staged a West End hit and what a hit it is. They do say that on any given day there will be at least seven showings of Mamma Mia! somewhere on the planet. It’s performed in Russia, Venezuela, Brazil, pretty much everywhere you can think of. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the closest NASA satellite to Mars picked up images of a performance there too!

Björn, and his songwriting partner Benny, were closely involved at every stage with the creation of the musical, to ensure the ABBA songs they so loving and prolifically crafted over an 11-year period in the 1970s and early 80s were not tarnished by being linked with anything sub-standard.

So was Björn against it? “That’s not quite right,” he said.

“I was hesitant in the beginning because it was going to be a television show ages ago, towards the end of the 1980s.

“It was Judy Craymer, who is the producer of Mamma Mia! She was a TV producer and she came to me with an idea to have TV show loosely based on ABBA songs, a little story around them.

“I said if you can show me a good script, fine. But there was never a good script and that was the problem.

“I turned down one or two.
there was talk of it becoming a panto at one point but it was only when Judy introduced Catherine Johnson to me that we talked about a fully-fledged musical.

“Then when I met Catherine I thought if anyone can do it, she can.

“I thought to me it was an interesting experiment in the beginning. She had these songs, she couldn’t change the lyrics or the melodies and she would have to weave a story around it, a story that was strong enough to stand by itself because I always told her that I thought the story is more important than the song.

“She started working on it and I don’t know how many drafts later we were suddenly rehearsing at the Prince Edward in London.

“I was completely aware of our reputation being tarnished and during the whole process I was ready to pull the plug.

“If I had felt at any point that ‘no this isn’t good, this will tarnish the catalogue of songs, it isn’t good for the group’ then I would have pulled the plug. But that never happened.”

As the years go on, and as the phenomenal success of Mamma Mia! proves, ABBA’s popularity shows no signs of diminishing.

So what makes the music of Agnetha, Benny, Björn, Anni-Frid just so timeless with millions around the globe?

He added: “I have no idea why our songs are so popular – I’d be very interested to know.

“It is 40 years now since we won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton and I still don’t know.

“I just know we wrote those songs from our heart and we recorded them as best we could. That’s what we did and all the rest is luck.

“How many millions around the globe liked what we were doing? That’s something you can never put your finger on why that is.”

Part 2

When it comes to trying to hazard a guess at how much money Björn Ulvares [sic] has made over the years, there is a tiny clue when he describes where he lives.

“I own an island close to Stockholm,” says the man whose song-writing talents helped propel ABBA to fame.

“It’s quite handy because when I want a little time for myself, I press a button and a gate closes at the road leading on to the island. It’s all mine then.”

I hesitate to tell that soundbite because it gives the impression Björn, if I may be so bold as to call a music legend by his Christian name, is the big-headed, full-of-himself type. He isn’t, at least not if our half-hour chat on the phone is anything to go by.

Our interview comes as the news Mamma Mia!, the smash-hit musical featuring all of ABBA’s best songs, is coming to Blackpool Opera House for a summer season run in 2014. It’s a huge coup for the resort.

Yesterday, we reported how Björn has been bowled over by the success of the show and how much he felt it was perfect for Blackpool – being, as he said, the fun-loving “Vegas of the North”.

Björn, is 68 now, and admits his main kicks in life are spending time with his family (five children, four grand-children) and running. But he still tries to write new songs whenever possible, for music is in his blood.

He had already achieved a fair amount of fame in his native Sweden before Abba formed.

Back in the late 1960s he performed in a folk band. Then he met Benny Andersson at a music festival and pair began writing material. Then they met two pretty girls – Agnetha Fältskog and Anita [sic] Lyngstad. On the off-chance you’ve lived under a stone for the last four decades the rest, as they say, is history.

Björn said: “We weren’t writing songs for ourselves, not commercial success. You write like we did Benny and I with a piano and a guitar and you grab something which you think is good ‘this is a good melody line’ and that is the criteria – and then what comes after is a different story.

“ABBA was such a positive period I’ve no problems with just being remembered for that. I am really proud of what we achieved and the phenomenal success makes you humble. I look back with fondness.

“Sometimes I get tired of answering the question of whether we will reunite or not, or what my favourite ABBA song is. So don’t ask me that!

“Benny and I were very lucky to meet each other and we were lucky to meet the girls as well.

“It was fantastic the way Benny and I met and then we met two girls, purely on a social basis, just boy falls in love with girl and they just happened to be wonderful signers who just happened to be beautiful, one blonde, one red head, it is almost too good to be true – but there you are, that is the story. It isn’t fate, just coincidence.”

Of course, all good – even great – things come to an end. ABBA imploded after the The Visitors album in 1981.

Björn admits: “The divorces (Fältskog and Ulvaeus were a married couple, as were Lyngstad and Andersson) were difficult as any divorce is but we decided to work together after that and we actually did some of our best stuff after that. The Winner takes It All was recorded after we were divorced but the break up of the group came completely naturally.

“We had always known that eight or 10 years, most groups don’t have more time than that. If they stick together after that they go into a different phase, they just go on touring and people just want to hear their old songs. We didn’t want to do that. We felt the energy was running out and we didn’t have as much fun in the studio as we used to, so we decided to try something else for a while.

“So it wasn’t so much the marriage break-ups, it was just the natural lifespan of the band.

“Most bands really explode over eight or so years, they write their best stuff.

“Benny and I wrote Chess the musical with Tim Rice and the girls went their separate ways doing solo albums.

“We always thought we’d get back together in a couple of years time but of course that never happened. We are still on speaking terms with the girls, absolutely.”

Despite the break up, Bjorn and Benny are still doing what they have always done – writing songs together.

“Benny and I have worked together since 1966.

“We’ve had our fall outs but never anything really serious and we don’t see each other every day. We still work together. We have written a song that will open the Eurovision Song Contest.

“I still write songs when I can. I don’t write every day but every so often Benny calls and says he has something he wants me to listen to. He will come up with a little tune, I’ll listen, we’ll talk and I’ll go home and write a lyric for it. He lives close by.”

As for the success both during ABBA and the longevity of Mamma Mia!, he added: “It does overwhelm and it makes you really humble.

“But I find it quite impossible to grasp emotionally because they tell you these figures they tell you 379 million records sold but how do you really grasp that? I don’t think you do. It is just a huge figure.”

So how long will the world’s love affair with ABBA continue?

Björn adds: “I hope for another 40 years… that would be great!”

Related links:

• Blackpool Gazette: Björn and Blackpool are ready to rock
• Blackpool Gazette: I always thought ABBA would reform
• Blackpool Opera House secures exclusive Mamma Mia! dates

A concert version of ‘Kristina från Duvemåla’ will take place in Jönköping this September

Following on from Kristina från Duvemåla‘s hugely successful run at Helsinki’s Svenska Teatern, the show will be performed as a concert version again this September at the Kinnarps Arena in Jönköping.

(L-R) Sanna Nielsen (Kristina), Bruno Mitsogiannis (Robert) and Christer Nerfont (Karl Oskar)

In the role of ‘Kristina’ will be Sanna Neilsen. Christer Nerfont who once played ‘Robert’ in the Stockholm Cirkus production will play ‘Karl Oskar’ and Marianne Morck will return to the role she helped originate ‘Fina-Kajsa’. ‘Robert’ is due to be played by Bruno Mitsogiannis, whilst Åsa Fång will play ‘Ulrika’.

Anders Eljas will conduct the Jönköpings Sinfonietta and a large choir comprised of singers from around Sweden.

Concert versions of Kristina från Duvemåla in Swedish have previously been performed in Sweden, of course, and also Minnesota. English language concerts have been performed in London’s Royal Albert Hall and Carnegie Hall in New York – a recording from the latter venue was issued on CD.

Tickets for the Jönköping concert which takes place on Saturday 7 September, priced from SEK 350 to 650 are on sale from 0900 on 7 May and available from Julius Biljettservice.

Related links:

• Julius Biljettservice – Kristina ticket page - or call 0775-700-400
• ‘Kristina’ at Royal Albert Hall - photo memories
• ‘Kristina’ at Carnegie Hall – the fans reviews

Björn pictured at ABBA The Museum for Svenska Dagbladet – Photo: Lars Pehrson

After months of construction it is not long now until ABBA The Museum finally opens. The modern ‘blonde wood’ building on Djurgården, Stockholm that will house the world’s first permanent ABBA exhibition is nearing completion.

As opening day looms, convoys of trucks roll up to the site to deliver the furnishings, costumes and many rare items of authentic memorabilia that will make up the exhibition. So what can fans expect to find at the museum?

“We’re going to offer visitors a unique experience,” said ABBA The Museum director Mattias Hansson. “The museum will showcase ABBA’s collected works, in a contemporary, musical and interactive exhibition that allows the audience to get closer to their favourite band.”

The museum will naturally pay homage to ABBA’s music, and in this respect the team behind the museum have installed the best sound isolation system in the world and commissioned specially designed sound absorbent wallpaper, to enable them to simultaneously play different tracks in each room.

Last December, ABBA The Museum and Spotify (the digital music service), announced a unique collaboration to integrate and extend the museum experience both through Spotify’s various platforms and within the actual museum.

Hansson doesn’t expect visitors to flock to the museum to hear the group’s hits, however. Rather, they will get to relive the band’s journey all the way from their pre-ABBA solo careers in the 1960s, through to their split in 1983 and get a sense of their lives behind the scenes.

If it rings. they should answer it because it will be a member of ABBA calling

As visitors tour the exhibition, the four ABBA members will each recant their stories via the museum’s audio guide, which has been written in collaboration with the band by Catharine Johnson, who wrote the musical Mamma Mia!.

In a room dedicated to the song Ring Ring, a chunky red 1970s telephone will be on display. This phone is connected to an outside line to which only four people know the number. Those four people are Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. Next to the phone there is a sign telling people that if it rings, they should answer it because it will be a member of ABBA calling.” It will be a real phone call and they have all promised to call regularly,”  Mattias Hansson confirmed.

“It was Frida’s idea, so of course she’ll call!”, says museum curator Ingmarie Halling.

As ABBA’s stylist from 1976 to 1980, an era she describes as “fun and magnificent”, Halling was the person behind many of their glitzy and flamboyant costumes, and she has been instrumental in collaborating with them to ensure that some of those outfits are included in the exhibition.

As well as the costumes, Halling has managed to secure Björn’s star-shaped ‘Waterloo guitar’, Benny’s very first accordion, gold discs, and much more besides.

“They’ve lent us lots of stuff,” Halling confirms, and whenever I call them to tell them my ideas they say, ‘sure, go ahead!’.

Many of the exhibits in the museum, including the Hep Stars tour camper van and the iconic helicopter featured on the Arrival album cover have been installed to provide fans with wonderful photo opportunities.

Visitors will also be able to experience a little of how the ABBA members lived their lives through the museum’s painstaking recreations of Benny and Björn’s song-writing hut on the island of Viggsö, manager Stig Anderson’s office, their on-tour dressing room and the Polar recording studio.

In the studio is the original mixing console, instruments and other equipment. Within this exhibit, visitors can try their hand at remixing classic ABBA tracks and also record their own versions of the hits in the row of ‘singing booths’.

You can try on iconic ABBA costumes virtually thanks to a motion-sensing device that adds them digitally to your image on a screen, while fans that have dreamt of becoming the fifth member of the band will be able to sing and dance on stage with computer simulated life-size holograms.

Back in the days before social media, visitors might have been happy just to try these activities. However, today many people want to share their efforts with friends and this is where ABBA The Museum is different. For each interactive exhibit the museum allows you to share the results through your social media accounts, or simply keep them for later.

Mattias Hansson explains how this works: “When you arrive at the museum you give your booking code and are given a printed ticket. At the same time we automatically create a personal page for you on the museum website. On this ticket there is a bar code. You simply present this bar code to a reader at each exhibit and the clip you create goes to your web page. You can then share the clips using standard sharing buttons or download them.”

With so many interactive exhibits based on technology there is always a danger that the museum could look dated after a few years. But ABBA The Museum’s creators say they have built a strategy to review all the exhibits at least every two years. “Some things will need to be replaced but history tells us that we will be able to use some things for 20 years.”  Linked with this strategy is the decision to focus today on the Stockholm museum. “Though there are so many opportunities for virtual visits we are not going to do that for now. And the only travelling exhibitions will be to promote the museum. You really have to be here,” says Hansson.

Although advance tickets for the first few weeks, which are time-slotted in a bid to cut queues, are almost sold out, for those who prefer to make a spur-of-the-moment visit during May there will be a limited number of tickets on sale at the venue. Please note that you will need to take your credit card as it will not be possible to buy your ABBA The Museum admission ticket or purchase any of the merchandise available in the museum  shop with cash.

Svenska Dagbladet 28 April 2013 – Björn opens the door on ABBA’s history

Talking with SvD ahead of the museum opening, Björn was asked about the journey to a museum, which of course started with winning Eurovision all those years ago. “I never thought we would win. We chose Waterloo and Hasta Mañana as possible entries. But Waterloo was more fun to perform,” says Björn Ulvaeus when I meet him in a restaurant on Djurgården.

Ingmarie Halling with a rather large copy of ‘The Visitors’ album! Photo: Lars Pehrson

He has recently turned 68. He usually gets compliments that he looks younger. He is definitely slimmer than during the ABBA years, which is because he trains. When he goes through the menu to see what he’ll order he dismisses dishes with too many carbohydrates.

We’re talking about the transparent mini helicopter from the cover of the Arrival album. And Polar Studios, of course. And then the bench where Benny and Anni-Frid are kissing while Björn and Agnetha sitting next to them are icy cold.

“It’s a fun picture, iconic. The whole story of ABBA is a real Cinderella story,” says Björn Ulvaeus.

Ingmarie Halling has worked as a stylist with ABBA intermittently for 36 years and still meets all four privately. Thus, she is also well suited to describe the members.

“Agnetha is incredibly grounded, a small-town girl who enjoys a simple life. It hurts me that people talk about her as a Garbo for she really is not. Rather, she is a little naïve and does not think that people recognise the real her.

“Frida is the nomad, a globetrotter who puts down roots and then it is her home. She is worldly-wise and street smart.

“Björn is curious and open to new ideas and arguments. A strange combination of businessman and poet. A contractor by God’s grace.

“Benny meets all the criteria for a musician. When he has a piano or an accordion around, he can survive everyday life. At a party, he can almost be apologetic if he disturbs, but he must sit there and play. On tours he cared a lot for us who worked around him. He had an inherent understanding that everyone mattered and was needed. All four are very down to earth and no divas anywhere.”

Ingmarie Halling with the puppets from The Last Video – Photo: Lars Pehrson

Originally an ABBA museum was planned to be housed in the old Customs House on Stadsgården. In 2008 ticket sales began but the site was in poorer condition and the costs were higher to renovate than anticipated. The contract with the property owner Stockholm Hamnar fell through.

Instead of an ABBA museum in 2009, a photographic museum opened in the building in 2010.

For a couple of years ABBAWORLD toured with many of the gadgets that will be available in ABBA The Museum.

Benny Andersson has said about the new museum, ”I have nothing against it at all, but think that maybe they could have waited for 30 years.” He will not say much more than “the museum will stand on its own feet.” Björn Ulvaeus however says that he feels that there is a lot of space and time between when ABBA split up in 1982 and now, and so is happy to be a flag waver for ABBA The Museum.

“Yes, when one has gone into this, then it is to do it from start to finish and get the job done. It is not enough just to create content, there is also work to do to get word out that it exists. Therefore I have visited or will visit England, Russia, Germany, Finland, Norway and Poland to do promotion.

But earlier ABBA did not want to hear about a museum?

“Yes, that was the case,” Björn agrees. “There is something strange about creating a museum about yourself. Usually a museum is for dead people.”

And the other three in ABBA are more passive supporters, but not you?

We hung out, sang for the fun of it and had no intention to start a group

“No. That’s because it takes place in my hometown, where I live. If someone else was doing it, maybe it would not be so good. Here on the island of Djurgården, I go with my grandchildren and they will point and say “Look here grandpa, we want to go in.

“I also want to be proud of an ABBA museum. As it has been such a long time since ABBA that I can do this as if it were someone else, investigate why ABBA’s reach was so terribly wide,” says Björn Ulvaeus and smiles.

How could a Swedish group conquer an entire world, something not done before and that almost everyone thought was completely unrealistic?

“An important ingredient is the amazing story of us, that we came to form a group, in a natural way. Benny and I met and started working together. Quite apart from this fact, we got together with two women who happen to be great singers, a blonde and a redhead who are also beautiful. We hung out, sang for the fun of it and had no intention to start a group. Eventually it becomes apparent that we should really do something together. It happens to be so genuine and organic that it is hard to put your finger on.

“Then there was Stig Anderson and his breadth of knowledge and indomitable will to create something great outside Sweden. He convinced us to think “why not?”. We saw that the only way to reach outside Sweden was the Eurovision Song Contest, otherwise the route was blocked. The Anglo-Saxon world was not listening to anything that came from here, it went directly into the trash. But we would be so big, no one could imagine. After Waterloo, it did not go so well and there were moments when I thought ‘there’s nothing other than this’.”

It is not entirely possible to emotionally embrace the journey that ABBA made

When S.O.S was released in Australia, ABBA made a promo video that they sent to the other side of the earth.

“Then it all took off with a bang, and then the British realised that there was life in ‘that Eurovision group that should have died off long ago’. We took off. It seems that many of our songs have become part of contemporary life. They are there all the time. Or as Phyllida Lloyd, the director of Mamma Mia! said: “The songs are part of our cultural heritage.”

Are you proud?

“Absolutely. Greatly proud, amazed and humbled…otherwise, I would not get involved with this museum. It is not entirely possible to emotionally embrace the journey that ABBA made​​, that we have sold 380 million records and touched the hearts of people…or that 50 million people have seen Mamma Mia!”.

The biggest financier of ABBA The Museum is  Björn Ulvaeus himself, who will not tell you how many millions he coughed up, but says the museum costs “several tens of millions of Crowns.”

Getting the final pieces in place – Photo: Lars Pehrson

After the opening ceremony on 7 May, Björn Ulvaeus will scale down his involvement, even if he remains the largest shareholder and attends the board meetings.

“We have a CEO who will take care that it rolls on.”

Just how the museum will do commercially and whether it is therefore judged a success or not is another major issue. Björn Ulvaeus think it may be problematic for example, during the cold season.

“We’ll adapt to to it and see how we can attract people. But if you are a foreign tourist, you know the Swedish brands like Ikea, ABBA and others. Locals, I believe, are not so interested in ABBA.”

In the 1970s in Sweden, it was not socially acceptable to like ABBA. Culture publications printed articles where the progressive left side complained about commercial brainwashing and how detestable ABBAs ‘simple’ pop music was. The contempt – or even hatred – sometimes bordered on the kind of hate that Palme attracted.

Ingmarie Halling recently chatted with Anni-Frid Lyngstad about that time. “She said it still is a thorn in her side when people say that they thought ABBA’s records were good but they hid them.”

Björn Ulvaeus does not think that the ‘Prog Rock’ movement (Proggen) was something that at the time he got upset about. “We were not unduly affected by it because we were so totally focused on what we were doing. Proggen was never ever something important, it was a marginal phenomenon. There was not a single innovative thing that came from it aside from a few songs by Nationalteatern and Hoola Bandoola, who were a good band. But of course we knew that some of them were horrified. They said that ‘the fact they sell so many records is somewhat suspect.’ But do not forget that there was a whole other Sweden too - we had advance orders of 760,000 copies of The Album. The criticism was so peripheral.

But of course you did just create products to make money?

Björn laughs as he responds: “Haha, yes, we had a formula, a hit factory! And we were two couples who married each other as a gimmick! All those things we were accused of. But the claims have no basis other than in their own absurdity. If you listen to the songs today, they are so different from each other. We tested all sorts of styles, not knowing what it was that made people liked it. It was hurtful to hear that we did the songs based on anything other than pure speculation.”

Nationalencyklopedin, the National Encyclopedia writes, among other things, that ABBA “is characterised by the carefully crafted style blends of 1970s pop and dance music.” But not a word about the lyrics.

“Benny was the musical engine but we always wrote together. I wrote thye lyrics when there was a basic track with stuff on top, so you had a sense of what the song actually was. Lyrics have always been unfairly treated, but the songs that pervade often have high quality lyrics as well.”

Björn Ulvaeus does not always remember how the lyrics came about. In recent years, he complained that many of his memories of the ABBA period have been forgotten. But things on the memory front have noticeably improved in working on the ABBA museum project, and he has been able to dig back into the past.

As with the song Fernando: “There was something in the air tonight, the stars were bright, Fernando. They were shining there for you and me, for liberty, Fernando…”

I remember Frida and Benny first did it in Swedish and I thought it was such a ‘fussy’ lyric when it referred to a ‘Latin lover’. But one night I was lying on the dock in Viggsö and looked up at the stars. And there was something in the air. Fernando had suddenly turned into an old freedom fighter!”.

Related links:

• ABBA The Museum website
• SvD Kultur: Ulvaeus berättar Abbas historia
• The Local – ABBA museum set to open doors in Stockholm
• Eye For Travel – travel industry news
• Björn Ulvaeus has stopped using cash

A view from the mixing desk courtesy of @rmvstudio as ‘We Write the Story’ comes to life

It has been 39 years since ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton, with Waterloo, but this week Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus were busy recording another song for the contest in Benny’s Stockholm studio, Rixmixningsverket.

We Write the Story, written by Benny and Björn in collaboration with DJ Avicii, is an anthem created especially for the 2013 Eurovision Final in Malmö on 18 May.

In a recent BBC interview, Björn described the song as “a unique, contemporary, majestic piece, which will be performed by a large choir as well as all the song contest participants.”

However, during the session, vocal recordings were laid down by a group of just twelve artists. The six male and six female singers were chosen by Thérèse Löf (who has appeared in the musical Mamma Mia!) after a demo recording last December.

“I have worked with Benny before, so he asked if I could pull together a team for this,” Thérèse told Swedish newspaper Expressen.

Speaking after the recording session, Thérèse said of the song: “It sounds fantastic. It has all the hallmarks of both Benny’s music and Bjorn’s lyrics. It is a little folk music-goes-pop!”.

“In my personal opinion, I think that it is a bit more ABBA, compared to Benny’s compositions for his band, Benny Anderssons Orkester. It seems to lean more towards music that a Eurovision audience will feel at home with,” Thérèse added.

Benny with Marica Lindé

Among the dozen artists selected to participate in the studio recording are most notably, Micke Grahn from the talent show Fame Factory and Marica Lindé, who works as a freelance singer and has toured much of the United States with ABBA cover-bands performing as Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

Marica said of her participation in the project: “It’s been great, there is a lot of positive energy and it feels like an honour to be involved with this recording.”

She said that it was hard to describe the new song:  “It is grand, palatial, folk music mixed with vintage pop and a little ABBA.” But agreed with Thérèse when she said, “It sounds great – and you can hear straight away that it is Björn and Benny who wrote it.”

After the vocals are completed, Benny will add the instrumental arrangements to the recordings and if all goes to plan the whole song should be finished within the week.

A DVD set of the song competition, featuring the semi-finals on 14 and 16 May, the final on 18 May, backstage footage and interviews will be made available in June.

Related links:

• Expressen – Björn and Benny record schlagerlåt
• RMV Studios
• Marica Lindé on Instagram