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Tuesday June 11,2013

Dance Your Pain Away

Please note this song is not for download

This link came from ABBATalk

(we have no part in this uploaded song or information of who posted it.)

I WAS A FLOWER.

Relased April 22,2013. (UK only)

DOWNLOAD NOW FROM AMAZON UK

I SHOULD HAVE FOLLOWED YOU HOME-

AGNETHA & GARY

“I should have followed you home” the excellent duet by Agnetha and Gary Barlow from the new album”A” was played for the first time today on Dutch radio 2.

If you use iTunes, you can download the show  as a Podcast and have the track in excellent quality -

follow the link on the picture above on the website  look for

Click ‘Aboneer Podcast’ and when it opens in iTunes, it’s the second of the 3 parts.

Skip to 32:26 mins!!  It’s Amazing!

Most difficult of all is love

A quick translation of the VG Helg article. More to follow…………

New Agnetha  Photos From Norway Publication: VG Helg

These pictures are from “VG Helg” in Norway which has a 7 page feature. The magazine can be bought in electronic form by clicking on the photo below.  (Site is not in English!)

This week Agnetha has been filming an exclusive documentary for the BBC. We will let you know more as soon as we have more details but here’s a look behind the scenes yesterday at Atlantis Studios where the album was recorded.

16/4/13

A statement from Björn Ulvaeus regarding the interview on BBC Breakfast this morning:

“This morning on BBC Breakfast I let my tongue slip with terrible result. After a split second I understood that what I had said could be interpreted as a joke about the horrendous catastrophe that happened in the US today. I feel very, very bad about it, I am truly sorry and I hope that everybody understands that it was an unbelievably stupid slip of the tongue. As everyone else I feel sorrow about what’s happened and deep compassion with the victims of this atrocity.”

15/4/13

Björn On UK Breakfast TV Tomorrow

Bjorn will be on BBC Breakfast tomorrow morning around 9am. He will be talking about the ABBA museum and some great plans for next year’s 40th Anniversary celebrations!

Benny and Björn reunited for Eurovision anthem

Abba stars Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus have reunited to compose the theme tune for the Eurovision Song Contest 2013, in Malmö.

Abba members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus have composed the theme tune for the Eurovision Song Contest 2013, a song called We Write the Story.

Andersson and Ulvaeus have collaborated with Swedish DJ Avicii on the track, which isn’t Sweden’s entry in the competition, but instead a “Eurovision anthem” which celebrates the country’s hosting of the competition in Malmö. It will be performed to open the Eurovision final on May 18.

Executive producer of this year’s contest, Martin Österdahl, said in a statement that Andersson, Ulvaeus and Avicii were at “the very top of the list” of musicians to create the anthem, an idea which has been present since Malmö contest planning got under way.

Andersson and Ulvaeus added that We Write the Story was a “piece of mutual understanding and fellowship” and “a lot of fun and very inspiring”.

The pair have been collaborating together since Abba dissolved in 1982 after a final public performance on British TV, although the band appeared together again in 2008 at the Mamma Mia! film premiere.

Eurovision was a big part of Abba’s success story, after they won the contest in 1974, marking Sweden’s first victory. However the band are adamant that a formal live reunion is unlikely to happen, much to the disappointment of their fans.

Among Andersson and Ulvaeus’s accomplishments in the last 30 years are the single I Know Him So Well – a duet sung by Barbara Dickson and Elaine Paige as well as Barbra Streisand and Whitney Houston – and West End and Broadway musicals Chess and Mamma Mia!.

Frida -Zermatt 2013

12/4/13

ABBA-THE PHOTO ALBUM

Announced today by the official ABBA site:

We are delighted to announce the production of the first major official photographic book on ABBA. This 400-page book will feature iconic images of the band, unseen shots by leading professional photographers of the era, as well as a selection of private pictures. The title is ABBA – THE PHOTO ALBUM.

Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid are contributing with their foreword and providing comments and personal insights to accompany the 500 classic, rare and previously unseen images in the book that document the complete story of the band.

The book’s images will document the early years, the formation and rise in popularity of the group, the international breakthrough performance at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton and subsequent global superstardom. The book will also feature photographs that provide insight into the four band members’ subsequent careers, including the international success of the musicals Chess and Mamma Mia.

We have chosen to work with Max Ström, one of Europes finest illustrated publishers, to produce the book. The book will be created by the award-winning picture editor Bengt Wanselius and the text is written by Petter Karlsson, one of Sweden’s most talented writers. They have so far gone through more than 20,000 pictures to find the best for the book!

ABBA The Photo Album will be published in April 2014, marking precisely 40 years to the month since the band’s international career was launched by its winning performance of Waterloo at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest.

It will be a great book and we can promise you pictures you’ve never seen before!

ABBA-INTERMEZZO 69

In No. 69, you’ll find:

- Agnetha Is Back: 5-page feature

- An exclusive interview with Mattias Hansson, CEO of ABBA Museum, with the very latest on the museum’s preparations

- Report: Björn in Berlin and Cannes, including exclusive photos from the Berlin press conference - Report: Premiere of of Hjälp Sökes, Benny and Björn’s latest success

- Exclusive interview with Christer Borg, author of the seminal 1977 book on ABBA, “Fenomenet ABBA”

- A3 size poster with a great ABBA photo from 1975

plus lots more.

Join Intermezzo now!

Agnetha: Thank you!

April 5th 2013 

Happy Birthday Agnetha

Björn Ulvaeus speaks about Eurovision Song Contest

Olivia Newton-John, currently on tour in the UK, incorporates a bit of ABBA's "Waterloo" into her concert in honor of her experience as Britain's entry in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest.  At the brighton show Olivia sent the crowd crazy when she mentioned she had repesented England in the ESC "right here in Brighton".  Olivia explains that she's quite proud to have been a runner-up to ABBA and she says abba became close friends of her's and she adores Abba!

Sorry for the bad sound at the start!

AGNETHA MAKES A UNIVERSAL RETURN

Siren songstress from ABBA has new album “A” due on May 13

Brand new single “When You Really Loved Someone”out today!

STOCKHOLM, March 11, 2013 – “Never thought that I’d ever sing again. But hearing the first three songs, I just couldn’t say no!”

With these words, one of popular music’s most recognisable and celebrated names of the past 40 years – Agnetha Fältskog – signals her return to the spotlight. The siren songstress from ABBA is coming back with a new album “A”, due for release in May and preceded by a curtain-raising track, “When You Really Loved Someone,” which is available internationally as a single to buy from TODAY, Monday March 11. Agnetha’s new official website, Facebook, Twitter (@AgnethaOfficial) and VEVO channel featuring the brand new video for “When You Really Loved Someone” will all be live from 10am UK time today.

Agnetha has been working with renowned, Grammy-nominated songwriter/producer Jörgen Elofsson – who has been responsible for hits by Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Celine Dion and Westlife, among others – and acclaimed producer/arranger Peter Nordahl on her brand new album.

“She wanted to make music again,” says Elofsson, “We could feel that. She had been thinking about it. Basically, she’s a musician, a songwriter/singer who hasn’t done that for a while. We saw her open up, become much happier, with music again in her life.”

“A” features one of Agnetha first co-writes in many years: “I hadn’t written any music for a long, long time,” she says. “But I sat at the piano, and suddenly it was there.”

Anticipated by millions of ABBA fans worldwide, Agnetha’s brand new material is being released by Universal Music Group, the global music leader. Max Hole, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Universal Music Group International, added: “You can imagine the excitement that all of us felt at the prospect of Agnetha making new music. So we were determined that she would choose Universal to bring that music to the world, and we are gratified that she did. This is a dream project for so many people inside our company, and for Agnetha’s fans around the globe.”

The most anticipated new album of 2013, “A” was recorded and produced by Jörgen Elofsson and Peter Nordahl: “We wanted to make this as if Agnetha hadn’t entered ABBA,” says Elofsson. “We were interested in what she sounded like if she hadn’t been in the group. And yet it’s important that she comes across as we remember her to be”

ABBA Melodic Masterpieces Music DVD

Release date:2013-02-22

01 Ring Ring

02 Waterloo

03 Honey Honey

04 I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do

05 S.O.S.

06 Mamma Mia

07 Fernando

08 Dancing Queen

09 Money, Money, Money

10 Knowing Me, Knowing You

11 I´M a Marionette

12 The Name of the Game

13 Take a Chance On Me

14 Eagle

15 Chiquitita

16 Does Your Mother Know

17 Gimme Gimme Gimme(a Man After Midnight)

18 I Have a Dream

19 The Winner Takes It All

20 Super Trouper

21 One of Us

22 The Day Before You Came

23 Under Attack

24 Thank You For the Music

13.02.2013

We present Ms. Agnetha Fältskog 2013.

Photos from the Agnetha Comeback page on face book. Neil you are a star!

-please “LIKE” it now!!!!

9/2/2013

Geneva, Switzerland – “A really good song and a really good artist.” says Björn Ulvaeus, the legendary song writer and a member of the pop icon ABBA, about Loreen and her song Euphoria.

Ulvaeus believes the Eurovision Song Contest has become more of a show than a competition of songs. “It’s more of a show than it used to be,” he talks.

He does believe the change took place already in the 1970s when he took part in the contest with ABBA. “Loreen is an exception. A really good song and a really good artist.” the music legend adds.

In the video below you can also get to know what did it feel like to win the contest back in 1974, how they worked their way up in the music world and what he thinks of this year’s theme We Are One.

ABBA, which shot to fame from the Eurovision Song Contest back in 1974, has been one of the main icons of the contest ever since. They’ve sold more than 370 million records worldwide and are considered one of the most successful music groups of all times.

We thank Karen Mazzoli for conductiong the interview and Shirin Mashayekh for editing

All of Abba working with new museum

Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Björn and Benny will guide visitors to the new ABBA museum. Pine and copper characterizes the building which also houses a hotel.

Construction of Abba the Museum on Djurgården is in full swing. When the museum opens its doors in May, the ABBA escorting visitors through the museum. All four former ABBA has made the audio guide that takes visitors around the 35 stations. The four have been interviewed by Catherine Johnson, who wrote the screenplay for the musical “Mamma Mia”.

The building of 2000 square meters will also accommodate a Swedish music’s Hall of Fame and a historical part that describes the Swedish popular music development. Added to that, also a hotel and a restaurant location. With its light wood facade and window sticker  building, designed by Johan Celsing architects towards the older buildings in the area.

The first thing visitors encounter is a hard cut version of the world famous group upswing, signed film director Jonas Akerlund. The visitor is surrounded by a 360-degree screen, finds himself among the crowd in a giant arena Wembley in London. Then hear the birds singing and the visitor passed in sunlight back to Gamleby folkpark 1970 where the quartet with the internationally hopeless named party people behave.

The idea is that visitors will come close to the four ABBA. Anyone who contributes strongly to make it a reality, Björn Ulvaeus.

- It is Björn’s close involvement that makes the exhibition becomes personal. We have daily contact, he has taken the role of executive chairman, says Mattias Hansson, CEO of Abba the museum, while he shows us around the construction site.

Bjorn Ulvaeus dad collected newspaper clippings and much else he came across on Abba during their heyday. The material has been donated to the museum. Towards the end of Abba journey, the visitor is in a … and take up the time when the two married couples Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agneta Fältskog, Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad divorced. In “The Shrine”, visitors can virtually try Abba Scene Clothing.

- We will have a replica of Björn and Agnetha’s kitchen. Elsewhere in the exhibition, those who want to get up on stage and grab the microphone along with the four ABBA turned into holograms. The cameras rolls and perpetuates opportunity for those who want to take home a DVD, says an enthusiastic Mattias Hansson.

The hologram is taken from “Abba World” tour, as did half of the other viewing points. Among the new visitor will find ring-ring phone, a red dialogue. It is connected to a phone which goes to one of four. If the light flashes when the phone asked the visitor to pick up the phone.

In the copy of the Polar Studio is Benny’s piano. Sometimes plays Benny Andersson at it – in real time. The instrument is connected to his studio on the island of Skeppsholmen.

Will ABBA to come to the opening night before the opening?

- Which of them get there, I know only a few minutes before starting. But I can say that we will be rigorous in preparing the applicable safety. Many have expressed their interest to attend, foreign media especially. Swedish interest has so far been cooler. Maybe it’s because the four of Abba never moved to Beverly Hills. They are among us, and we are used to having them here, says Mattias Hansson.

Australia's love affair with ABBA

Ann Wright on ABC Radio Melbourne. Talking about the Aussie Doco BANG A BOOMERANG

Following ABBA's 1970's promo tour, Sydney promotions manager at RCA records Annnie Wright, had the rare privilege of becoming part of ABBA’s inner circle and even spent time with them in Sweden!

Bang A Boomerang is a documentary of the time she spent with the band. The doco is set to air on ABC1, Wednesday 30th January at 8.30pm.

Annie begins by telling Richard why she thinks so many Australians connected with ABBA's sound.

ANDREW MAST

THE TV SET: STILL BANGING ON ABOUT ABBA

22 January, 2013

Their manager had a habit of making drunken press announcements; they rubbed shoulders with Brian Wilson, Robert Plant and Sid Vicious; their post-show parties were notoriously debauched affairs; one member's father was revealed to be a Nazi. Yet somehow after a briefly intense period of mega-stardom in Australia, here ABBA came to be considered as squeaky clean types totally lacking in musical credibility. 

In 1977, the backlash was as savage as the popularity had been frenzied. ABC1's Bang A Boomerang documentary attempts to record this odd shift in our pop culture history. Considering some of the lightweight filler ABBA 'specials' we have suffered in Australia when networks have jumped on the various ABBA revival bandwagons (even Angela Bishop cranked one out), this one's vacuous title belies its journalistic endeavour to place the '70s ABBA phenomenon into a political and cultural context. [The doco is named after a 1975 throwaway ABBA album track that seems to have been chosen because y'know, boomerangs are Aussie... 1981's Slipping Through My Fingers may have been more apt given the subject matter.]

While some of Bang's chronology is murky and some points presented as 'facts' are more opinion, it's the quality of interview subjects that sets it apart from previous Australian-produced retrospectives about the Swedish pop quartet. There's the band's in-house video director Lasse Hallstrom (now an Oscar-winning director down with Depp, DiCaprio and McGregor), their Australian publicist Annie Wright (basically credited for bringing the band global fame) and former bodyguard Richard Norton (once rumoured to have been romantically entangled with one of the ABBA women - he wasn't). These folk actually possess some inner sanctum tittle-tattle that surprisingly hasn't been over-exploited.

While the Bang gang also includes celebs-as-fans, these aren't just publicity-hungry b-listers reading from notes their PR folk gleaned from a Wiki page. Amongst the celebs are RocKwiz's Julia Zemiro who can trace her ABBA obsession directly to her current day job (and annual Eurovision host side-gig) and The Adventures Of Priscilla director Stephan Elliot (his 1994 film played a key role in rekindling this country's ABBA passion). Molly Meldrum - who was Wright's target for marketing the band here - recalls how ABBA fans went into the closet post-'77 for fear of being tagged 'gay' while pop icon John Paul Young explains how he became the public face of the ABBA backlash. Also, for those pining to have Daryl Somers back on our screens, he gets some Bang action too. But Bang's trump (bubblegum) card is the presence of ABBA fanatics who still tear up at the recollection of the 1977 tour, running a fan club and even meeting the band. 

And, there's nostalgic footage: rarely seen glimpses of a Sydney press conference, Robert Hughes-less snippets from ABBA The Movie and a long-haired Kerry O'Brien reporting on christians' pleas to ban the group because unmarried members of ABBA 'lived in sin'.

Dodgy theories are kept to a minimum (there's a doozy about why 'gays' took 'ownership' of ABBA) but there is some inexplicable, and lame, footage of more recent ABBA fan events (you get the feeling this may have initially been pitched to coincide with 2010's ABBAworld exhibition). Bang ends with a fizzle as its title is weakly excused in a conclusion that could have been written for Dean Cain on Believe It Or Not: "The song [Bang A Boomerang] was written two years before the Swedes ever came here. A premonition? Maybe...".  And fade to... what looks like an ABBA-themed office party with drunken singalongs. Or quite possibly it's an obscure homage to the band's private past. 

Bang A Boomerang screens 8.30pm, Wednesday 30 January on ABC1.

THE BEST UNEXPECTED ABBA COVERS 

Evan Dando turns Knowing Me Knowing You into a folorn urban poem

 – THE Ticket!

Watch this space for more details!

 -THE OFFICIAL KEYRING!

Keyring – Abba Logo, Gold   50mm Soft Enamel Keychains. 5mm Injection alloy, real Gold plateWithout enamel infill. Individually bagged.Copyright info in raised metal on back of keychain.

Pre order now!

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ABBA: Bang a Boomerang: sneak peek

Watch a 2 min preview of the upcoming Australian documentary on

 ABC

ABBA: Bang a Boomerang8:30pm Wednesday, January 30 2013

Synopsis

ABBA: Bang a Boomerang tells the inside story of Australia’s colossal 70s crush on the Swedish supergroup ABBA and their music, and how this unequalled and enduring fan-worship changed them and us forever.

ABC’s innovative music program Countdown and its host Molly Meldrum were instrumental in bringing ABBA to a burgeoning mid-70s television audience looking for something different. It was due to Countdown that Mamma Mia was released as a single, first in Australia and then the world, and the ABBA phenomenon was born. Viewers were going into record shops wanting to buy the single. Molly rang RCA records asking about the release of Mamma Mia and was told there were no plans to do so.

“We then played it again in defiance and they had no option but to release it… it was lucky, it went to number one,” Meldrum said.

ABBA: Bang a Boomerang digs deep into heartfelt memories, cardboard cartons of memorabilia, face-to-face encounters, local pop icon recounts, lavish personal and public ABBA museums and Australia’s rich media archives to relive a moment of collective national ‘craziness’, when we did literally go ABBA mad. The result is a warm, bright, captivating engagement with ABBA’s time Down Under that will remind us all of the band’s impact and how our open-hearted embrace of all things ABBA would eventually define us. One in three Australian households owned an ABBA record – from Prime Minister Fraser to eight year olds around the nation, we were hooked even if some of us didn’t want to admit it back then and we didn’t realise the crush would be for keeps.

On Saturday January 19, at 20:00, Swedish TV2 will screen one hour long documentary called "Benny Andersson och orgeln med 9000 pipor" (Benny Andersson and organ with 9000 pipes). It is about the organ that was built to Piteå and includes the opening concert by Benny Andersson and Orsa Spelmän from October 2012

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"There is something beyond the mountains ..."

By Björn Ulvaeus. Published 2013-01-12 

He stood by my side with his sexsträngade tenor guitar and together we sang, "There is something beyond the mountains, beyond the flowers and the singing." In people's park after folkpark we sang that song one summer long ago.

"Around the beggar from Luossajärvi" was probably our biggest hit and when I squeezed his gnarled, thin hand for the last time a few days ago at the hospital in Lund, I came to think of the lines. And I thought how wonderful it would be if he, the fading little man so long my friend, could take up the words now and find comfort in them.

But I think it was just a little for him to do what it does for me. Instead, he refused to give up, it was his self-defense and it was his very nature. "I fight on!" He whispered in a weak voice, and it was the voice that we once had called "the German tordönsstämman". He stood next to me and I had that voice in your ear during all my early years, so I know. And now that voice hissed feebly that the owner struggled on. Of course Hansi would fight on. If someone were there so was he.

Some people still have an inner core throughout life. Somehow, they remain essentially the same when the world around them is changing. When I see myself in photographs from the time of the Hootenanny Singers, it is the young man almost a stranger, but it was probably not for Hansi. There was a Kärnhansi in there through all the years. We were different in that way and to me he was always a cliff. Most of us have people from childhood, which we with childish pride gladly return to and show how good we are and how well it went for us. For me Hansi one of those and he was probably the last.

I was not prepared for the cold kåre of loneliness I felt when I received death commandment. Emptiness and regret for Hansi, but also for something else. It's as if he represented youth more than anyone else, and now that he is no longer disappear this time even more into the haze of the past. Like when Kristina from the stern of the brig Charlotta see the last ray of homeland disappear in the morning mist.

During his last days I often thought about what it would be when he no longer existed. What would a summer be without Västervik Hansi Schwarz? One July evening in the ruined castle, but Hansi? I found it somehow was impossible to think of him. Just as it was impossible to walk past him when he was alive. He was such a person as you can not ignore. He was there and took its natural place, and he continues to do it and if I ever get up on stage again Visfestivalens he will stand beside me. Maybe he sings: "There is something beyond the mountains ..."

The rumour mill went into overdrive recently when Gary Barlow mentioned he had recently been to Sweden and met Agnetha Faltskog.  It’s a huge thing to have Gary writing material for the hope of having that song included on Agnetha’s forthcoming album. But Gary and the album’s producer may be great friends but it will be up to Agnetha to feel a connection to the song or it simply won’t end up on the album. It’s no secret Gary wrote two songs for Agnetha and another was put forward even though not written with Agnetha in mind.  Gary’s work as the main judge on UK’s X factor, and his huge career with Take That will only be a great draw card for the album’s success in the UK.  Below is one of the recent newspaper features about Agnetha and Gary. (UK Daily Star, tacky heading though!)

 2012