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Posts Tagged “abba”

who charted

Abba Takes It All (This Week, At Least)

Hands up, those of you who thought that the soundtrack to the big-screen adaptation of Mamma Mia!, starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, and Amanda Seyfried as people who just bust out into Abba songs at seemingly random intervals, would be this week's top album. Anyone? No? Well, bully on you; the collection sold 131,000 copies, a 5% week-to-week drop that was enough to best both Miley Cyrus' Breakout (102,000 sold) and Sugarland's Love On The Inside (91,000 sold) for the top spot. More »

thank us for the music

Finally, A Band That Doesn't Need The Piles Of Cash A Reunion Tour Will Bring In

Why embark on a grueling tour made even moreso by the ravages of time when you can just watch the money from the licensing of your songs to jukebox musicals and fresh-faced kids roll in? Abba's Bjorn Ulvaeus basically posited this question to the British paper The Telegraph when he told a reporter there that there was no way his band would come back for the dual purposes of cashing in and acting as a "cover band" of its older material. Of course, Ulvaeus let this little piece of principle slip in the context of promoting the movie version of Mamma Mia!, in which his songs... get covered by Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan. And as any shrewd businessman knows, outsourcing is the way to go these days. More »

maybe something by the andrews sisters?

Let's Find John McCain A Theme Song


He's tried John Cougar Mellencamp. He's tried Chuck Berry. He's even tried ABBA (sez McCain: ""Nobody likes them, but they sold more records than anybody in the history of the world, including The Beatles. But everybody hates them. You're a no-class guy if you like ABBA. Why does everybody go see 'Mamma Mia?' Hypocrisy! Rank hypocrisy! I'm not embarassed to say I like ABBA, 'Dancing Queen.'") But nobody seems to want John McCain using their music as his campaign theme. What, doesn't one of those Hillary Clinton fans who swear they'd rather vote Republican than for Obama own a worthwhile copyright? More »

burning questions

Roger Waters Somehow Finds A Way To Make Me Loathe Pink Floyd Even More

I slogged through the first half of last night's main-stage-closing set by Roger Waters—which was billed as "Roger Waters Dark Side Of The Moon"—partially out of masochism, partially in the interest of sociological research, and partially because I didn't feel like dragging my ass over to the stuffed-to-capacity-all-weekend dance tent to see Modeselektor, who were the only other act playing for the first portion of Waters' set. While it was interesting in a "so this is who he lured out to the desert" sort of way, it was also infuriating, and at one point a friend said to me, "I can hear your eyes rolling back from here." But no portion of the evening filled me with more rage than the pre-show, which had as its visual an old-timey radio, a model airplane, and a tumbler of whiskey; every so often, a hand would reach into frame to change the station and/or refill the glass, and the stations that the hand hit on, for the most part, had a playlist that lulled the classic-rock fans in attendance into a state of self-righteousness: Bob Dylan, "Hound Dog," and "My Funny Valentine." There was also a "humorous" bit when the radio somehow was all-ABBA, all the time, and hand man couldn't escape from the tyranny of radio! ABBA! I mean, could you believe the nerve! More »

Authorities were called in after the body of Ola Brunkert, drummer for pop giants Abba, was discovered in his Spanish garden over the weekend, but rather than uncovering foul play, they learned that Brunckert had merely "hit his head against a glass door in his dining room, shattering the glass and cutting himself in the neck. He managed to wrap a towel around his neck and left the house to seek help, but collapsed in the garden." He was 62. [AP/Photo: AP]

lawsuits

Village People Hoping That Web Sheriff Can Stop The Music (From Being Traded On The Pirate Bay)


The Village People are the latest artists to team up with the Web Sheriff, the exceedingly polite antipiracy company that roams the plains of the Internet, looking for people who are violating copyrights. And it's not for reasons related to sheriff-themed costumes! Instead, the suited-up disco group is planning on joining Prince's lawsuit against the overly self-impressed Swedish BitTerrorist haven The Pirate Bay. More »

videodrone

Andy Gibb, Olivia Newton-John, And ABBA Set The Template For Indiepop


That's not to say that this video of the six musicians sitting around a circle, hanging out, and forgetting the words to Beach Boys songs—while Olivia is on snare drum!—isn't completely charming; it is, particularly the little filigrees of keyboard that punctuate the between-song conversations. But really, with a few minor period details changed (a little bit less chest hair on Benny, a little bit more frizz-tamer on Frida, a lot more self-awareness because of the cameras from everyone), this clip from an unidentified '70s TV show could pass for something that would be "virally" e-mailed around the indiewebs today. Especially the part at the end where Frida busts out her operatic skills. [YouTube via Ian Darken]

abba

ABBA Singer Facing A Back-Taxes Waterloo

You know, if we had gotten that Swedish-pop bureau we asked for months ago, we wouldn't have missed this story from yesterday: More »

mp3

The Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda Files: "Watch Out" For ABBA

Time to another installment of the Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda Files, in which we acknowledge the near-hits that never relegated to the remainder bin of history: More »