ABBA founding member Björn Ulvaeus has launched Björn from ABBA and Friends, his own radio show on Apple Music Hits.
Ulvaeus’s four-part series will feature “conversations with friends, collaborators and artists about all things ABBA”.
The inaugural episode features guest (and MBW World’s Greatest Producer series interviewee) Nile Rodgers.
Future guests include playwright Catherine Johnson, who penned the book of the stage musical and first film adaptation Mamma Mia!, and creative director for the forthcoming ABBA Voyage concerts, Johan Renck.
Ulvaeus’s radio show is the latest project that is set to keep the Swedish music legend busy throughout 2022.
First, there’s ABBA’s much anticipated live reunion (of sorts), that’ll see the four-piece perform digitally with a live 10-piece band, in a purpose-built arena in London from May 27, 2022.
The band also broke records when they announced their latest album in 40 years in September 2021.
According to Universal Music UK, pre-orders of the new album in the UK surpassed 80,000 within just three days, becoming Universal Music UK’s biggest ever album pre-order, breaking the previous record set by Take That for their Progress and III albums.
The album went on to sell more than 1 million combined units in its first week.
Ulvaeus’s other ventures see the star split his time between his BMG-endorsed songwriters campaign Credit Due, and as the President of CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers).
In an interview with MBW in December 2021, Ulvaeus touched on what he feels needs to change in the world of publishing rights for songwriters.
“The division between publishing and label is like 15% versus 55% so it’s totally weighted towards the label. I think there is reason to change that balance so that the song, the publisher and songwriter gets more of the pie,” he told MBW.
“A French jazz artist might have been played 500 times by his fans, who are perhaps 1,000, whereas because Justin Bieber has been played millions and millions of times by his fans, very little of the monthly subscription fees go to this French jazz artist in comparison to what goes to the mega streamer.
“As President of CISAC, I’m constantly talking about user-centric subscriptions because that will give the French jazz artist something to live off.”
“What happened [with abba] was a phenomenon that I never quite understood. But maybe my guests here on this series will help me to understand it.”
Björn Ulvaeus
Björn Ulvaeus, says: “I’m excited to be bringing the show to Apple Music Hits because I have long wanted to ask some emotionally intelligent as well as intellectual people who know about ABBA about why they think our songs have lasted for such a long time — almost 40 years — because I don’t understand it myself.
“Sometimes when I see the number of albums we’ve sold — which they say is around almost 400 million — I can intellectually grasp that, but emotionally I never have been able to because I don’t know why all this happened.
“I just know that we wrote our songs as best we could, and then recorded them as best as we could, and that was it.
“What happened afterwards was a phenomenon that I never quite understood. But maybe my guests here on this series will help me to understand it.
“Maybe they have some input that I’ve waited for for so long.
“I’ve talked to several people about this already of course, but no one has come up with a really good answer, so I think that is in essence what this series is about. It’s about finally getting some questions that I’ve had for a long time answered”.Music Business Worldwide
