ABBA singer Agnetha Faltskog has fueled rumors of the band reuniting for Prince William's wedding next year by saying that they would be open to reforming for special occasions.
Swedish news website The Local reports that Faltskog said in a magazine interview that one-off events, such as performances for charity, could see the group reunite.
Faltskog told M Magazine, "A reunion, an occasional opportunity, maybe in connection with a charity event, I believe we could consider it.
"We would not reunite for a tour like the Rolling Stones and other old bands do now. However, I could see us doing something together in the future. It is just a feeling I have that it would be fun to get together, talk a bit about the past and maybe perform together."
The news comes amidst rumors that the Swedish foursome could be set to perform the wedding Prince William and Kate Middleton, which will take place on April 29th next year.
Digital Spy reports that Bookmaker Ladbrokes has laid down odds of 66-1 on the band playing at the wedding.
They have always maintained that they would never re-form and famously turned down $1 billion to tour again, but ABBA have given a new generation of fans hope of seeing the band perform live.
For the Mamma Mia! devotees who have come to the band’s music nearly 30 years after they split, tribute bands and YouTube clips of the Swedish foursome in satin and spandex seemed the closest they could get.
But in an interview with the UK-based http://www.timesonline.com.uk/, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, the male half of the Swedish group, offer a beguiling change of tone.
Asked if they would consider an intimate one-off performance — perhaps with an orchestra — that could be beamed around the world, Andersson said: “Yeah, why not?”
He added: “I don’t know if the girls sing anything any more. I know Frida [Anni-Frid Lyngstad] was in the studio.” Then a little later: “It’s not a bad idea, actually.”
Ulvaeus threw in a reference to the Super Trouper album’s last song. “We could sing The Way Old Folks Do,” he said. The pair's comments may offer little more than a glimmer of hope, but they are in contrast to previous statements by the band members, who split in 1982.
Only two years ago Ulvaeus said: “We will never appear on stage again. There is simply no motivation to regroup. Money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were — young, exuberant, full of energy and ambition.
“I remember Robert Plant saying Led Zeppelin were a cover band now because they cover all their own stuff. I think that hit the nail on the head.”
Andersson has also previously derided talk of a reunion. “We’d need a good reason to re-form and I just don’t see one. We could never recreate the old days. I’d rather be remembered for the way we were 30 years ago,” he said.
ABBA have enjoyed a renaissance. One in four British households owns the DVD of a film version of the Mamma Mia!, the musical inspired by their works. They have sold 370 million records, and sell about three million each year.
This year AbbaWorld, an attraction based on the careers of Ulvaeus and Andersson and their female bandmates Agnetha Fältskog and Lyngstad, opened at Earls Court, in West London. Visitors pay £22 for an adult ticket to see costumes that the band wore in 1974 on their way to winning the Eurovision Song Contest, and have the chance to wear a silver jumpsuit and sing and dance with holograms of the band.
Ulvaeus and Andersson are promoting their new musical, Kristina, which opens at the Royal Albert Hall on April 14th. The production is based on a 2,000-page epic by the Swedish novelist Vilhelm Moberg, but has been changed for an English audience.
Ulvaeus said: “We’ve cut the play down from three hours down to two hours . . . And, also, I approached Herbert Kretzmer, who did Les Misérables, to translate the lyrics into English.”
ABBA are thought to have sung together only once since they split. In 2003 they joined in a rendition of a Swedish happy-birthday song at the 50th birthday party of Gorel Hanser, Ulvaeus and Andersson’s manager, in front of about 150 guests.
In 2000 they turned down a $1 billion deal to reunite for a 100-date tour. At the time Ulvaeus said: “This is the budget of a small country so we had to give it some thought. In the end we decided that, whatever offer was on the table, it would be stupid to re-form and utterly ludicrous to change the images people all over the world have of us.”
It remains to be seen whether the female members would be interested in a reunion. Fältskog lived as a recluse on a remote Swedish island, saying that she hated fame, while Lyngstad married a German nobleman and is a princess.
ABBA, Genesis, Jimmy Cliff, the Hollies and the Stooges will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year, the Hall of Fame Foundation has announced. But the biggest news might be who did not make the cut.
Kiss, nominated for the first time this year after being snubbed for a decade, was left out of the honors, although if the experience of the Stooges is any guide, there might be better luck next time: the band was nominated and rejected seven times before being accepted.
Also being honored this year, as nonperformers, are David Geffen and seven songwriters: Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, Jesse Stone, Mort Shuman and Otis Blackwell.
The 25th annual induction ceremony will be held on March 15 at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan.
Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried are game for a Mamma Mia! movie sequel - as long as it includes ABBA duo Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson.
Seyfried, who played Streep's daughter in the movie musical, has revealed there are talks about a sequel - and she'd jump at the chance to revive her character.
She says, "I've been talking to some insiders and it's not something that they haven't been working on. I don't actually know anything other than that.
"I know it's still going to be ABBA music, because what else would it be? Come on, I wouldn't do Mamma Mia 2 without Benny and Bjorn.
"I think we all had the best time and we all got along so well. It was like some days it felt like we were just people on vacation. I will do it. And I know Meryl's game as well, so bring it on. It will be so cool."
Seyfried has very fond memories of making Mamma Mia! because she met boyfriend Dominic Cooper on the set. The Brit played her love interest in the film.
Robert Pattinson and Hugh Jackman are co-starring in the upcoming movie "Unbound Captives," and they recently revealed that the two bonded by seeing who could perform the best renditions of ABBA songs.
"We met up in Japan and we went karaoke singing," Pattinson said. "We were singing ABBA songs, it was pretty funny. It was sort of an ABBA song sing-off, you know, last man standing. I think he won, only because he can drink more than me and still sing in tune. He's a cool guy and I'm really looking forward to that film."
Rob has previously shown his musical side by recording songs for the Twilight soundtrack, and despite also being featured in the music for sequel Twilight Saga: New Moon, he says he felt like “a t*sser” when the movie came out. He told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper: "When the first film came out I felt like a complete t*sser. It looked like I was trying to be cool or something, like Eminem. You know, be in a movie and then do a song for the soundtrack. But I didn't look cool, I just looked ridiculous
If Kiss has it their way, they'll get to "rock & roll all nite" in music's greatest home: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The band has been eligible for years but this is the first they have been nominated along with Jimmy Cliff, Genesis, LL Cool J, ABBA, the Chantels and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. "It's a real honor to be nominated in our first year of eligibility. Obviously the Hall of Fame has excellent musical taste," Chili Pepper drummer Chad Smith told Billboard.
The acts gain a shot at the Hall of Fame 25 years after their first single or album. A group of more than 500 musicians and music professionals will vote on the group, and winners will be honored at the Waldorf Astoria in New York on March 15th.
The Hall of Fame is also having a 25th anniversary concerts on October 29th and 30th at New York's Madison Square Garden, and will be releasing the book "The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: The First 25 Years" along with a nine-DVD boxed set, "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live."
Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, the musical brains behind 1970s pop supergroup ABBA, have written their first new music together in 15 years.
Benny and Bjorn, who represent the two Bs in the middle of ABBA, penned "Story of a Heart," the title track in a new album by the Benny Andersson Band, according to a statement by Polydor Records, a division of Vivendi's Universal Music.
Much of the album is an excursion into Andersson's Swedish roots. "I wanted to make music based on the Swedish folk tradition, but with new songs written by me," he said.
Andersson plays accordion on the record, something he has done since he was a six-year-old boy playing with his father and grandfather in Stockholm, according to Polydor.
The Minogue Sisters, Kylie and Dannii, have recorded a duet of the ABBA classic "The Winner Takes It All".
Rumors are circulating that this remake of one of ABBA most famous tunes (and one of my ABBA all-time favorites) will be included in Kylie's forthcoming CD.
Thanks to YouTube, here's the official music recording accompanied by some old Kylie and Dannii video footage.
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ABBA singer Agnetha Faltskog has fueled rumors of the band reuniting for Prince William's wedding next year by saying that they would be open to reforming for special occasions.
