Showing posts with label Björn Ulvaeus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Björn Ulvaeus. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Forty years after the release of "Waterloo", ABBA is finally celebrated at Waterloo (Station); new book titled "ABBA - The Backstage Stories" by Ingmarie Halling, looks to be the must-buy book of the year for some of us with a certain Old School musical sensibility that leans decidedly towards melody & harmony

 





Expressen TV's Oscar Julander interviews author Ingmarie Halling about her new book on ABBA.
http://www.expressen.se/tv/nyheter/primetime/det-osminkade-abba/


Bonniervideo YouTube Channel: ABBA - The Backstage Stories Interview with author Ingmarie Halling (ABBA - The Backstage stories intervju med Ingmarie Halling) 
Uploaded February 24, 2014 http://youtu.be/gWoYhDsfEaA

More information on the new book at Bonnier's website under 40 år sedan Waterloo



Photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Above, my photo from January 2013 of the welcoming party that greeted me at the luggage carousel at Arlanda Stockholm Airport... ABBA.  
As seen in my May 7, 2013 blog post titled, "A" is for Awesome and ABBA as the new ABBA Museum in Stockholm officially opens this afternoon. Monday night's gala premiere brought Anni-Frid, Benny and Björn together, cheered on by a select group of invitees from across Swedish society and the music industry, who are, in the end, just fans of the band like everyone else, and very excited that this amazing museum is FINALLY a reality; #abba, #AbbaMuseum, #ThankYouForTheMusic, @stockholm, @sweden
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-is-for-awesome-and-abba-as-new-abba.html


TheSpringOf74 YouTube Channel video: ABBA - Dancing Queen - LIVE at the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm, June 18, 1976, at the gala tribute to Sweden's King Carl XV1 Gustaf and future wife and Queen, Silvia Sommerlath, the night before their wedding.
This was the first time the song had ever been performed in public in Sweden. 
Above, in my humble opinion, the single best version of this iconic song ever recorded on film.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

"A" is for Awesome and ABBA as the new ABBA Museum in Stockholm officially opens this afternoon. Monday night's gala premiere brought Anni-Frid, Benny and Björn together, cheered on by a select group of invitees from across Swedish society and the music industry, who are, in the end, just fans of the band like everyone else, and very excited that this amazing museum is FINALLY a reality; #abba, #AbbaMuseum, #ThankYouForTheMusic, @stockholm, @sweden


Euronews YouTube Channel video: Euronews reporter Valerie Zabriskie speaks with lucky Abba fan club members selected to get a sneak preview of the new museum in Stockholm. Uploaded May 5, 2013. http://youtu.be/xbDW3FdtEgM
"A" is for Awesome and ABBA and the new ABBA Museum in Stockholm, which officially opens today at 1600 Stockholm time/10 a.m. Eastern U.S. Monday night's gala premiere brought Anni-Frid, Benny and Björn together, cheered on by a select group of invitees from across Swedish society and the music industry, who are, in the end, just fans of the band like everyone else, and very excited that this amazing museum is FINALLY a reality; #abba, #AbbaMuseum, #ThankYouForTheMusic, @stockholm, @sweden

I could mention who some of these VIPs are and why they're important and why they're there,
but that's not worth spending the time it would take today to do that, and besides, TMI as I'm sometimes reminded by friends here in Hallandale Beach and elsewhere around the globe.

Plus, I've had a very clear idea of how this particular blog post would look ever since I was there in January, so trying to explain to you all who Carola or Sarah Dawn Finer are and why they are in the video below iis, well, just a losing proposition today.

Aftonbladet TV video: Här invigs ABBA-museet -Jonas Bilberg levererade livebilder från galaöppningen. 
May 6, 2013. http://tv.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/noje/article11311.ab

Aftonbladet TV video: Här inviger kändiseliten ABBA-museet  
7 maj 2013 00:12
http://tv.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/noje/article11311.ab

It's enough to know that it's logical that they were there.
Just go with it.


BBC-TV video
Abba museum in Stockholm celebrates Swedish pop group
7 May 2013 Last updated at 04:22 ET 

BBC-TV video
As the Abba museum prepares to open its doors in Stockholm, the BBC's Russell Trott takes a look inside.
6 May 2013 Last updated at 21:54 ET


Aftonbladet TV: Nu öppnar ABBA-museet, Björn Ulvaeus: - "Kan visa det för barnbarnen med stolthet" 6 maj 2013 15:31
http://tv.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/noje/musik/article11284.ab



SVT video: TV Abba-museet öppnades
http://www.svt.se/nyheter/article1203720.svt


NTDTV -ABBA Museum in Stockholm

Tickets for the much-discussed and anticipated museum that's full of innovative technology run about 195 SEK/ just under $30 U.S. for adults, and 50 SEK/$7.63 for children up to age 8, at today's current ratio of about 6.52 Krona to the dollar, more or less.

But fair warning, the museum in the beautiful Djurgården section of Stockholm WON'T take bills or coins, only electronic payments, because as the museum puts it loftily, "Vi har en dröm om ett kontantfritt samhälle, därför går det inte handla med mynt eller sedlar hos oss."
("We have a vision of a cashless society, therefore we don’t handle coins and bills." )

Yes, sorta like in the future as seen in Star Trek, but not quite, since there's a 5% discount with MasterCard.

Björn's explanation on why abba-museet doesn't take bills and coins, largely to prevent crime, has a great introduction that only a real genius like him could get away with saying in his Big Picture way
There was a time when bills and coins served their purpose. They replaced cumbersome barter and made trade between people and nations possible. But do they still serve this purpose? Do we really need cash? Or is it a fixed idea like with Scrooge McDuck? Have we lost the ability to see that coins and bills are mere symbols and that those symbols easily could be exchanged for others? Cards and smartphones today and who knows what in the future.
Read the rest of Björn's comments at http://www.abbathemuseum.com/cashless

Combining innovation, ideals, crime-fighting and Scrooge McDuck! 
Brilliant!!!


Dags för ABBA The Museum 
by Lars Epstein 
15:14, May 6, 2013
http://www.dn.se/blogg/epstein/2013/05/06/dags-for-abba-the-museum/

According to Lars Epstein's post yesterday, above, at his Stockholm-centric Epstein's STHLM blog at Dagens Nyheter, the museum is expecting about 217,000 visitors a year.

Yes, holograms...


ABBA Museum website:

Here's the website of the ABBA Museum exhibit at Stockholm Arlanda Airport that I saw back in mid-January when I arrived for my nine-day trip in Stockholm, where I snapped some photos while waiting around for my luggage at the arrival carousel at Terminal 5which was festooned with photos of... who else?
http://www.swedavia.se/arlanda/om-stockholm-arlanda-airport/om-flygplatsen/official-airport-of-abba-the-museum/


All original photos on this page by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. Right-click photos to enlarge them.


For someone like me who has been a huge ABBA fan for more than two-thirds of my life, the  biggest ABBA fan that most people I've known have ever met, as small as this exhibit at the airport was, in looking at it and reflecting back on everything, it was hard to get over the fact that for so long, like millions of other fans, we fervently hoped that there'd be a museum some day that would be shaped along the lines of,,, well, just what they seem to have actually done: music plus heart -musik plus hjärta.

Like those other fans of the band, over the past 20 years I've given up counting how many interviews I'd seen with the band members, especially Benny and Bjorn, discussing the idea

of it, but quite naturally, being somewhat unsure of how to answer such a question without seeming pretentious.
But it IS a weird question, isn't it, when you really think about it?
Should there be a museum that people pay to get into that's all about you and three other people you've known for most of your life?
How do you answer that?

TheSpringOf74 YouTube Channel video: ABBA - Dancing Queen - LIVE at the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm, June 18, 1976, at the gala tribute to Sweden's King Carl XV1 Gustaf and future wife and Queen, Silvia Sommerlath, the night before their wedding. If I remember my ABBA history correctly, this was the first time the song had ever been performed in public in Sweden. http://youtu.be/33Yj5pbsXAs
Above, in my humble opinion, the single best version of this iconic song ever recorded on film.

Here are those January 10, 2013 photos I snapped at Arlanda before and after grabbing my luggage:
 



All original photos on this page by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.





Here's how they appear on the airport's official exhibit web page:
http://www.swedavia.se/arlanda/om-stockholm-arlanda-airport/om-flygplatsen/official-airport-of-abba-the-museum/

You can see more photos of this exhibit by going to Google Images using these words as your search terms: "Terminal 5, Arlanda, ABBA"


Here's the link to the ABBA Museum-related news videos that have run on TV4, most recent first, obviously, in Swedish, but many with lots of great video of the musem: http://www.tv4play.se/s%C3%B6k?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Abba
Obviously, there's a lot to see and watch!



Saturday, June 18, 2011

35 years ago today, THE definitive visual look of ABBA's Dancing Queen


2Shaymcn YouTube Channel: ABBA - Dancing Queen (HQ) - LIVE at the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm, June 18, 1976. http://youtu.be/qk_Vu6AcbWg


Above, in my humble opinion, the single best version of this song ever recorded on film.


Thirty-five ago today, one of the most popular songs of the late 20th-Century got the definitive visual look it needed to go supernova, and there it stays, frozen in our collective memories.
Well, at least among those of us with a yen for genius lyrics and power-pop harmonies.


The day before the 1976 Royal Wedding in Stockholm of King Carl XVI Gustaf and his fiancee, commoner Silvia Sommerlath, the present Queen Silvia, during a variety program celebrating the nuptials, ABBA performed a never-to-be forgotten costumed version of Dancing Queen at the Royal Swedish Opera for them and their invited guests.

As you watch the video, you can see the almost bewildered look of many of the officials and other musicians seated behind them on the stage, who, the story goes, because of their unfamiliarity with the song, had no genuine idea whether or not the song was supposed to be about the future queen -or not.

And yes, it does remind all of us again of the group's marketing genius, since two years prior, at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton that made them famous, they wore early 19th-Century costumes when they performed Waterloo, which earned them first place.


ABBAVevo: ABBA -Dancing Queen (1976)

As of today this video has received 9,355,415 views.
The current population estimate of Sweden by the CIA is 9,088,728.

Benny sliding his fingers across the piano keys at the beginning -so very, very simple and yet so genius!

Fox-TV's multi-national hit Glee featured a performance of Dancing Queen in their May 10th episode titled Prom Queen, with Amber Riley and Naya Rivera doing the duet.

You can watch the entire episode on Fox's website until this coming Thursday at
The song begins at 0:40:46 and goes to 0:42:39.

-----
Swedish Royal Court website: http://www.kungahuset.se/

Official Glee website: http://www.fox.com/glee/

Saturday, April 30, 2011

If the blog is rockin', don't come knockin' - Yngwie Malmsteen: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (HQ); original version by ABBA (LIVE at Wembley Arena, 1979)


2Shaymcn video: Yngwie Malmsteen: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (ABBA) HQ
http://youtu.be/tfmg_wV-QeU
If the blog is rockin', don't come knockin'...


Agnetha, Benny, Anni-Frid & Björn

Below, the one and only original version of Gimme!, as seen during the 1979 World & U.S. Tour promoting the Voulez-Vous album, whose first stop was
Göteborg.
Thirty-two years later, I still largely recall the tour stops in chron order.

Trettiotvå år senare...



ABBA -
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (LIVE at Wembley Arena, November 1979)
http://youtu.be/RLtU7aOnp2U
Another previous post of mine on ABBA and that 1979 World Tour, that included the United States -though the best info will stay in my head- is from July 2, 2009
, titled, ABBA Geniuses At It Again: Story Of A Heart, featuring Helen Sjöholm, Words & Music by Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

If you are a new reader to this blog, I urge you to read it to get a better sense of me and my musical back-story and tastes, and why, perhaps, certain things will appeal to me and appear here on the blog that don't appear on other blogs or websites you regularly visit.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/abba-geniuses-at-it-again-story-of.html

As I note there, my music teacher in high school, at North Miami Beach Senior High, was one of the top studio musicians in the country, and regularly performed at Criteria Studios in nearby North Miami for all the top groups of the time when they came to South Florida to lay down some tracks, or, record an entire album, and that even included ABBA.


In fact, he was part of the album title song recorded at Criteria the month of my 18th birthday, for which this video was later recorded, and if I recall correctly, was to be part of the touring band as well.



ABBA - Voulez-Vous (1979)
http://youtu.be/OUx4tLPMo50

-----
http://www.yngwiemalmsteen.com/


http://www.youtube.com/user/2Shaymcn
http://www.youtube.com/user/SHAYMCN1

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Helen Sjöholm singing Inte jag (with Tommy Körberg) from 2002 Swedish production of "Chess" in Stockholm; Barbra Streisand - I Know Him So Well


Helen Sjöholm - Inte jag (CHESS på svenska)
Someone Else's Story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOda9k1sbLs



You'll recall that back on July 20th, to commemorate a
posting that day by ABBA super-fan and expert Shay in Dublin of the video of the biggest-selling U.K. single in history by a Female Duo, Elaine Paige (as Florence) and Barbara Dickson (as Svetlana) of I Know Him So Well from 1985, written by ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus & Benny Andersson along with Tim Rice for the Musical "Chess" I included that video here.

Nothing is so good it lasts eternally

Perfect situations must go wrong

But this has never yet prevented me

Wanting far too much for far too long
.

My post was titled, sensibly: Biggest-selling U.K. single by Female (Duo) - Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson: I Know Him So Well (1985); Marie Serneholt http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/biggest-selling-uk-single-
by-female-duo.html


Well, yesterday, Shay posted an excellent audio version -with English subtitles- of the rewritten 2002 LIVE version of Chess that was performed in Stockholm, with the always fantastic Helen Sjöholm interacting on "Inte jag" with Tommy Körberg.
Wow, I would like to have been there for that!

I've seen videos of her singing this song before, obviously, most notably, at the Berwald Concert Hall in Stockholm, a.k.a. Berwaldhallen http://sverigesradio.se/berwaldhallen/index_e.stm, which is the home of the Sveriges Radio Symphony Orchestra, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzyTM2zhpMc but I really think this may be my new favorite.

And because I neglected to think of it in July, I'm also posting here today the Barbra Streisand rendition of
I Know Him So Well
It packs a real wallop, too!


Barbra Streisand - I Know Him So Well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsq36ndiEmQ

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Biggest-selling U.K. single by Female (Duo) - Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson: I Know Him So Well (1985); Marie Serneholt

Completely coincidental to David Cameron's first visit to the U.S. as British Prime Minister is the posting today by ABBA super-expert Shay in Dublin of the video of the biggest-selling U.K. single in history by a Female Duo, Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson performance of I Know Him So Well from 1985, written by ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus & Benny Andersson along with Tim Rice for the Musical "Chess."

Nothing is so good it lasts eternally
Perfect situations must go wrong

But this has never yet prevented me

Wanting far too much for far too long
...

Be sure to click the additional info below the video that Shay has written, which includes lyrics.
Shay's YouTube Channel of ABBA group, individual and ABBA-related songs and memories is among the most amazing you'll ever find. http://www.youtube.com/user/2Shaymcn
(But sorry, no A*Teens. See bottom.)

But then Shay lists his occupation as "Feeding The Fältskog Fever!!" so you know his heart is really in it.
And the audio quality of his videos is simply awesome.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hqnfbkxLlo






See also: Elaine Paige On Sunday which airs on BBC Radio 2.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006wqwz

-----The following post was updated with new blog info re Marie and a posting of her SVT appearance from YouTube on November 21, 2011-----

A*Teens performing "Mama Mia" LIVE on Top of the Pops, May 1999.



Speaking of A*Teens, is it true that I've always been a sucker for the smiling face of Marie Serneholt?
Guilty as charged!

Marie's new blog, chock full of photos and her latest adventures: http://marie.elle.se/

Here's Marie back on January 28th appearing on SVT's Gomorron Sverige (Good Morning Sweden) talking about the new production of Grease in Stockholm along with cast mate Sebastian Karlsson.


Love her!

Thursday, July 2, 2009

ABBA Geniuses At It Again: Story Of A Heart, featuring Helen Sjöholm, Words & Music by Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus




They're back!
Story Of A Heart, The Benny Anderssons Band (Orkester)
featuring Helen Sjöholm,
Words & Music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus

Well, as they used to say so often on
Monty Python, "And now for something
completely different..."

For those of you who know me pretty well,
esp. those of you back in the D.C. area,
as well as those scattered coast-to-coast
around Hoosier Nation, you know better
than most that among many other things,
I am and have always been one of the
biggest ABBA fans around, from the very
beginning.

Given that, if you've already heard on
your own via a European newspaper
or magazine or the internet what
Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus
have been up to lately, you've probably
been wondering why it's taken me so
long to finally get around to posting
this catchy new song of theirs called
Story of a Heart, or in Swedish,

Sommaren Du Fick


I guess I should say especially since
the words and music are by Benny
Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, only
the creative musical geniuses behind
not only ABBA, but the international
hits Chess -with Tim Rice- and the
perpetual money-making machine
that is Mamma Mia!

Yes, especially considering I'm the
very same guy who not only knew
all the lyrics, backwards and forwards,
to every ABBA song ever officially
released in America or the U.K.
-and even some of the Swedish
ones- but who in high school,
even had in a corner of my bedroom
in North Miami Beach, the record
company's lifesize cardboard stand-up
POS promotion of the group for their
upbeat Voulez-Vous album.

That was thanks to my great job over
at Record Shack in North Miami Beach,
just east of the 163rd Street Shopping
Center on N.E. 15th Avenue, a block
south of the Zayre's, to go old-time
NMB geography on you.

The promotional item was literally too
large for the store to handle, so I asked
the promotional guy at Atlantic Records
if I could have it.

Since he knew my whole music story
and knew what was what from our prior
conversations, he gave me the okay.
I was so eager to get it out of the store,
lest some calamity befall it if I waited
a day, that when I got off that night
I pulled the standup cardboard peg
at the bottom which helped keep it up,
and walked the ten minutes to mi casa,
balancing it on my head, so that I didn't
have to fold it to get it into a car.

When my two younger sisters woke-up
the next morning and I showed them
what was standing there in the corner
of my bedroom, they were speechless.
I was so pleased with myself!

(You don't want to know what fate
befell the less-popular record promo
stuff we received there that the record
companies didn't want back, and that
nobody-but-nobody cared for.
It got abused in the worst and funniest
ways!)

By way of explanation, I should also
mention that my music teacher in
high school was one of the top studio
musicians in the country, and regularly
performed at Criteria Studios in nearby
North Miami for all the top groups of the
time when they came into town to lay
down some tracks, or, record an entire
album, and that even included ABBA.

In fact, he was part of this song recorded
at Criteria the month of my 18th birthday.


(I'll talk about that and some other
Miami musical moments in future
posts, including Jon Marlowe of
the late Miami News.)

Now, getting back to this new song
by Benny and Björn, I first meant
to post on it a few weeks ago, when
I first heard it on the BBC, but I got
sidetracked and decided that I'd wait
'til I started seeing some better,
cleaner audio versions of it uploaded
to YouTube.

Over the past weekend, I listened to
the various versions there, noting
what was good and what was bad,
until I selected two that I think best
represent the 'sound' you're expecting
to hear when you know who's behind it.

The song is sung by the wonderfully
talented Helen Sjöholm, who was
the original Kristina in their hugely
successful musical version of
Kristina från Duvemåla, which was
the series of books written by Vihelm
Moberg chronicling the travails of
poor Swedish emigrants journeying
to pre-Civil War America, and their
attempts to fit-in with both their new
surroundings and their new country.

(The early '70's film versions of some
of the Moberg books, especially
The Emigrants,
and The New Land
starring two film heavyweights,
film/stage legend Liv Ullman, and
the pro's pro, Max von Sydow
-who's actually Swedish- both of
whom are terrific, and well worth
watching if you can ever rent them,
or check them out of your local
library.)

The show will be playing in New York
in September at Carnegie Hall under
the title, Kristina the Musical

Sjöholm also played the key role of
Gabriella in the hugely popular film,
Så som i himmelen"
(As It Is in Heaven), and sang the
now-beloved eponymous song that
every Swedish girl and woman knows
the lyrics to by heart, Gabriella's
Song


Some of you might recall that until
I removed it 2-3 weeks ago, for most
of this year, I had among the handful
of videos of hers here on my blog,
Molly Sandén singing Gabriellas
Sång


What a tremendous voice and talent! From April 11, 2008 on Swedish TV's (SVT's) popular program,
"Så ska det låta," the Swedish sensation who marries Pop Music with a powerful Soprano voice,
Molly Sandén singing "Gabriellas Sång" (Gabriella's Song) from the 2004 motion picture,
"Så som i himmelen" (As It Is in Heaven)


Sadly, Molly didn't fare quite so well
at the Melodifestivalen finals, to get
into the Eurovision Song Contest
representing Sweden, as Malena
Ernman earned that right, but no
serious music lover who knows of
her, or who has ever heard her truly
amazing voice, has any doubt that
Molly is the Real Deal, a star in
the making.

Just as is equally clear with both
Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir,
a.k.a. Yohanna, from Iceland,









or Esmée Denters of The Netherlands,
who Oprah loved so much she invited her
to Chicago..



Esmée Denters

All three singers clearly have talent to
spare and unlimited futures.
Time to jump on the bandwagon
while you can!

Below I have the two versions of
Story Of A Heart for you, in both
Engelska and Svenka, though for
me, personally, the Swedish version
rocks just a little bit stronger, as the
production sounds slightly clearer
than the version in English.
But maybe that's just me -be your
own judge.

First, in English:
------------
Here's the Swedish version:



And a reminder, the older videos, photos
and materials that I've used here in the
are now at my mirror storage blog site: