Mikory's ABBA-blog

Facial symmetry - some got it, some don't

I've been studyings some phtographs where the phograher has expermiented by only portraying either the left or the right side of someone's face. Then putting the left or right side in reverse to make a "whole face again". Most people look as the always do, but there are some exceptions.
    I thought I should do the same experiment with out two leading ladies. And what do you know, they are both very symmetrical!
 

"Mamma Mia" wakes 3 year old girl from coma!

The Power of ABBA's music...:

A three-year-old girl defies the odds when she woke up from a five-day coma singing "Mamma Mia." Layla Towsey was on life support after being revived from a near-fatal heart attack, brought on by meningitis. Doctors had just finished removing her breathing tube when her mother, Katy Towsey, heard her humming tunes from the popular musical and film.

Now back at home and full of energy, Towsey sings "Mama Mia" tunes all around the home. "It was driving me insane before," said her mother. "Now it just reminds me of what happened. It makes me so happy."

Embedded video from CNN Video

Benny Andersson Band "Story of a Heart"

Here's the latest Benny pop song called "Story of a Heart". Enjoy! Click the image of Benny to have a listen:

1983 Here is where Frida lives with her secret Swedish man

 The biggest new in show-biz this year! Frida has finally found happiness again. Now she openly displays her love for the Swedish finance man and millionaire who has been standing by her side for years.
     Hand in hand - like newly in love teenagers - they stroll around Paris. Shopping, visiting small, intimate restaurants and only live for each other.
     - Suddenly my life has opened up again. I am together with a man I love and it's a free demandless relationship and that's just how I want it to be. I want to learn how to live openly, spontaneously.
     That's what Frida said to Theodore Kallifatides in an interview in the fashion magazine Clic last year. The only real interview Frida - who is becoming more Garboesque - has given in years.
     VeckoRevyn doesn't want to reveal the name of Frida's new man. He is married in Sweden, isn't divorced yet, but left Sweden for Paris on February 28 this year.
     In the beautiful quarters between Saint Germain and Montparnasse on the edge of Luxembourg garden he now lives with Frida. It's an exclusive house which is guarded 24/7. The guard won't say a word about "his" tenants. Everything is very discreet.
     After the interview in Clic Frida and several of her friends have denied the romance, but now it seems that they have given up. Even if Frida and the new man don't give any interviews, they make no secret of them living together in Paris.
     It was to Charles Street in London Frida moved when she left Sweden. But at Charles Street they hardly ever see the star nowadays. The mail box is overfull and the neighbours wonder where their new neighbour has gone.
     There's no doubt that Frida's new love has meant a lot for her. It's a completely new Frida her friends meet nowadays.
     - Frida has become more mature, calmer and more harmonious, says Tinni Fredell, Frida's best friend to Vecko Revyn. Tinny met Frida four years ago and they see each other as often as they can.
     - There was an instant friendship between us, says Tinni. We talk about everything and have a lot of fun together. What I appreciate most with Frida is her sensitivity and her loyalty to others and her warmth.
     Görel Hanser, another of Frida's very close friends and the vice CEO of the ABBA-company Polar Music tells us about Frida's new joy in life.
     - Frida is happy now. If you have a positive attitude towards life you feel good and that's exactly where Frida is at right now. There are no more sad things in her life anymore.
     Frida's new man is also her financial advisor. Frida is - as we all know - a wealthy woman. She sold her ABBA stocks at their highest value and gained almost 30 milllion kronor.
     40 years old in December, attractive and successfull is the description of Frida's new man. He is  a dynamic businessman with businesses all over the world and has made several million deals. Just like Frida he is also interested in art  - and not just buying and selling - and he has a strong personality, says people who know him. In the relationship with Frida he is definitely not just living in Frida's world star status he is a star in his own right. Most of all he is the calm, solid rock that Frida, according to her friends, really needs. Under her outgoing public personality Frida has been a quiet and withdrawn person. Now Frida has started to live life to the fullest.
     I have stopped doing alot of things I used to do. No physical training and fear of every ounce of fat. I have even thrown out my scales, she says in the Clic interview. Today Frida travels all over the world. She loves to travel. Sometimes alone, sometimes with her girlfriends and sometimes she joins her new man on his businesstrips. She can afford it and makes no secret of her spending money fast. The interest alone gives her several millions a year.

      And still new millions are coming in. From ABBA's music and from her own single and LP. The single sold over 3 million copies worldwide and has actually climbed higher on the American charts than Agnetha's much talked about Wrap Your Arms Around Me.

     - I spend a lot. I think it's fun, said Frida in a TV interview with Hagge Geigert this spring.

     - Frida has friends in Stockholm, Austria, New York, London and Paris, says Görel Hanser. She often visits her daughter, Lotta, who is studying in the USA. Most of the time she travels by plane, but sometimes she drives her BMW within Europe. She loves clothes and buys clothes all over the world, mostly from the Italian designer Valentino.

     Her best friends are, apart from Tinni Fredell and Görel Hanser, Cay Bond who works for the Clic magazine and Barbro Pettersson who is married and has children with advertising man Love Lundkvist.

    Now Frida also has found the peace and quiet to write her own music and lyrics. Görel Hanser:

     - Frida is now creating her own music. If she, the producer Phil Collins, Stikkan Anderson and the rest of us think it's good enough there will probably be a new album. A new album is already in the works, it will probably be recorded in may with songs from different composers.

     Some of her own songs has Frida already tried out with her son Hans' band Rendez-Vous.

     Today she is also making up for time lost with her children when they were younger.

     - Loneliness has followed me a lot through my life. I had difficulty giving my children that genuine affection which I didn't get myself as a child. Now it's going fine. Now I understand how important it is to talk to your children, dare to show them you weaknesses, your own fragility, yes, and even cry in front of the children. If you give your children that kind of love a lot of kids would be saved from drugs and other misery, Frida said in the Hagge Geigert interview.

     In the same TV-show she talked about "the positive life line" she is now following and continued:

     - I feel complete harmony right now.

     But then the little danceband singer from Eskilstuna with the big nose and skinny legs found the big love and is now blooming as a free, mature, independent woman.

     The earlier boldness she only showed on stage is now a part of her private life also. Frida's clothes are often daring. They reflect her new personality that expresses:

     - Play with life and life will play with you.

From VeckoRevyn #41, October 12, 1983.

Benny Andersson "Soundtrack of My Life"

"Soundtrack of my life'': Benny Andersson (ABBA)

The ABBA star tells Craig McLean about six records with a very special meaning for him ...

Craig McLean
The Observer, Sunday 17 May 2009

The first record I bought ...
Elvis Presley, Jailhouse Rock (1957)
In Sweden we did not have commercial radio at the time. But there was this pirate station in the Baltic, Radio Nord. I'm not sure if I heard it there, but people were certainly talking about this guy. And I realised there was something out there that I hadn't heard before. Especially the flipside, Treat Me Nice, because that starts with a piano thing - I'd started piano a year before.
My introduction to melody ...
Mantovani, Film Encores (1957)
For some strange reason when I was 12, 13, I bought this. There was a lot of wonderful music on it: Laura, Limelight, Three Coins in the Fountain. You know what Mantovani is like: strings and tons of reverb. So very not rock'n'roll. I learned all these songs and that brought me into melody-making. The essence of good music to me has always been good melodies.
Memories of my first flat ...
Rattviks Spelmanslag, Gardeby Laten (1950)
I was 18 and got a place in Stockholm. In the morning I would get my little portable gramophone and play this. All the villages up north have their own spelmanslag , groups of fiddlers, and Rattviks was one of those towns. I played Gardeby Laten every morning in my new flat to come into a good mood. I was always tuned into fiddle music, the core of Swedish folk.
How all music is linked ...

Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, Sableyalo Mi Agontze (1986)
I was sitting in the car maybe 20 years ago and this song came on the radio. What is this? It's like sheep! It's really raw stuff, women singing songs they've known since their grandmothers grew up. Folk music from Bulgaria is not exactly the same tone language as Swedish folk but there's something in it that makes you tick. All folk musics are more or less connected.
Proof that pop isn't dead ...
Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill (1995)
I listened to this a lot when it came out, at a time when I wasn't writing pop songs any more. It was a remembrance of solid golden pop, from a fantastically talented woman with great writing and a great voice, and a very nicely produced album by Glen Ballard. It's one of the top 10 albums in my life when it comes to pop records, alongside Rumours and Hotel California .
The spirit of Swedish pop ...
Robyn, Robyn (2005)
Robyn is a great artist. She was 16 when she started and was straightaway a big star in Sweden. She's a hip kid, in the middle of whatever is going on, without being a chameleon like Madonna. She still has her own style all the time. We played at the opening of my hotel, the Rival, in Stockholm - I played piano and she sang, on her song O Baby. She has her act together.

Footnotes
Andersson began playing accordion with his father and grandfather when he was six.
His group the Hep Stars were one of Sweden's biggest bands in the 60s.
The man who wrote the music behind Mamma Mia! is not a fan of records from musicals.
Andersson has a stable of racehorses in Arundel, Sussex.
Story of a Heart, the first UK album from the Benny Andersson Band, is released on 6 July.

"Kristina" in concert at Carnegie Hall

The English version of Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus' international hit musical Kristina, will be presented in concert form on September 23rd and 24th 2009 at Carnegie Hall.

The show by the men behind ABBA, which has had a hugely successful run in Sweden, is based on Vilhelm Mobergs  novel "The Emigrants." It has been adapted into English by Herbert Kretzmer and John Weidman.

Andersson and Ulvaeus' other theatre scores include Chess and of course the mega hit Mamma Mia! which continues to fill the Winter Garden Theatre, where it opened in October 2001. The movie version has become a true phenomenon.

Universal has reported that consumers said "Gimme Gimme Gimme" to Mamma Mia! The Movie, the most successful film musical of all time worldwide, as first day domestic DVD and Blu-ray consumer spend totaled over $30 million.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment sold over 2.25 million units of the Golden Globe® -nominated blockbuster on December 16, 2008.

An unprecedented worldwide box office phenomenon, Mamma Mia!  The Movie has already been proclaimed the fastest selling DVD of all time in the U.K. after first-day sales reached 1.6 million units, surpassing the previous decade-long record holder Titanic on November 24, 2008 by over a half-million units, or 50 percent of total sales.

For more information on the above visit, www.duvemala.com/eng/

 

Here's the demo version of Kristina's prayer to God ("Du Måste Finnas") "You Have To Be There" from Kristina Från Duvemåla, sung by Helene Sjöholm.


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What if...

ABBA and the graphic designer had gone for this picture for the "Ring Ring" album... :)

Benny doesn't watch Eurovision Song Contest anymore

ABBA legend Benny Andersson has put the boot into the Eurovision Song Contest, insisting it "means nothing" anymore.
      The 2009 bash takes place this weekend in Moscow, Russia, 35 years after the Swedish pop act won it with "Waterloo".
      But Andersson, who has rejected advances from his home country to groom previous national contestants, say he will not be watching the show.
      "What it is now is possibly a great television event, but for music it means nothing", he explained, continuing: "I don't watch Eurovision. It's become so huge.
      "It might have been a little bit more meaningful in the '50s and '60s and when we entered but after that, I'm not sure if anything ever happened.
      "Musically, it's not what it should be. But as a television show it's a good show", said the songwriter.
      As previously reported, Andersson recently hooked-up with fellow former Abba band member Bjorn Ulvaeus to pen their first songs together in 15 years.
      This weekend's Eurovision Song Contest will see 25 countries competing for the big prize.

ABBA Let The Music Speak

Samuel Ingless was very kind and sent me a copy of the ABBA book "ABBA Let The Music Speak". An extraordinary analytic book about ABBA's music. Here's an article from The Herald Sun, from 19 April 2009

The Sun-Herald (Sydney) – Sunday, 19 April 2009 (Page 23) 

Thank you for ABBA music book. By Christine Sams – Entertainment Reporter

It’s the secret behind why we still love ABBA songs - and it goes beyond the glamorous white suits and cheeky dance numbers. 

Not only do many of the songs have a simple but a striking chord structure based on variations of do-re-mi, but the choruses are purposefully repetitive so people always remember the song names. 

“The titles of all the ABBA songs were always the actual hook as well – that was one of their secrets,” said Christopher Patrick, who has spent four years researching the structure of ABBA’s music. 

The musicologist, who is based in Brisbane, is one of the first people in the world to provide an expert study of ABBA’s songs. 

“My hope is to basically make both a lay person and the serious musician know what makes ABBA work and why,” said Mr Patrick. “Of course there is a divine simplicity about it. Sometimes the melodies themselves might seem quite straightforward, but the arrangements and the production are quite intricate. That’s what makes the songs stand the test of time.” 

Mr Patrick’s new book ‘ABBA: Let The Music Speak’ has the potential to be read by millions of ABBA fans worldwide, such is the popularity of the Swedish pop group. 

Some internet fan sites are already recommending it. And it seems at least two of the band may have checked out the research: “Both Benny [Andersson] and Björn [Ulvaeus] both have a copy.” 

Photo: Björn again…musicologist Christopher Patrick with his book analysing the structure of ABBA’s music.

Frida is showing off her prince to her family in Sweden

This article is from Svensk Damtidning issue nr 34, 1987.

For the second summer in a row Frida and her prince, the banker Ruzzo Reuss have made a detour to Glumslöv, in southern part of Sweden, Skåne. They went there to meet family and friends. Ruzzo's mother, Louise Anckarcrona, owns a flat in the sweet idyllic Glumslöv, where Frida and Ruzzo loves to come and stay or a couple of weeks.
     Frida, normally, divides her time between the magnificient villa on the Mallorca peninsula La Mola and her cosy flast in the Swizz village Schwyzz. Ruzzo lives just outside of Zürich, about half an hour to the office.
     Naturally, everyone is very curious about this Ruzzo who has managed to capture the shy Frida's heart. He is a banker and a prince, tall med with wavy hair and fashionable glasses. He is always dressed in immaculate suits. He is also incredible charming which definitely isn't a bad thing...
     It's claimed that Ruzzo was the man who helped Frida invest all her money, so they both met uner business like circumstances, but soon they discovered that they had more things in common than money - music and art for example.
     Ruzzo's father, prince Reuss disappeared without a trace during the second world war and was declared dead many years later. Ruzzo's mother, Louise, née Peyron, remarried in 1972 to Ted Ankarcrona, the owner of the manors Boserup in Skåne and Runsa in Uppland. Ruzzo has spent all his life abroad, but really enjoys coming home to visit his mother when he has some time off. Nowadays Frida comes along which makes it even more pleasant.
     Recently Ruzzo divorced his Norwegian wife, with whom he has two children. Something friends indiciates that "there's something going on".
     Frida has lived quite a reclusive life during he last years. Finally she has been able to do all those things that were impossible during the hectic ABBA years - golfing, reading, studying French and spend time with friends. Even though she made a small comeback on the duet "As Long As I Have You" with Swedish pop duo Ratata, she has no plans whatsoever to come back to the showbusiness again. It was just one off, Frida assured us.
     Also last year she toured Skåne by car with Ruzzo, enjoyed the beauty of the landscape and meeting her old Swedish friends. This summer it happened again. And it seems likely that it will happen in the coming summers too. That is at least what her friends believe.