Features
The UK Says Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! ABBA
Reuters reported that out of the 1,500 people surveyed by PRS for Music, a organization that collects royalties on behalf of composers and songwriters, 25 percent of voters picked the Swedish pop group.
ABBA featured two married couples – Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog and Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. Both couples divorced before the band split up. The band last performed together in public in 1982 and has since made it clear they have no desire to reunite.
“We will never appear on stage again,” Ulvaeus told the U.K.’s Sunday Telegraph in an interview last year. “There is simply no motivation to re-group. Money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were. Young, exuburent, 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.”
The most recent rumor regarding an ABBA reunion was that the band would fill in for the 50 nights Michael Jackson left vacant at London’s O2 Arena. Of course that turned out to be nothing but hearsay as Andersson told the Sun back in July that, “No one has even asked us, and if they asked us they would have ‘no’ as an answer.”
Followed by ABBA, 13 percent of the PRS for Music voters would like to see The Police reunite, 11 percent pick Pink Floyd tied with 11 percent for The Smiths and 10 percent hope the Gallagher brothers work things out and bring back Oasis. Nine percent of voters have their fingers crossed that The Jam will reunite, followed by eight percent holding out for Dire Straits, six percent voting for The Clash, four percent want another Spice Girls reunion tour and three percent voted for the Sex Pistols.
Comparatively, when Pollstar conducted an online poll earlier this year and asked readers to choose which band they’d like to see reunite between ABBA, The Talking Heads, The Kinks, Supertramp and Faces, Talking Heads came up on top with 31 percent of the vote. The Kinks came in second with 23 percent of the vote followed by Supertramp with 19 percent, ABBA with 16 percent and Faces with 11 percent.
This time around, there are no restrictions – which band would you like to see reunite?
Click here for the Reuters article.
Click here for the Telegraph article.