ABBA's Millions....what they're saying!

BBC and ITV have both made ABBA focused programs before and not always looking favourably upon them. Normally they concentrate on the "naff" clothes", the "corny" lyrics, and Volvo, so I was not expecting anything serious tonight.

But I was to be pleasantly surprised. A serious analysis of the "Billions" of dollars ABBA amassed over their relatively short hey day in the 70s/80s and the revival periods in the 90's and again this year.

The 55 minute program had parallel agendas. To run through a concise chronology of how ABBA came to be, formed and conquered the world and, secondly, how the money accumulated and built up and how it was spent, and sometimes foolishly frittered away by their sometimes grandiose and greedy manager Stig Anderson.

The BBC presenter actually visits the landmarks with the relevant person from the time, so it is Rune Soderqvist talking about his missed opportunity of gaining millions in royalties from the famous "B B" back to back logo, the rather camp Owe Sandstrom surrounded by 2 Million pounds worth of ABBA clothing all meticulously preserved in a huge room, never to be betrayed and sold off to anyone ! Brita Ahman, famous now for betraying Agnetha after the release of the "As I Am" biography, talking about The Winner Takes It All and her memories of how Agnetha bravely tackled the lyrics to the best ABBA song ever. We go to HMV in London and talk to the sales assistants about ABBA sales, comparing today's feeble singles sales to those of the grand million plus sellers like Waterloo, Dancing Queen and Fernando.

An interesting segment of the show is the BBC host in a helicopter and flying over the grand Stockholm Islands and hovering in turn over Bjorn's modest moat surrounded chalet, Frida's home in the archipelago, Benny's Hansel and Gretel-like "Gite" on the Stockholm outskirts and Agnetha's Ekero Ranch. The inevitable mention of Agnetha's mythical and legendary "Garbo/Recluse" status is mentioned but only in passing. I was expecting the "stalker" story but we were spared.

A visit to Unicef in the USA to talk to the UN about the royalty pledge to them by ABBA for perpetuity for Chiquitita sales. The single alone has made the UN over 1 Million dollars in contributions.

The program wobbles a little in parts, the chronology of the groups formation, rise and 1980's collapse is not strictly matched with the discography. Super Trouper played too early when talking about ABBA-The Movie, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, played over the demise of Polar Music Studios this April. All in all as an ABBA anorak, and fussy about attention to detail, this is the best BBC attempt to be serious in an ABBA analysis.

As the program progresses a tally counter appears on screen flickering up the millions as they are established. Whether accurate or not, it can be agreed that the figures are in the region of 200 plus Million Pounds, not Dollars. Some tales of woe about the Russian/Polar Oil miscalculation, the Monark bicycle crisis, the Swedish tax mans demands for the higher 85% rate of income tax and the law suit ABBA members all threw at Stikkan in the late 80's for unpaid royalties are fairly looked at in some depth. It omits to mention that after the lawsuits, Stig was a broken man, heartbroken at his once "children" turning rather nasty on him. He died just a few years ago and had no part in the second ABBA revival of the late 90's.

The program is strong on using some very rare ABBA footage, some even I have never seen. We all have the clip of ABBA at the western style bar and singing the awful "California Here We Come", but one black & white clip is of Frida in about 1967 winning a talent contest and singing, sorry, breathing into the microphone as she sings. The triumphant Waterloo at Brighton footage is used, interviews with Terry Wogan (of course) and even a man from the 1974 UK Eurovision Jury ashamedly admitting the UK gave zero points to Sweden in the Grand Prix.

The program had it all really, Terry, Katie Boyle, Brita, Owe, Rune, and the expert of them all, a dashing Carl Magnus Palm showing our host around Stockholm's Islands on a tourist boat trip. So a lot of money spent on Air Tickets and a very good, informative acknowledgement of ABBA's part in Music History. No longer are they dismissed as "crass and tacky", they finally get remembered for what they were, a highly talented and naturally put together ensemble proud to fly the flag for "Pop".

So a 9 out of 10 for the BBC Millions program. Hopefully it will be repeated on BBC2 as usually happens to this show once the 20 repeats are shown in a two week cycle on BBC3.

Diego Lopez, St. Albans, UK

=========================================================

I actually found this highly entertaining tonight! Much more enjoyable than the usual British nostalgia-type show.

It was well researched and there were some really good interviews, amongst whom were Sven from the Hep Stars, Tomas Johansson, Carl-Magnus, Jeffrey De Hart, Lasse Hallstrom, Owe Sandstrum and even an appearance from Bitter Almond - my God she looked bizarre!

It really only was the story of ABBA, with much of the facts taken from Bright Lights, Dark Shadows. It was a bit frustrating that the story "fast-forwarded" from 1980s The Winner Takes It All to almost a decade later and the lawsuit with Stig, and then a leap forward again to Mamma Mia! totally bypassing CHESS, Kristina and the girl's solo projects and investments (where was Agnetha's company AFP in her earnings total?).

It is so obvious that there is more money floating around the ABBA member's bank accounts via various schemes and investments that this show revealed, but if these figures shown tonight are accurate of the earnings from the ABBA songs, it would seem that the girls as the figure pieces got a raw deal compared with the boys. Benny's £98million ($US150m) to Agnetha's £6million ($US10m) hardly seems fair. No wonder she wants to stay indoors! I wonder how much *she* would have got from that $1bn reform deal?

Alex Jones, SWANSEA, UK

=========================================================

Well I don't know about anyone else, but I wasn't particularly enthralled with the show.. It felt really clumsy and badly put together by the Liquid News team who are behind Liquid Assets.

It didn't really tell us anything we didn't know already, and at some points I felt it was edited really badly. When they were talking about Eurovision and Waterloo, they mentioned Stig, but this was the first time they mentioned him, it wasn't until a bit further in, that they said he was their manager. WE know who he is, but anyone not knowing the Abba story (shame on them !) would maybe be a bit confused ... I know it's not a HUGE deal, but even so, it bothered me !!

On the other hand however, it was good to see interviews with Lasse and Brita. The memorabilia section could have been a bit meatier, and I think they could have focused a bit more on post-Abba activities, but you can't have everything.

I have come to expect more Liquid Assets, previous profiles on J-Lo, Victoria and David Beckham and Kylie have all been much better than this.

The presenter was cute and made a change from Max Flint, the usual host of the show, and he was cute to boot.

Would be interested to hear what you other folks thought

Tom Spearman, London, UK

=========================================================