ABBA as soon as sang about having wealth of their 1976 music “Cash, Cash, Cash:” “All of the issues I might do if I had just a little cash / It is a wealthy man’s world.”
In 2000, ABBA was provided some huge cash — $1 billion to be precise — in alternate for reuniting. It might have equated to roughly $250 million per member, however the group firmly turned it down.
ABBA had final carried out dwell in 1982. At that time, it felt clear to the band’s members that it was the tip of the highway.
“We had just a little firm, the 4 of us collectively,” Benny Andersson recalled to The Guardian in 2021. “All the pieces ABBA earned went into that firm and we cut up it 4 methods, irrespective of who did what. After which, after we mentioned, ‘Effectively, that is it, guys, let’s do one thing else for a bit after which we are able to return maybe in a few years and see if we’re nonetheless alive,’ that was that: we bought the corporate. We didn’t anticipate ABBA to proceed, I can promise you that.”
However that did not imply ABBA’s identify was completely faraway from the general public consciousness. Cowl bands earned their success, films included their music and a compilation album referred to as ABBA Gold: Best Hits grew to become one of many best-selling albums of all time with some 30 million copies bought. Folks needed ABBA.
It has been extensively reported {that a} $1 billion provide was made to the band in 2000 to reunite, however nothing ever got here of it. For one factor, as Bjorn Ulvaeus identified to The Guardian, it wasn’t an actual provide.
“Somebody instructed us one thing a couple of sponsored tour, happening the highway, doing 100 gigs, nevertheless it was by no means placed on paper,” he defined. “However then, everybody knew we wouldn’t do it.”
Watch ABBA’s Music Video for ‘Cash, Cash, Cash’
That was possible as a result of performing dwell had by no means been ABBA’s favourite a part of the job. “Nobody who has skilled dealing with a hysterical viewers can keep away from feeling the shivers of their backbone,” Agnetha Faltskog would inform her biographer. “It’s a skinny line between celebration and menace.”
So far as ABBA was involved, they’d already checked relentlessly touring the world off their record of issues to do.
“We mentioned no as a result of they needed 250 reveals or one thing, it was unbelievable,” Faltskog instructed Radio Occasions in 2013. “No likelihood. No likelihood. We had accomplished it.”
READ MORE: When ABBA Moved Into Making Films
In lots of circumstances, Ulvaeus emphasised to The Sunday Telegraph in 2008, it is merely greatest for a band to stop whereas they’re forward, no matter how a lot cash is on the desk.
“We’ll by no means seem on stage once more,” he mentioned. “There’s merely no motivation to re-group. Cash shouldn’t be an element and we want folks to recollect us as we have been. Younger, exuberant, stuffed with power and ambition. I keep in mind Robert Plant saying Led Zeppelin have been a canopy band now as a result of they cowl all their very own stuff. I believe that hit the nail on the pinnacle.”
ABBA’s Eventual Reunification
ABBA did ultimately reunite for a tour. Type of. After many months of growth, they debuted Voyage in 2022, a digital recreation of themselves utilizing avatars. The digital live performance expertise has been placing on reveals ever since, grossing over $100 million in 2023 alone.
Not a billion, however price the entire laborious work.
“I dreamed of this for years,” Anni-Frid Lyngstad, aka Frida, mentioned to the BBC on the premiere of the present. “We love our music, we like to sing.”
Watch a Promotional Clip for ABBA’s ‘Voyage’ Live performance
High 200 ’70s Songs
Wanting again at the easiest songs from ’70s.
Gallery Credit score: UCR Employees
