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 a little bit cash / It is a wealthy man’s world.”
In 2000, ABBA was provided some huge cash — $1 billion to be actual — in trade for reuniting. It will have equated to roughly $250 million per member, however the group firmly turned it down.
ABBA had final carried out reside in 1982. At that time, it felt clear to the band’s members that it was the top of the highway.
“We had a little bit firm, the 4 of us collectively,” Benny Andersson recalled to The Guardian in 2021. “Every thing ABBA earned went into that firm and we break up it 4 methods, irrespective of who did what. After which, once we mentioned, ‘Nicely, 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 offered the corporate. We didn’t count on ABBA to proceed, I can promise you that.”
However that did not imply ABBA’s identify was fully faraway from the general public consciousness. Cowl bands earned their success, motion pictures included their music and a compilation album referred to as ABBA Gold: Biggest Hits grew to become one of many best-selling albums of all time with some 30 million copies offered. Individuals needed ABBA.
It has been broadly 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 few 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 seemingly as a result of performing reside 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, that they had already checked relentlessly touring the world off their checklist of issues to do.
“We mentioned no as a result of they needed 250 reveals or one thing, it was unimaginable,” Faltskog instructed Radio Occasions in 2013. “No probability. No probability. We had carried out it.”
READ MORE: When ABBA Moved Into Making Films
In lots of instances, Ulvaeus emphasised to The Sunday Telegraph in 2008, it is merely finest for a band to stop whereas they’re forward, no matter how a lot cash is on the desk.
“We are going to by no means seem on stage once more,” he mentioned. “There’s merely no motivation to re-group. Cash just isn’t an element and we want folks to recollect us as we have been. Younger, exuberant, filled with vitality 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 top.”
ABBA’s Eventual Reunification
ABBA did finally reunite for a tour. Sort of. After many months of improvement, 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 value the entire arduous 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
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Gallery Credit score: UCR Workers