Financial Times Europe - 09.03.2020

14 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Monday9 March 2020

ARTS

Old school: Björn Ulvaeus in a recreation of Abba’s Polar recording studio —Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP

in the studio. When they play their part,

the app logs that they have done so.

Compatible studio software will do the

same:SessionisembeddedinPro-Tools,

awidelyusedrecordingprogramme.

The metadata gathered during studio

sessions can be incorporated into

streaming services so that individual

musicians become searchable on song

databases as well as named performers.

Songwriters and studio engineers can

also employ it to ensure they are cred-

ited properly — a minefield for the

musicindustry.

Ulvaeus illustrates its use through the

example of one of Abba’s most famous

singles. Recorded in 1975, “Fernando”

opens with singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad

taking the role of an old soldier, singing

plaintively “Can you hear the drums,

Fernando?” to a former comrade-in-

arms. In the background, a military tat-

too rat-a-tat-tats its beat. Yes, Fernando

canhearthedrums.

The drummer was session player Ola

Brunkert, a regular on Abba’s songs.

“Had the technology been around, Ola

would have had a smartphone with the

Session app downloaded,” Ulvaeus says.

“He would have walked through the

doors of the studio that morning. We

would have been working with Pro-

Tools where Session is integrated. We

would have written the song already, so

that’s already in Session, the producer is

there, the sound engineer is there. The

only thing now is to record the musi-

cians and after that the truth is there

about‘Fernando’,everything.”

In the 1970s, of course, there were no

smartphones or apps. Back then, proof

of Brunkert’s appearance required

paper documentation. Abba were scru-

pulous about crediting their session

players.“Itwasacollaborationandtheir

I

ike visions. I like it when I canl

go: ‘OK, that’s how it’s going to

be. That’s how it has to be in

the future,’” a Swedish-accented

voice says, speaking over a Skype

connection.

The futurist is none other than Abba’s

Björn Ulvaeus. The co-songwriter and

performer in one of the most successful

groups in pop’s history may be stamped

into popular consciousness as a beam-

ing emblem of the 1970s, the decade of

discos, cheap package holidays, rising

divorce rates and solid gold Abba hits.

Buthehasformasaninnovator,too.

“Music has always been driven by

technology,” he says. “Benny [Anders-

son, his Abba co-songwriter] and I used

to be, ‘There’s a new synth, we have to

get that.’” In 1978, they purchased a rare

and extremely costly Yamaha GX-

synthesiser for SKr300,000(about

$130,000 in today’s money), which

became a key element in their sound.

“Anyequipmentthatwasnewinthestu-

dio,wetriedit,”Ulvaeusrecalls.

Abba were the bedrock of the modern

Swedish music industry, building their

own recording studio in Stockholm and

using compatriots as session musicians

rather than foreigners. Ulvaeus’s home-

land is now one of the world’s leading

exporters of pop. It is also a technologi-

cal hub. Skype, over which Ulvaeus

speaks from Sweden, was co-created by

a Swede. The streaming service Spotify

wasdevisedinSweden.

Ulvaeus, 74, could have chosen to be a

distinguishedfoundingfatherobserving

all this from the sidelines. But he is

involved in Sweden’s busy music-tech

scene as well. He has partnered with a

software programme called Session that

aims to smooth out the complex and

often contested area of music rights. His

fellowSwedeMaxMartin,thechart-pop

Björn Ulvaeus: technology is the name of the game

song that becomes a hit several years

after, it’s impossible to work out who

played what and who wrote what. It

ends with a conflict and the money ends

inablackboxandnoonegetspaid.”

In contrast to collapsing sales of

music, revenue from rights is growing.

The UK collecting agency PPL, which

has linked up with Session, collects fees

for musicians, songwriters and record

labels whenever music is broadcast by

media or played in public. In 2018, per-

formance rights accounted for $2.7bn of

the $19.1bn global recorded music reve-

nues. Session is designed to streamline

and improve the accuracy of the infor-

mation required by the likes of PPL to

understandwhoisowedwhat.

“I always thought that our industry

was quite opaque because of its com-

plexity.I’dlikeittobemuchmoretrans-

parent,” Ulvaeus says. He has been back

inthestudiohimself,forAbba’ssurprise

reactivationinamysteriousnewproject

under development involving digital

avatarsofthefoursome,aka“Abbatars”,

singingoldandnewmaterial.Twounre-

leased songs have been recorded;

althoughnot,itturnsout,usingSession.

“No, because it wasn’t quite ready,”

Ulvaeus says. “We recorded them quite

some time ago, actually one and a half

years ago.” So will other new Abba

songs, yet to be recorded — a final twist

in the tale for this most celebrated of

bands — be made using Session? “Yes,

absolutely!” Ulvaeus says brightly, dis-

closing a tantalising, albeit opaque,

glimpseofAbba’sfuture.

The Abba star has helped

develop an ingenious new

app for session musicians

and songwriters. He talks to

Ludovic Hunter-Tilney

InthenewpodcastAnthems,women

fromanassortmentofbackgroundsand

professionsofferreflectionsand

manifestosbasedonasinglewordthat

encapsulatestheirfeelingson

womanhood.Inamediumthatoften

errsonthesideoflong-winded,these

bite-sizedepisodesaredeliciouslybrief

andtothepoint,withnoneexceeding

10minutes.

Theseries—episodesofwhichare

releaseddailythismonthtomark

InternationalWomen’sDayonMarch

—comeswithanexcellentpedigree.It’s

producedbyHanaWalker-Brown,who

madelastyear’sterrificThe Beautiful

Brain.It’salsopartofthefirstwaveof

showsreleasedviaBroccoliContent,a

newnetworklaunchedbyRenay

Richardson(producerofThe Receipts

andAbout Race ithReniEddo-Lodgew

podcasts),inpartnershipwithSony

Music,aimedathighlightingunder-

representedvoices.

SofartheguestspeakersonAnthems

haveincludedtheBookerPrize-winning

writer,BernardineEvaristo,on

community;themodelandactivistJada

Sezerondevelopment;thefoodwriter

andcookRubyTandohon

nourishment;theperformerand

theatre-makerAbbiGreenlandon

uncertainty;andtheauthorZingTsjeng

onforgiveness.Thereisnoproselytising

here;insteadthetoneisthoughtfuland

reflective,sometimesplayfuland,on

occasion,stinginglyraw.

Somespeakers,suchasEvaristo,

lookoutwardsastheyexaminehow

womencanassistandelevateothers

intheircreativeendeavours.

“Individualsuccessismostmeaningful

whenwetakeontheresponsibilityto

bringourcommunitywithus,”she

explains.“Weneedtocounteractour

exclusionswhereithappenswithour

ownsupportnetworks.”

Otherslookinwards,poignantly

articulatingthethoughtsand

insecuritiesthatwomensooftenstrive

tohide.Tsjeng,forinstance,articulates

herambivalencetowardsherphysical

self.Asawomanwhollyapprisedof

patriarchalinfluenceandtheinsidious

wayswomenareencouragedtocriticise

themselves,sheasks:“Whycan’tI

simplyfeministmyselfoutofhating

mybody?”

Meanwhile,Greenlandlooksbackat

herabortionattheageof27.Atthetime,

shebreezilytoldfriendsandfamily,

“I’mfinewithit,”butnowseesthather

hiddenuncertaintywasanatural

reaction—“IwaswrestlingsomethingI

couldn’tseeanddidn’tunderstand.”In

thefiveyearssince,shehas,shepoints

out,become“finewithit”.

The Last Bohemians,whichprovides

superiorportraitsofthepioneering

womenofthepast,hasreturnedfora

secondseason,openingwiththe

octogenarianfolklegendJudyCollins,

whotalksaboutart,activism,addiction

andthetime,whileonmushrooms,she

ranoverarabbitwhiledriving,

promptingher,inheralteredstate,to

confesstoherhusbandthatshewas

havinganaffair.

Aswiththefirstseries,theproduction

isdelicateandatmospheric,andthe

conversationstakeplacewithminimal

interventionsfromthehostand

interviewerKateHutchinson.Future

episodeswillfeatureconversationswith

thefashiondesignerZandraRhodes,the

publisherandwriterMargaretBusby

andtheexperimentalfilm-maker

VivienneDick.

Author Bernardine Evaristo

contributes to the ‘Anthems’ podcast

Bite-sized reflections on womanhood

PODCASTS

Fiona

Sturges

maestro who has written more US

number one singles than anyone bar

Paul McCartney and John Lennon, is

anotherinvestor.

Session, formerly known as Auddly,

was dreamt up and developed by Swed-

ish songwriter and producer Niclas

Molinder. He won Ulvaeus’s support

whentheymetatacelebrationofAbba’s

40th anniversary at Tate Modern in

London in 2014. Ulvaeus was instantly

struckbytheproject’spotential.

Six years after the Tate encounter,

Session is up and running. Its function is

to register individual contributions to

recordings at the moment of creation.

Musicians download it on to their

phones and activate it when they arrive

Sales from performance rights

on the rise

Global music revenues*, by

segment (bn)





    

Physical

Digital

Streaming

Performance rights

*excludes synchronisation revenues (m in )

Source: IFPI

input was incredibly valuable,” Ulvaeus

says. “We used the same musicians

almostallthetime.”

Others have not been so conscien-

tious. In the 1960s and 1970s, session

musicians had fewer legal rights than

they have today; it was not unknown for

their names to be left off the credits.

Other times, human error has caused

confusion in the form of misspellings

and wrong details. Then there is the

problematic question of apportioning

responsibility for a hit song. Success has

manyparents.

“You get the conflicts of someone say-

ing ‘I played that,’ and another person

going, ‘No you didn’t, I played that,’”

Ulvaeus groans. “All the emails, all the

phone calls, all the information getting

distorted along the way. So it’s detective

work to find out afterwards. If you have

15 songwriters and 10 musicians on a

Abba were

scrupulous

about crediting

their session

players. ‘It was a

collaboration.

Their input was

incredibly

valuable’

Abba in 1976, from left, Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad

and Benny Andersson —RB/Redferns/Getty Images

MARCH 9 2020 Section:Features Time: 8/3/2020- 15:47 User:keith.allen Page Name:ARTS LON, Part,Page,Edition:USA, 14, 1