The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

Posted: 23 Apr 2013 10:58 PM PDT

STOCKHOLM: Fans of the legendary Swedish disco group ABBA can hardly wait: in just a few weeks, Stockholm will open the doors to the world's first museum dedicated to the iconic foursome.

After "ABBA The Movie" in 1977, the "Mamma Mia" musical and movie, and a 2010 travelling museum exhibit, the world's first permanent ABBA museum will open in central Stockholm on May 7.

"We're going to offer visitors a unique experience," museum director Mattias Hansson tells AFP, revealing that they may even get a chance to speak live with a band member.

After months of construction, the modern, blonde wood building in the leafy Djurgarden neighbourhood is nearing completion.

As opening day looms, convoys of trucks roll up to the site to deliver the furnishings and items that will make up the collection: flamboyant sequined costumes, gold records, and recreations of their recording studio and dressing rooms, among other things.

Workers bustle to finish what will be a temple to the creators of some of the biggest hits of the 1970s, including "Voulez Vous", "Dancing Queen" and "Waterloo", the song that won the band the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest and thrust them onto the international scene.

Through the museum's big windows, passersby can catch a glimpse of a large main room. Few people have been authorised to enter the premises, as organisers are intent on keeping things under wraps until the official opening.

But they have let slip a few details.

For example, fans who have dreamt of becoming the fifth member of the band will be able to appear on stage with the quartet and record a song with them thanks to a computer simulation.

And in another room dedicated to the song "Ring, Ring", a 1970s telephone will be on display. Only four people know the phone number: ABBA members Agnetha Faeltskog, Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad, Benny Andersson and Bjoern Ulvaeus, who may occasionally call to speak live with museum visitors.

"It was Frida's idea ... so of course she'll call," says curator Ingmarie Halling.

The museum will naturally pay homage to ABBA's music. "We have to have the best isolation in the world to be able to play different music in each room," Hansson jokes.

But he doesn't expect visitors to flock to the museum to hear the group's hits, since fans already know them by heart.

Rather, they will get to relive the band's active years and get a sense of their lives behind the scenes.

ABBA last appeared on stage together in 1982, and split a year later. They have repeatedly refused to reunite.

"We will never appear on stage again," Ulvaeus said in a 2008 interview with Britain's The Sunday Telegraph.

"There is simply no motivation to regroup. Money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were," he said.

After the split, the band members each went their own way and they've rarely appeared in public together - in 2008, they attended the Stockholm premiere of the movie "Mamma Mia" - so getting all four involved in the making of the museum is a coup.

Halling - the band's stylist from 1976 to 1980, an era she describes as "fun and magnificent" - has been instrumental in collaborating with them.

"They've lent us lots of stuff and I call them to tell them my ideas and they say, 'sure, go ahead!'," Halling explains.

As the person behind some of their glitzy and flamboyant costumes, Halling has made sure that many of their outfits are included in the exhibit.

Visitors will also be "able to experience how the ABBA members' lived their lives," she says. The four will recount their own side of things in the museum's audio guide.

The 1999 musical "Mamma Mia", and the 2008 film of the same name starring Meryl Streep, brought their music to a whole new generation of fans who weren't alive in the 1970s.

The group has sold some 378 million albums worldwide, outdone only by Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

"Our office is right next to Benny Andersson's. When I tell people in other countries that, and that I pass him on the street sometimes, people are like: 'No! Really? He walks in the street just like that?'," says Jeppe Wikstroem, an editor working on a book of previously unpublished ABBA photographs.

The museum's website says it expects to attract a quarter of a million visitors in 2013.

"It's very exciting," says Micke Bayart, a 45-year old who headed the band's official fan club in the 1980s.

"ABBA is part of Sweden's musical history, it's only right that there be a museum dedicated to them: they deserve it," he said.

Tickets for the museum - which cost 23 euros, or $30 - are almost sold out for the first few weeks, going primarily to tourists from abroad, museum director Hansson said.

Those who can't get their hands on a ticket will have to be content with a glimpse of some of the band's costumes on display at the arrival hall of Stockholm's Arlanda airport. - AFP

Michael Jackson wrongful death trial set for Monday

Posted: 23 Apr 2013 08:24 PM PDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The civil trial over the death of Michael Jackson is set to get formally underway next week after jury selection was completed on Tuesday in the US$40 billion case that pits the pop star's mother against concert promoters AEG Live.

Six alternate jurors were chosen on Tuesday following the selection a day earlier of a jury of six men and six women for what is expected to be an emotional three-month trial.

The conclusion of the month-long search for a jury set the stage for opening statements to begin in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday.

Jackson's 82-year-old mother, Katherine, is suing AEG Live, the promoters of his never-realized series of 2009 London comeback concerts, for the wrongful death of her son.

The lawsuit alleges AEG Live was negligent in hiring Dr. Conrad Murray to care for the singer while he rehearsed for a series of 50 shows.

AEG Live contends that it did not hire or supervise Murray and that Jackson was addicted to prescription drugs for years before he agreed to do the This Is It London concerts.

The concert promoters also argue that they could not have foreseen that Murray, who was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter in Jackson's death, posed a danger to the singer.

Jackson, 50, died in Los Angeles on June 25, 2009, from a lethal dose of the surgical anesthetic propofol that Murray was administering for sleep problems. Murray, who is not being sued, formally appealed against his criminal conviction on Monday.

Potential witnesses in the civil trial include Jackson's mother, his two oldest children, Prince, 16, and Paris, 15, as well as Murray, singers Prince and Diana Ross, and Jackson's ex-wives, Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe.

Katherine Jackson and her son's three children are seeking some US$40 billion in damages from privately held AEG Live for loss of the singer's earnings and other damages. The final amount will be determined by the jury should it hold AEG Live negligent.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Rabu, 24 April 2013

The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

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