Stig Anderson

Stig Anderson

Stig 'Stikkan' Erik Leopold Anderson (né Andersson) (25 January 1931 – 12 September 1997) was born in Hova, Sweden, and is best known as the manager of the pop group ABBA.

Polar Music

Before ABBA Stig Anderson had a huge number of hits on the Swedish lists with the biggest Swedish artist at that time. So much so that he had the nickname "The Business" since he most often had several artists in the Top 10 with whom he had both written, published and recorded the songs. The usual route when out of tunes was New York. He flew there, bought songs that had been American hits, translated or wrote out th lyrics on the flight back and had a recording session the day after and the record on the store shelves within a few days. The number of songs sent to IFPI/ASCAP for copyright protection reached more than 4,000 songs. He never got tired, always working from the day he turned seven until his death.

As well as being the manager of the Swedish supergroup, Anderson was also the founder of the Polar Music record label. Initially beginning his career as a chemistry and mathematics teacher after leaving school at the age of 15, Anderson soon entered the Swedish music scene, becoming a music producer, manager and also occasional performer. He had begun writing songs as early as 1951, and in 1959 he got his breakthrough with the song "Är du kär i mig ännu, Klas-Göran?" ("Are You Still In Love With Me, Klas-Göran?"), written for Swedish singer Lill-Babs. During the 1960s he was one of Sweden's most prolific songwriters, producing more than 3,000 published titles. Anderson also founded Sweden Music in 1960, as well as several other companies. By the late 1960s, he was the manager and producer of Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson (the two main songwriters of ABBA), joining the careers of these two after Anderson managed the Hootenanny Singers. Later in 1972 he began managing Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and finally in 1976 Agnetha Fältskog (until December 1975, Fältskog was still bound to Cupol/CBS Records under a contract). Starting out Björn and Benny were living in a Volkswagen bus and had decided to quit performing to go look for regular jobs when Stig Andersson persuaded them to start a new band the four together and made a great investment to create what later became a great success.

ABBA

In the early stages of ABBA, Anderson co-wrote a large part of the songs' lyrics, among them some of the band's biggest hits, such as "Ring Ring" (1973), "Waterloo" (1974), "Honey, Honey" (1974) , "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" (1975), "Mamma Mia" (1975), "S.O.S" (1975), "Fernando" (1976), "Dancing Queen" (1976), "Knowing Me, Knowing You" (1977) and "The Name of the Game" (1977). Much known as the fifth member, always rephrasing and writing most of the lyrics of ABBA's greatest hits although he's not often credited for more than the lyrics. This much because he was a very humble man, he owned the record label and the publishing company. Those were from shares in part given as gifts to Bjorn Ulveus, Benny Andersson and Michael B Tretow for no reason but friendship and generosity as the group grew from nothing to the tremendous success we now know as ABBA. Michael being the genius behind the mixing board and the engineer of both the sound and everything else soundwise. According to PolarmusicPrize.org Stig Anderson's most treasured award was Billboard Magazine's "Trendsetter Award". Such a distinction had only been presented to one European person before Anderson, and that was Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles.

Anderson was one of the dominant figures behind ABBA, representing their commercial interests and global success through successful record deals. At the same time, he also managed the investment of funds and the enormous financial incomes of Polar Music a company he was founder of and held the majority of stocks. This was agreement dated back to 1974, and a great deal of this came from individual record deals he struck for the group including a ground-breaking agreement for Russia -under which the Abba recordings were released there in exchange for barrels of oil. In the mid 1980s a considerable part of ABBA's fortune was, however, lost by mismanagement, bad investments, high demands for tax and the rise of credit rates.

Legal disputes

Three of the four ABBA members terminated their relationship with Anderson when it was revealed that Anderson from a standard publishing and recording deal, by law with prejudicing cases involving identical contracts, had taken a percentage of profits at a value of 4.5 million euros over the course of many years. A complaint against Anderson was submitted to the Stockholm District Court in June 1990 by Agnetha Fältskog's company Agnetha Fältskog Produktion AB, Benny Andersson's company Mono Music AB, as well as a Dutch company holding Björn Ulvaeus' rights. Anni-Frid Lyngstad sold all the shares, given to her by Stig Anderson, in the Polar Music company in 1982 as she moved abroad. The dispute was settled out of court in July 1991; the terms of the settlement remain undisclosed. The contract with the performers as well as the international distribution ran from that standard contract - not from one written by the performers of the band.

Anne-Frid Lyngstad for reasons unknown is the only member who never called an attorney for past royalty fees. She was happy with the contract she had and was not in anyway part of a trial that took several years.

The disputes between the members of the band and the founder, often ran much deeper than just being about contracts and money.

Polar Music Prize

In 1989, Anderson made a substantial financial donation and founded the Polar Music Prize. In 1986 Stig Anderson sold the multi-million dollar record company Polar Records, once run from his kitchen table, with nearly all utilisation and license rights and the registered ABBA trademark for an unknown sum of money to PolyGram in 1990 shortly before the ABBA members took him to court over royalty back payments. Previously, Anderson had licenced ABBA and the members' solo releases to various labels worldwide as a way to earn more royalties. In 1998, PolyGram was in turn sold to Seagram and merged into what is now one of the Big Four record labels, the Universal Music Group, the company that today holds the rights to the entire ABBA back catalogue.

Personal life

Anderson's daughter, Marie Ledin (wife of Swedish star and ABBA concert backing vocalist Tomas Ledin) started a new, highly successful record label in the mid 1980s, Record Station (sold to German BMG in the early 90s), followed by Anderson Records, which released Anni-Frid Lyngstad's Swedish comeback album Djupa andetag in 1996 as well as Michael B. Tretow's Greatest Hits in 1999.

Stig Anderson was married to Gudrun Anderson, and also had two sons, Anders and Lasse. On September 12, 1997, at age 66, Stig Anderson died of a heart attack. His funeral was broadcast live by Sveriges Television, an honour otherwise only reserved for distinguished statesmen or royalty.

Sources

• Carl Magnus Palm: Bright Lights - Dark Shadows, Omnibus Press UK 2001, ISBN 0-7119-8389-5