ABBA and music icons demand Trump stop using their songs in campaigns

Members of the Swedish pop band ABBA have demanded that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign stop using their music. The request, made on Thursday, is the latest in a series of similar appeals from musicians asking the former New York real estate mogul to cease playing their tunes at his political rallies.

“We, together with the members of ABBA, have discovered that videos have been released where ABBA’s music has been used at Trump’s events and have requested that such use be immediately taken down and removed,” ABBA’s record company told Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet on Thursday. “Universal Music Publishing AB and Polar Music International AB have not received any request, so no permission or license has been granted to Trump,” the company added.

The Trump campaign used ABBA hits such as “The Winner Takes It All” and “Money, Money, Money” at a rally in Minnesota in July, the U.S. state with the largest percentage of Swedish descendants. Additionally, the campaign showed a video of ABBA members on a large screen during the rally, urging supporters to donate.

Band member Björn Ulvaeus told the Swedish newswire TT via text message: “Our record company Universal makes sure it is taken down.” Ulvaeus, along with fellow band members Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, are urging the Trump campaign to respect their wishes.

ABBA’s demand came on the same day that White Stripes guitarist and singer Jack White criticized Trump’s team for using his music, calling them “fascists.”

Other musicians such as Foo Fighters, Céline Dion, Beyoncé, Johnny Marr of The Smiths, the estate of the late singer Sinéad O’Connor, and the family of the late soul singer Isaac Hayes have also asked Trump to stop playing their songs. Hayes’ family even filed a lawsuit against Trump, according to Politico.

The rock band Foo Fighters refused to allow Trump to play one of their songs at a rally in Arizona and stated they would donate any royalties from the unauthorized use to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.

The Trump campaign also deleted a video of the former president getting off a plane while Beyoncé’s song “Freedom” played, following Beyoncé’s objection to the use of her song. Harris has made the song part of her campaign.

Trump’s unauthorized use of music dates back to his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, where he faced objections from artists such as Adele, Aerosmith, and Guns N’ Roses. Those artists stated they had not given permission for their songs to be used.

“Trump campaign is using loopholes in the various venues’ blanket performance licenses, which were not intended for such craven political purposes, without the songwriters’ consent,” Axl Rose wrote in 2018. “Can u say ‘[expletive] bags’?” Rose posted on Twitter at the time.

During Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, Phil Collins and the estate of the late Tom Petty also sent cease-and-desist letters to Trump’s representatives.

Source: UPI, Svenska Dagbladet, The Guardian, TT, Politico