Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus has announced a new global initiative at Tuesday’s 2021 Ivor Novello Awards to ensure all musicians are fairly credited and paid for their work.
The 76-year-old Swede, who earlier this month snagged Abba’s first UK top 10 single in 39 years with brand-new track Don’t Shut Me Down, is keen to promote the rights of all songwriters and contributors.
The Credits Due campaign is designed to unite the music industry in pushing for complete metadata to be attached to all songs when first recorded.
Björn, who is co-founder of the Music Rights Awareness Foundation, which has teamed up with UK professional association for music creators The Ivors Academy on the initiative, called out the problems some artists have in receiving recognition and payment as ‘well-known and, to put it mildly, frustrating’.
Speaking at the awards ceremony at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, the music icon said: ‘We want to raise awareness of, and provide solutions to, problems that are well-known and, to put it mildly, frustrating in the songwriting community.’
Branding it as ‘very simple’ he continued: ‘Music recordings must credit all involved and thus ensure that the right people get paid. People ask me why this isn’t the case already and I don’t know what to say.
(Picture: PA)
‘Today, in 2021, there’s really no excuse.’
The Waterloo songwriter argued that the success of Credits Due is ‘a win-win for the whole music industry’.
‘Thankfully, a lot of good work is underway, and we very much look forward to further support from the industry in finally giving creators the financial recognition they deserve,’ he added.
The metadata Credits Due emphasises as vital is creator identifiers and role codes (IPI, IPN and ISNI), the musical work identifier (ISWC), the recording identifier (ISRC), the song title, and the writer, performer, producer and contributor names.
Abba members Björn and Benny Andersson, along with music manager and producer Stig Anderson, the so-called ‘fifth member’ of the group, were responsible for writing the band’s hits including Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen and Honey, Honey, which Björn and Benny performed alongside Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
After huge success in the 1970s and 80s, Abba are back with a new album, Voyage, which will be released on November 5, and Abba Voyage, a concert event series hitting London next spring, which will feature digital avatars of the famous group performing from both their back catalogue and new album.
Singer songwriter and The Ivors Academy member Fiona Bevan, who wrote One Direction’s hit Little Things with Ed Sheeran, as well as songs for Steps, Kylie Minogue and Lewis Capaldi, also threw her support with Björn behind the ‘great opportunity’ the Credits Due initiative presents.
She revealed: ‘As a multi-platinum songwriter and artist, I have personally experienced the pain of missing and slow payments, resulting from the lack of proper credit data, after writing huge hits.
‘We have a great opportunity to change this if the industry pulls together, uses new technology and most importantly, engages our songwriters, producers and performers in the task of ensuring credits are attached to recordings at the point of creation.’
Find out more about Credits Due here.
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