Aug. 29 (UPI) — Members of the Swedish pop band ABBA on Thursday demanded that the presidential campaign of Donald Trump stop using their music, becoming the latest musicians to insist the New York real estate mogul 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 Trump rally in Minnesota in July, the U.S. state with the largest percentage of Swedish descendants.
The Trump campaign also showed a video of Abba members on a big video screen during the rally alongside messages urging supporters to donate, The Guardian reported.
Band member Björn Ulvaeus told the Swedish newswire TT by text message: “Our record company Universal makes sure it is taken down.” Ulvaeus and other band members Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad are the latest musicians to take issue with their music being used by the Trump campaign.
Abba’s demand on Thursday came the same day that White Stripes guitarist and singer Jack White blasted Trump’s people for using his songs, too, calling the campaign “fascists.”
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 all previously 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 said they would donate any royalties from the unauthorized use of their song to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
The Trump campaign deleted a video of the former president getting off a plane while Beyoncé’s song “Freedom” played. Beyoncé blocked Trump from using the song and Harris has made that song part of her campaign.
Trump’s unauthorized use of music goes back as far as his 2016 and 2020 campaigns when he got on the wrong side of Adele, Aerosmith and Guns N’ Roses. Those artists all said they had not given the Trump campaign permission to use their songs.
“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 202 presidential campaign, Phil Collins and the estate of the late Tom Petty also sent cease and desist letters to Trump’s representatives.
