ABBA‘s Björn Ulvaeus Is Working on Musical Using AI: ‘Such a Great Tool'
'Right now I'm writing a musical, assisted by AI,' Ulvaeus said, noting that he's about three-quarters of the way through the creative process on the unnamed project, the follow-up to the hugely successful pop quartet's avatar stage show, Voyage.
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'It's fantastic. It is such a great tool,' Ulvaeus raved of AI. 'It is like having another songwriter in the room with a huge reference frame. It is really an extension of your mind. You have access to things that you didn't think of before.' Unlike many in the industry who fear that AI is an existential threat to their existence and the traditional creative process, Ulvaeus is aware of the bugs in the system, which he said have helped him to merge AI with his already formidable songwriting skills.
'It's lousy at [writing a whole song]' and 'very bad at lyrics,' he said about his AI helpmate, which has allowed him to navigate through some creative dead-ends. 'You can prompt a lyric you have written about something, and you're stuck maybe, and you want this song to be in a certain style,' he said. 'You can ask it, how would you extend? Where would you go from here? It usually comes out with garbage, but sometimes there is something in it that gives you another idea.'
Ulvaeus is part of an eclectic lineup for 2025 SXSW London, whose lineup includes Erykah Badu (as DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown), Tems, Mabel, Alice Glass and many more. Penske Media Corporation (which also owns Billboard) and the film and production company MRC invested in SXSW in 2021 following the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic; two years later, Penske took majority ownership of SXSW.
The AI project, whose ultimate form has not yet been announced, is part of Ulvaeus' ongoing partnership with Pophouse Entertainment, the company behind the ABBA Voyage production. The Voyage virtual residency opened in London in May 2022 and is slated to run through January 2026. The show is a combination of 10 live performers and digital avatars of the four ABBA members, who have not performed live since their split in December 1982; the group, which also features Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, released their first album in 40 years, Voyage, in November 2021.
Though Ulvaeus is happy to use AI in the creative process, he is also adamant about fighting for artists' rights in the rapidly evolving digital age. 'These AI models wouldn't exist without the songs that we wrote,' he said.
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