(TV) The Polar Prize

["leif joley" <leifjoley@hotmail.com>]

Today the next winners of the Polar Prize were announced: German 
romance-singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and the Brazilian singer (and 
cultural minister) Gilberto Gil.

Is this award really world-known? The Swedish media try to give us the 
impression that it is the musical equalivalent to the Nobel prize, which is 
also handed over in Stockholm. Some of us doubt that. The prize is divided 
in two parts, one for classical music, one for popular. The first winner in 
the latter. McCartney, didn't came to pick it up, but other's - like Dylan, 
Springsteen and Stevie Wonder - did. (Stevie Wonder is, as a matter of fact, 
the fave artist of the Swedish kind. When Carl XIV Gustav turned 50, Wonder 
was drag to the castle in our capital city just to pop up as the surprise 
guest, singing "Happy birthday", to the king's delight.)

The Polar Prize was founded by ABBA's late manager (and sometimes 
co-lyricist) Stig "Stikkan" Anderson, and it was named after ABBA's label 
and now defunct recording studio. Actually, the money came from Anderson's 
fortune, which he had gathered being one of the the all-time highest paid 
managers in the pop music history. In fact, he secured such a percentage of 
the group's royalty money, that they later sued him to get some of the money 
back. The relation between the four ABBA's and Anderson was so deep-frozen 
that many was surprised that the members showed up at his funeral.

In their time, ABBA was pictured as a very happy collective of two married 
couples. Later, it was revealed that this image wasn't quite true. Not only 
did the married couples broke up and re-married with other partners (Frida 
is a real princess today, as she married a real prince, now deceased), but 
the relationship between Frida and Agnetha was frosty. At one point, they 
are said to have gone berserk, fighting each other with some awarded gold 
and platinum records as weapon. Agnetha is today a complete reclusive 
(although she recently released a record) - living on her own island; she 
also have a tragic history of being stalked Jodie Foster-style by a 
murderous lunatic.

Leif J, Sweden

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