Polar Music is a Swedish record company founded in 1963 by Stig Anderson and his friend Bengt Bernhag.
10-741: The first act that Polar Music signed was the Hootenanny Singers featuring Björn Ulvaeus . Polar eventually gained prosperity producing Ulvaeus' next group, international superstars ABBA . As a small Scandinavian company based in Sweden, Polar could not afford to set up operations worldwide and was ABBA's record company only in the Scandinavian countries. Therefore, ABBA's recordings were licensed to different record companies in each country, but usually to companies that had international operations, meaning they could effectively compete with each other to acquire
20-511: A lack of international copyright agreements, songs from the Soviet Union were then considered to be in the public domain. Stig Anderson and Bengt Bernhag, co-founders of the band's production company Polar Music , claimed credits for the song's arrangement and Swedish lyrics. Russian media sources would later describe this as plagiarism or theft. After reaching number five on the Swedish charts,
30-542: Is a weekly record chart airing on Sveriges Radio . Until January 2003, the songs had to be in the Swedish language . Svensktoppen has aired since 1962, except for the years 1982–1985. In the years leading up to the January 2003 change, the programme was strongly dominated by dansband music. The first number one hit song was "Midnattstango" performed by Swedish crooner Lars Lönndahl . New rules on 17 January 2016 restricted
40-529: The band in the late 1960s to take over his father's business. Karlberg died in 1992. Hansi Schwarz was also the leader of the Västervik folk ballad festival for many years. Schwarz died in 2013. Tonny Rooth and Björn Ulvaeus are the two surviving members of the band's original line-up. Some of the tracks on the 1969 album På tre man hand were released as solo singles by Björn Ulvaeus. Svensktoppen Svensktoppen ( Swedish: [ˈsvɛ̂nːskˌtɔpːɛn] )
50-540: The band translated and recorded versions of Gabrielle in German, Finnish, Italian, Dutch, and English. Their extensive touring of Swedish outdoor concert venues brought them fame and they had numerous hit singles on the Svensktoppen chart. Their biggest hit was "Omkring tiggarn från Luossa", which broke the record by spending 52 weeks on Svensktoppen between 26 November 1972 and 18 November 1973. Johan Karlberg dropped out of
60-627: The label Sound On Sound and Within are considered to be power-pop classics. Hootenanny Singers The Hootenanny Singers are a popular folk group from Västervik , Sweden, founded in 1961. The group included Björn Ulvaeus , who later became a member of ABBA . Other band members were Johan Karlberg (b. Karl Johan Hilding Karlberg, 14 April 1943, Vimmerby , Sweden d. 16 August 1992, Västervik , Sweden), Tonny Rooth (b. Sven Villy Tonny Rooth, 30 November 1943, Västervik, Sweden) and Hansi Schwarz (b. Hans Carl Schwarz, 16 March 1942, Munich , Germany d. 10 January 2013, Lund , Sweden). The group
70-409: The licenses in more countries if they proved successful in their own. The licenses gave the companies a few allowances to issue certain tracks as singles that Polar had not, or to modify single (and occasionally album) artwork. The licenses were for three years at a time, meaning that between 1989 and 1992 they all expired. This enabled PolyGram to release Gold: Greatest Hits to major success around
80-519: The world. Polar Music is currently distributed by Universal Music Group whose predecessor company, PolyGram, purchased it in 1989. However, Polar Music International AB legally still exists and ABBA's recordings remain copyrighted to the company. Polar is now ABBA's record label internationally, and the historic Polar vinyl label designs have been used on the group's CD releases since 2004 (usually on deluxe releases of studio albums). The Polar Music Prize , an award for outstanding musical achievement,
90-679: Was created by Stig Anderson, the same year after he sold the label to PolyGram . Artists signed by Polar Music included ABBA, Alive Feat, Jessie Martins, Lena Andersson , Chana, Crosstalk, Dilba , Emilia , Anni-Frid Lyngstad , Agnetha Fältskog and Linda Ulvaeus , Ted Gärdestad , Gemini , The Hellacopters , The Infinite Mass, Fredrik Kempe , Lambretta , Maarja , Paulo Mendonça , Mr. Vegas Fea Intense, Emma Nilsdotter, Mats Paulson, Pineforest Crunch , Sam (musician), Skintrade, Starr Chukki/infinit, Svenne and Lotta , Joey Tempest , Top-Notch, Harpo , Topaz Sound and Anders Widmark. The last band to be signed to Polar were Beagle whose two albums for
100-564: Was named "The Northern Lights" for a US-released LP in 1966. In 1964, they debuted on the Swedish TV programme Hylands Hörna with locally well-known Swedish poet Dan Andersson 's "Jag väntar vid min mila" (translated as "I'm Waiting at the Charcoal Kiln"). The band had an early hit in the song Gabrielle , based on the Russian song " May There Always Be Sunshine " by Arkady Ostrovsky . Due to
#172827