"It could make 2021 the year of the song, that's what I hope for."
With all that in mind, the Abba star has just published a new report entitled Rebalancing the Song Economy. The report, conducted in collaboration with MIDiA Research, focuses on the devastating impact of Covid-19 on the global music industry, and aims to offer potential solutions to the current issues around streaming models.
One suggestion is the introduction of a more fan-centric model, which would see a larger percentage of each listener's subscription fee go directly to their favourite artists and the ones they listen to the most.
'The year of the song'
Ulvaeus says 2020 was so awful for singers, with most music events cancelled, that they've now realised what songwriters have known for many years - and that could be the impetus for real change at last.
"It's been really, really difficult," he continues. "Ever since the pandemic started last year, the artists stopped touring, and there were no performance royalties coming in from the touring.
"But funnily enough, the fact that the artists got stopped from touring made them realise how little they were actually making from streaming. They had made 70% perhaps from touring and merchandise and all of that stuff, and suddenly they had to survive on streaming.
"And I thought, 'Welcome to the world of songwriters' - because that is how [it is for] songwriters usually... they are always in that situation. And I think the pandemic has been very, very bad in many, many ways, but it's been good in putting the spotlight on the plight of the songwriter I think.
"There is a movement building up on both sides of the Atlantic - the UK, continental Europe and America, Canada - that I hope is unstoppable.
"It could make 2021 the year of the song, that's what I hope for."
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