“Universal Music Publishing AB and Polar Music International AB have not received a request, therefore no permission or license has been granted to Trump,” it said.
ABBA hits such as “The Winner Takes It All” and “Money, Money, Money” were played in July at a Trump rally in Minnesota, the US state with the largest proportion of Swedish descendants.
And the Swedish icons aren’t the only musicians fed up with Trump using their stuff.
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 had previously asked Trump to stop playing their songs. Hayes’ family even filed a lawsuit against Trump.
Celine Dion condemned the use of Titanic’s song “My Heart Will Go On” at a Republican candidate’s rally in August, poking fun at the election and adding, “… And really, THAT song?”
Rock band Foo Fighters said they did not allow Trump to play their song at a rally in Arizona, adding that they would donate all royalties from the unauthorized use of their song to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
Trump’s team deleted a video showing the presidential candidate stepping off a plane while Beyoncé’s song “Freedom” played. The singer’s label objected to the use of the song, which Harris has made a central part of her own campaign.
And that’s not all.
Trump has angered a number of other artists in his previous campaigns in 2016 and 2020, including Adele, Aerosmith and Guns N’ Roses.
Both Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and Adele said they did not give permission for their songs to be used at Republican rallies.
Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses made the same argument in a series of blunt tweets in 2018: “The Trump campaign is exploiting loopholes in the various venues’ blanket performance licenses that were not intended for such cowardly political purposes, and without the consent of the songwriters.”
“Can you say ‘bastards’?!” added the singer.
