Eurovision meets its Waterloo for Abba star

Published on Tuesday 12 May 2009 22:06

ABBA legend Benny Andersson has launched an outspoken attack against the talent show which shot his band to fame.

The celebrated songwriter has declared that the Eurovision Song Contest, which Abba won with Waterloo 35 years ago, now "means nothing" to him.

Speaking ahead of this Saturday's 54th annual final in Russia, Andersson claimed the event had gone downhill after his group got their big break.

He said: "What it is now is possibly a great television event, but for music it means nothing," the songwriter said.

"I don't watch Eurovision. It's become so huge.

"It was a smaller scale then than it is now. It might have been a little bit more meaningful in the 50s and 60s and when we entered but after that, I'm not sure if anything ever happened.

"Musically, it's not what it should be. But as a television show it's a good show."

Andersson added that it was a good spectacle "if you can bear sitting for such a long time".

And the songwriter revealed that he had been asked to help with the Swedish entry in the contest over the years since Abba's win, but said: "I haven't been interested in doing that."

He said it was "brave" for Andrew Lloyd Webber to co-write and play the piano for the UK's entry Jade Ewen.

Russia is hosting the contest for the first time this year after Dima Bilan won the competition in Belgrade last year. The event, expected to attract a television audience of at least 100 million, is being staged at the huge stadium built for the Moscow Olympics in 1980.