Rina Sawayama says she received “blessing” from ABBA following plagiarism scare

nme.com:

Rina Sawayama has claimed that her single ‘This Hell’ received “the blessing of ABBA“, following concerns it too closely mirrored one of the latter band’s biggest hits.In a new interview with the BBC, Sawayama revealed that while she was recording the song, she noticed a distinct similarity between it and the guitar riff to ‘Gimme!

Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)’. She claimed to have “freaked out” when she discovers the parallels, given ABBA’s notoriety for turning down samples of their work – a sentiment shared by her publishers when she informed them.“They were like, ‘ABBA are absolutely going to say no to this, and you have to change it’,” she said.

Sawayama did so, but still found herself drawn to the first version she had recorded. She then endeavored to “figure this out”, and release the song as it was originally intended.This lead to her calling Elton John, who knew the members of ABBA and was able to initiate contact between the two parties through a contact at ABBA’s longtime label Universal.

Sawayama then sent a handwritten note to the band, asking for their permission to interpolate ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!’ into ‘This Hell’.“I love your music,” the note reportedly read. “I’m happy to split the publishing.