Terrible week for ABBA

The Europeans | European news, politics and culture

Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer

Society & Culture, News

4.8 • 274 Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The music industry is reeling due to what’s being called the 'largest intellectual property theft in history' — we’ll dig into the fight between Big Tech and the people who make the music. Meanwhile, Sweden’s new cultural canon has people fuming — not least because it leaves out ABBA. We’ll also hear from Der Spiegel’s Gunter Latsch about his chilling investigation into the shadowy world of organ trafficking. And we’ll finish, as always, with something a little lighter: archaeologists in Denmark have been uncovering a kind of Stone Age Atlantis beneath the sea and they’ve been using a funky underwater vacuum to do so. This week's Inspiration Station recommendations: Addison Rae - 'Headphones On' | Behind the Song and Love in Five Acts by Daniela Krien (translated by Jamie Bulloch) This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. But it’s contributions from listeners that truly make it all possible—we could not continue to make the show without you! If you like what we do, you can chip in to help us cover our production costs at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/europeanspodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (in many different currencies), or you can gift a donation to a superfan. We'd also love it if you could tell two friends about this podcast. We think two feels like a reasonable number. Other resources for this week's episode: No Abba, no meatballs? Sweden’s new cultural canon is a listicle that will soon be forgotten: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/04/sweden-cultural-canon-abba-ikea-meatballs Since we recorded this episode, a US federal judge has postponed approval of the $1.5 billion Anthropic copyright deal: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/anthropic-judge-blasts-copyright-pact-as-nowhere-close-to-done Taskforce recommends prosecution of Mishra for alleged organ trafficking: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/health/health-science/article/2001525127/taskforce-recommends-prosecution-of-mishra-for-alleged-organ-trafficking 00:00:47 Introduction: Emoji fuelled marital strife 00:04:26 Good Week: Sweden’s controversial ’cultural canon’ 00:13:31 Bad Week: The fight between AI and musicians 00:27:05 Interview: Gunther Latch on Germans going abroad for kidneys 00:40:51 Inspiration Station: ’Headphones On’ and ’Love in Five Acts’ 00:46:01 Happy Ending: Denmark’s Stone Age Atlantis Producers: Katz Laszlo, Morgan Childs and Wojciech Oleksiak Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina Hosts: Nina Lamparski and Dominic Kraemer YouTube | Bluesky | Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | [email protected]

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This podcast has been produced in cooperation with Uranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news.
0:11.4	But this podcast would not be possible without the incredibly generous support of our amazing listeners who donate a little bit each month at patreon.com forward the Europeans podcast, your weekly vessel for random but hopefully interesting chatter about Europe.
0:58.1	My name's Dominic Kramer checking in from Amsterdam.
1:00.8	And this week, I'm joined by Europe's undisputed queen of puns.
1:06.2	Brace yourselves, everyone.
1:08.0	It's our favourite Luxembourg in Paris, Nina Lamparski. Hi, Nina. Hi, Dominic. I'm back.
1:15.7	Yay, so nice to have you back. Thanks for joining me. How are you doing? I'm great, Dominic. Thank you.
1:21.2	I'm so pleased to be back here. And I bring a little funny story as I was preparing for today's show. I had a real sort of insight
1:29.5	into Gen Z relationships. I was set at my desk, yes. I was set at my desk with the balcony doors
1:35.1	open and suddenly on the balcony next to mine, I heard this huge fight between a couple. And they
1:42.1	seemed quite young and she was saying this is not what I imagined
1:44.6	married life to be like and it sounds like she was about to leave I got a bit worried because we're
1:49.1	really high up so I thought perhaps the crime is about to happen and then after about half an hour
1:53.8	back and forth I realized that they were arguing over an emoji that he had sent her the night before
1:58.3	which emoji I don't know we'll. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out.
2:02.3	I also felt a little bit pervy sitting there and trying to figure out what they were discussing.
2:06.6	But anyway, I thought that was quite interesting, like such a long fight, just of a silly little, I know, smiley or cactus or goodness what.
2:15.4	Write in listeners with your guesses of which emoji might have created such drama.
2:20.1	I mean, I assume it's probably the obegin emoji, but...
2:22.6	I didn't want to say, because last time I was on the show, we talked about pollen come.
2:26.1	I tried to stay clear of sex references.
2:29.3	Okay, well, we're not doing very well, but I guess we should move on quickly before things go downhill.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.