Morten Abel Knutsen (born 15 October 1962), better known by his stage nameMorten Abel is a Norwegianpop artist, and one of Norway's best-selling domestic artists.
Morten Abel was born and grew up near Bodø, but moved to Stavanger when he was 15 years old. There he became the lead singer of a band called Catrix, which soon changed their name to "Mods". They released two albums in Norwegian language in 1981 and 1982, and had a big hit with a song called "Tore Tang". A third album in English language was released in 1984.
After Mods split up, Abel released a solo single in 1985. Two years later he formed the band "The September When", which became very popular in Norway. The September When released four studio albums between 1989 and 1994. Two of their hits were "Bullet Me" and "Cries Like A Baby".
When The September When split in 1996, Abel formed a new band called "Peltz". They released one album. After Peltz, Abel started focusing on a solo career, and his first solo album Snowboy was released in 1997. Since then he has released a further four solo albums, which have all been very successful in Norway. Some of his biggest solo hits include "Tulipz", "Be My Lover", "Trendsetter" and "Birmingham Ho".
So far, Morten Abel has sold around 550,000 solo albums. The total album sales of all his projects is more than 1 million. Abel has also acted in two Norwegian movies, "Hodet over vannet" (1993) and "Alt For Egil" (2004).
In March 2007 during a radio broadcast on NRK P3, Abel and director Marius Holst was accused by artist and painter Marianne Aulie of attempting to drug and rape her during a party in the mid 1990s.[1][2][3][4] Aulie and the interviewer Mina Hadjian were later criticized for the broadcast, while Abel and Holst denied the allegation through their lawyers.[1][5][6]
