Abba fans get their own museum

ABBAThe world’s first museum dedicated to Swedish icons ABBA has opened in Stockholm last Tuesday. The country’s biggest export will now be honoured with a quirky pilgrim site.

For weeks, adverts across Stockholm, from billboards to rental bikes, have been promoting the much anticipated opening. Trademark sequined disco costumes, survivors from their 1970s hey-day, have even been put on display at Arlanda International Airport.

ABBA: The museum, mimicking the title of a movie featuring the worldwide sensation, will now give fans further insight into the lives and careers of the foursome.

The state-of-the-art museum, located on Djurgaarden Island, has five floors featuring band memorabilia, including costumes, instruments, gold records and recreations of their recording studios and dressing rooms.

“The focus will be on letting visitors experience how the ABBA members lived their lives,” museum curator Ingmarie Halling, who was the band’s stylist from 1976 to 1980, told AFP in a recent interview.

Getting back together for a rare collaboration, Agnetha Faeltskog, Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad, Benny Andersson and Bjoern Ulvaeus helped to design the museum and its fun exhibits, bringing together two sets of couples who were once married.

For example, in one room, dedicated to the hit song Ring Ring, is a telephone and the four band members are expected to occasionally call the private number for a lucky visitor to answer.

The group shot to stardom in the 1970s with hits like Voulez Vous, Dancing Queen and Waterloo, and won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. They went on to sell 378 million albums worldwide, third only behind Elvis Presley and the Beatles.