Take a chance on Stockholm’s immersive Abba museum
It’s an all-singing, all-dancing interactive treat that celebrates the style and the artistry of Sweden’s biggest and best musical export
Abba are looking for a fifth member and holding open auditions. I have no intention of auditioning, but, nonetheless, I step into the sound booth and up to the microphone. Just to see what it feels like. I swish the velvet curtain behind me closed.
I scan the list I was given. Wannabe fifth members can choose one of five hits from the Swedish pop quartet’s 1970s and ’80s heyday: Waterloo, Dancing Queen, Mamma Mia, Money, Money, Money and Winner Takes it All.
I hit the touch screen, and the infectious, driving melody of Money, Money, Money starts. My palms are clammy. I can feel my pulse in my eyeballs. My stomach tightens. There are few things I fear more than singing. This is because I am tone-deaf. I don’t even sing in the shower or the car. And I especially don’t audition to join Swedish superstar pop groups, not even in a fake recording booth at a tourist attraction. If I did sing, though, it would probably be Abba songs.
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Abba the Museum opened in 2013 on Djurgården, across from the Gröna Lund theme park and near Stockholm’s history, modern art and wildlife museums, to celebrate the biggest cultural export ever to come out of Sweden.
Between 1975 and 1982, Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, all native Swedes with the exception of Norwegian Anni-Frid, sold out concert venues around the world. By some estimates, the band have sold up to 500 million records worldwide.
The museum is the permanent home for the ABBAWORLD exhibit that toured Europe and Australia between 2009 and 2011. A 180-degree projection screen showing Abba music videos greets visitors at the entrance. From there, the experience only gets more immersive, with interactive singing and dancing exhibits and recorded interviews with band members, their clothing designer and their manager.
In the booth, I miss my cue. There’s no option to start over. Not that I want to. The music presses on, backing vocals coming in, supposedly to join me for the chorus. I watch silently as the lyrics to Money, Money, Money scroll across the screen in front of me. A purple ball bounces along to indicate when to sing each word.
