ABBA Museum Opened In Stockholm
A new museum has recently opened in Stockholm, Sweden honouring Sweden’s most famous pop group ABBA. The site of the museum is on an island east of Stockholm. It features clothes, instruments and other memorabilia of ABBA, as well as the chance to slip into the ABBA costumes the group wore during their stage performances. Visitors can take photos, make videos and upload them to their favourite social media website.
The museums officials hope that the world of ABBA will attract more visitors to Stockholm and add to Sweden’s tourist industry. While ABBA has never been so popular in Sweden itself, the band have had most of their success in Europe and abroad.
ABBA is the most successful pop group Sweden has ever produced. Since their winning hit Waterloo at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest they have sold over 400 million albums around the world. A musical movie Mama Mia, and a stage show featuring ABBA hits have been viewed by over 50 million. The group broke up in 1982 and have gone their own ways since.
Swedish city planners have wanted to create such a museum for a long time. Now they have received the support of the four ABBA members, who were sceptical at first. They are happy about the idea and have even donated some of their personal belongings to the museum.
Although many Swedish pop groups, like Roxette, Europe or the Cardigans have become popular all over the world, it was ABBA that paved the way for Sweden’s pop music industry.
Words
- abroad = in other countries
- attract = bring
- break up = split up, not sing together any more
- create = build
- donate = give
- feature = show
- honour = respect, admire
- memorabilia = things that you collect because they were connected to a famous person or a famous time
- official = person who is in a high position
- pave the way = to make success possible for future groups
- performance = here: sing live on stage
- personal belongings = private things
- popular = well-known
- receive = get
- recently = only a short time ago
- sceptical = not sure, not convinced about something
- site = location
- slip into = get into
- success = achievement, victory
- support = help
- view = see, watch
- while = although, whereas