An ABBA Star's Campaign for a 100% Cash-Free Sweden

On a gray Friday morning in Stockholm, Björn Ulvaeus arrives at ABBA The Museum through an emergency exit, carrying a take-out cup of coffee. Ulvaeus doesn’t come here often—”It is kind of strange to build a museum about yourself,” he notes—but he makes an exception now and again. Dressed in a navy blue suede jacket with epaulets, a closely cropped beard, and thin black and red glasses, Ulvaeus, 69, weaves through the exhibits, humbly recounting his band’s history, as if he were talking about some college a cappella act. ”We were not really good singers,” he says in a genteel, Nordic-tinged accent. “So the melodies had to be really, really good.”

Since the ribbon-cutting in the spring 2013, more than half a million people have come here to revisit those preposterously catchy melodies and learn more about the upbeat foursome that became one of the top-grossing acts of all time, selling close to 400 million albums and singles worldwide. Clownish ’70s outfits; vinyl album covers from all over the globe; booths in which visitors record themselves singing along with the band; and a replica of the remote island cottage at which Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson wrote some of the group’s biggest hits. It’s all here. But fans should take heed: Tickets for the museum cannot be purchased with cash.