Post by 15/11/79 on Oct 29, 2014 22:37:33 GMT
www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-28/abbas-bj-rn-ulvaeus-does-his-part-to-make-sweden-cashless
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.
In recent years, Ulvaeus has become concerned about the hidden social and economic costs of cash money, so much so that he decided to do something about it. With the museum’s no-cash policy, media interviews, opinion writing, and a few pointed questions aimed at the country’s central bank, Ulvaeus is doing his part to make Sweden the world’s first cashless country.
“The concept of money is really a very abstract one,” he says. “It doesn’t need that physical thing attached to it, I don’t think. Not in 2014 and beyond.”
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.
In recent years, Ulvaeus has become concerned about the hidden social and economic costs of cash money, so much so that he decided to do something about it. With the museum’s no-cash policy, media interviews, opinion writing, and a few pointed questions aimed at the country’s central bank, Ulvaeus is doing his part to make Sweden the world’s first cashless country.
“The concept of money is really a very abstract one,” he says. “It doesn’t need that physical thing attached to it, I don’t think. Not in 2014 and beyond.”
