ABBA have scored their 10th number one album with ‘Voyage’.
The ‘Waterloo’ hitmakers released their first studio album in 40 years last week, and the record has rocketed to the top of the Official Album Charts, landing the band their 10th number one on Friday (12.11.21).
‘Voyage’ is the fastest-selling album of 2021 so far and has earned the title of being the biggest opening week on the UK’s Official Albums Chart in four years, when Ed Sheeran set the record with his album, ‘Divide’.
The record is also the fastest-selling album released by a group in eight years, since One Direction’s ‘Midnight Memories’ in 2013, and ABBA are now the fourth act in the past decade to surpass 200,000 UK chart sales in release week.
Celebrating the news, ABBA told OfficialCharts.com: “We are so happy that our fans seem to have enjoyed our new album as much as we enjoyed making it! We are absolutely over the moon to have an album at the top of the charts again!”
The sales of ‘Voyage’ are made up of 90 percent physical copies, including 29,000 vinyl sales, meaning it is also the fastest-selling vinyl release of the century, overtaking the 24,500 first-week vinyl sales of Arctic Monkeys’ ‘Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino’ in 2018.
This also marks ABBA’s 58th total week as UK Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart – only two other acts in history have spent more weeks at the top, The Beatles and Elvis Presley.
ABBA’s impressive album sales have knocked Ed Sheeran’s new record, ‘=’ off the top spot which it held last week, as it dropped to number two this week.
The rest of the top five were comprised of new entries, with James Arthur’s ‘It’ll All Make Sense in the End’ at number three, ‘Kid A Mnesia’ by Radiohead in fourth, and Summer Walker’s album ‘Still Over It’ in fifth.
Elsewhere, in the Official Singles Chart, Adele has continued to reign supreme for four consecutive weeks with her hit single ‘Easy On Me’.
And while Ed dropped in the albums chart, he clung onto both second and third for another week in the singles chart with ‘Shivers’ and ‘Bad Habits’ respectively.
‘Cold Heart’ by Sir Elton John and Dua Lipa has jumped up one place from fifth to fourth, and ‘Flowers (Say My Name)’ by Arrdee rounded off the top five.