Abba: Band topping the charts with first album in 40 years

The winner takes it all when it comes to the weekly battle for UK album charts, and on Friday the spoils went to an “over the moon” Abba for the tenth time.

The Swedish band’s long-awaited Voyage – their first album of new material in 40 years – has gone straight to number one, earning them the biggest opening week of any album in four years.

Its 204,000 chart sales in the first week are the highest since Ed Sheeran’s Divide.

Abba’s latest studio album, 1981’s The Visitors, also tops the chart.

Former Eurovision winners have since reached number one with their biggest hit collections, The Singles and Gold.

“We are so happy that our fans seem to have enjoyed our new album as much as we enjoyed making it,” they told the Official Charts Company.

“We are absolutely over the moon to have an album at the top of the charts again.”

The album is also the best-selling LP released by a group in eight years, since One Direction’s Midnight Memories. Aside from Abba, Sheeran and One Direction, only Adele’s 25 broke the 200,000-sales barrier of the first week over the past decade.

Voyage is also the best-selling vinyl release of the century, surpassing the Arctic Monkeys’ Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino since 2018.

Only the Beatles and Elvis spent more time at number one than Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid.

While clearly a hit with music fans, the 10-track album Voyage divided opinion among critics.

“It’s vintage Abba, on par with their classic run from the ’70s,” he said Rolling Stone in a four-star review. But The Guardian’s two-star article he said it is a “delusion” that languishes in “often bewildering retrograde environments.”

On Friday, Abba singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad told the BBC “don’t be too sure” their comeback album is the latest in her first reunion interview.

“I’ve learned to say never to say never,” she told BBC Radio 2’s Zoe Ball of the prospect of future projects.

Elsewhere on Friday, another returning star, Adele, secured a fourth straight week at the top of the singles chart with Easy on Me.

The ballad was the first track to be released from his highly anticipated fourth album, which will be released next Friday, November 19th.

Easy on Me kept stiff competition from Sheeran at bay, who kept second and third place on the album chart with Shivers and Bad Habits respectively, while her latest album = (Equals) was beaten to second place on the chart. some albums from Abba.

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