ABBA Voyage: General Discussion 2021 Sept - Dec

Wow. 23 different editions is a lot. And I know there are fans who probably will accumulate all of them - possibly even multiple times. Blimey!

Latest positions for Voyage

Germany 1
Netherlands 1
Austria 1
France 1
Belgium 1
Ireland 1
Norway 1
Sweden 1
Australia 1
Japan 4
Lithuania 23

Thanks Johnny for posting Frida's full interview and your updates about copies of " Voyage " selling and also, Justabba for keeping us in the loop. Glad to see ABBA back at the top. They are " THE WINNERS THAT TAKE IT ALL " and deservedly so.

Not sure if this has already been reported but there's a new Abba special issue of Classic Pop just out. It includes I Still Have Faith in their 40 best songs article but I couldn't seem to find a review of the new album.

Come on supermarkets with the exception of Morrisons ( which had copies of " Voyage " on the shelf of the very small entertainment section today 12/11/21 ). The rest could easily stock " Voyage ".

What great news that ABBA are back at No 1 in the Albums chart in the UK and around the world. And "Voyage" is No 1 in the UK Album Downloads chart, which is immune to the effects of multiple physical editions. We can ignore the Streaming charts

I thought it would be interesting to analyse the Singles charts...

Top 100 Singles

DSMD #49 (re)
ISHFIY #60 (re)
WYDWM #67 (New)

Remember, only three ABBA songs are allowed in the main Singles chart.

So it was going to be fascinating to see how the tracks from "Voyage" performed in the Downloads and Sales charts, where no such restriction is in place. All ten tracks made the Top 100...

Top 100 Singles Downloads

JAN #29 (42)
DSMD #30 (Re)
ISHFIY #32 (Re)
ICBTW #48 (New)
WYDWM #49 (New)
OTF #51 (New)
NDAI #69 (New)
LT #73 (New)
BB #85 (New)
KAEOD #88 (New)


Top 100 Singles Sales

ISHFIY #23 (52)
JAN #24 (25)
DSMD #26 (53)
ICBTW #50 (New)
WYDWM #51 (New)
OTF #53 (New)
NDAI #72 (New)
LT #76 (New)
BB #88 (New)
KAEOD #91 (New)

The above results are a little surprising, especially with fan-favourite KAEOD bringing up the rear.


Finally, the Physical chart...

Top 100 Singles Physical

ISHFIY #7 (8)
JAN #9 (10)
DSMD #12 (12)
Voulez-vous #56 (Re)

What I would like to know is which physical edition of the "Voulez-vous" single has earned the song a place at #56?

P.S. Someone might want to double-check the above positions.

Me too! It's one of the best tracks

From official charts company....

When You Dance With Me (No.67, 6,613 sales) is the 29th hit by ABBA, and the fourth from their current album Voyage. The set’s first two hits, Don’t Shut Me Down and I Still Have Faith In You are re-entries at No.49 (8,505 sales) and No.60 (7,244 sales) respectively. Given how huge ABBA were/are, it is amazing that when Don’t Shut Me Down was released in September it was only their fourth single to debut inside the Top 10, its No.9 posting being just one place short of their all-time highest new entry, 1979 classic Chiquitita.

Again from the UK official charts company....

Thank you for the (new) music: ABBA was the 305th word I wrote in my inaugural chart analysis in 1979. Nearly 43 years later I’m still writing about them – and with good reason, as their first new studio album since 1981, Voyage, is off to a storming start, racking up an impressive first week sale of 203,909 copies.

Becoming the 13th act in all (fifth group) to achieve 10 No.1 albums, ABBA do so in style with Voyage, which is the 79th new No.1 album of the 2020s, and the seventh shortest, with 10 tracks and a playing time of just over 37 minutes – the shortest, Green Day’s Fear Of All Motherf***ers, also 10 tracks, topped the chart in February 2020 and ran barely 26m.

With an average age of 74 (Bjorn Ulvaeus is 76, Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad 75, Benny Andersson, 74, and Agnetha Faltskog, 71), ABBA is the oldest group ever to have a No.1 album of new material, replacing The Rolling Stones, who averaged 72 when Blue & Lonesome topped the list in 2016. All songs on Voyage were written by Ulvaeus and Andersson, with the latter also serving as the album’s lone producer. It’s quite a contrast to the outgoing No.1, Ed Sheeran’s = which slips to No.2 on its second frame (47,758 sales), and on which he collaborated with 16-co-writers and 10 co-producers.

Voyage is the first album to exceed 200,000 sales in a week since Ed Sheeran’s ÷ sold 303,520 copies on its second week at No.1 in March 2017, and registered more than four times as many sales as its nearest challenger – ironically Sheeran’s latest album - and more than the rest of the Top 30 combined.

Consumption of Voyage is heavily skewed to physical sales, which make up 89.53% of its total. Its vinyl sales of 29,891 copies were particularly impressive, easily surpassing the previous 21st century record of 24,478 copies that Arctic Monkeys’ Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino sold the week it debuted in May 2018. Voyage also sold 148,471 copies on CD, and 4,205 copies on cassette.

The release of Voyage triggered a big increase in consumption of ABBA’s catalogue, most notably earning a 16-9 rebound (5,761 sales) for its indefatigable 1992 compilation ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits

Voyage is one of three albums by septuagenarian acts in the Top 10 this week – a record. The others: The Lockdown Sessions (3-6, 7,856 sales) by 74-year-old Elton John, and Thank You, 77-year-old Diana Ross’ first studio album in 15 years, which makes its debut at No.7 (7,673 sales). Officially Ross’ 25th solo album, it is her first to make the Top 10 since Take Me Higher in 1995.

I suppose WYDWM streamed better than ICBTW and so managed to overtake it in the main chart. This makes me think that ICBTW wouldn't have been far behind WYDWM if more than 3 tracks from the same artist had been allowed in the chart.

Voyage doing very well in the Netherlands as well. ABBA Gold is also at number 31 (up from 96) and Voulez-Vous is at number 71 (up from 95).
www.entertainmentbusiness.nl/muziek/abba-op-eerste-plaats-in-album-top-100-en-vinyl-33/

ABBA takes first place in Album Top 100 and Vinyl 33

As expected, ABBA's new album Voyage enters at number one of the Dutch Album Top 100 this week. The indexed difference with the number two – the new album = (Equals) by Ed Sheeran – is particularly large and amounts to almost 90%. Also in this week's Vinyl 33, ABBA enters at number one.

ABBA's ninth and, in their own words, also their very last studio album Voyage, appears almost exactly forty years after the penultimate album The Visitors from November 1981. Not long after, ABBA announced that they were splitting up. For years, fans hoped they would make a comeback. That this actually happened can be called a musical miracle.

Voyage contains ten songs, almost all of which were recorded in the period 2017 to 2021. Only "Just A Notion" was already recorded in 1978. The song, recorded as a demo at the time, was intended for Voulez-Vous but did not make the album in the end. For the new re-recording of "Just A Notion", only the vocals of Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad were used from the old demo. The rest was re-recorded. "Just A Notion" has recently been released as Voyage's third single.

With Voyage ABBA scores its ninth number 1 listing in the Dutch album charts. Previously, the Swedish group took first place here with The Best Of ABBA (1976; 9 weeks at number 1), Arrival (1976; 8 weeks), ABBA The Album (1978; 5 weeks), Voulez-Vous (1979; 5 weeks) , Super Trouper (1980; 9 weeks), A…Van ABBA (1981; 4 weeks), The Visitors (1981; 6 weeks) and 25 Jaar Na Waterloo: The Greatest Hits In The Netherlands (1999; 2 weeks). These are number 1 listings in the charts at the time known as LP Top 50 or Album Top 100.

You won’t like this, joseph and HOMETIME but I’m afraid I can’t stand Zoe Ball. She’s so sycophantic and fawns over anyone she interviews. I don’t often listen to her radio show but when I have it’s all “I love her” or “he’s brilliant” and it wears a bit thin after a while. I know it’s her job, she can’t say “I can’t stand her” but it comes across as quite insincere.

To be fair, her interview with Frida was fine but as soon as I saw her in the live stream in September I was like, “oh please, not her!” and she did irritate me in that interview with Björn and Benny.

She isn’t the only one though. Jonathan Ross and Steve Wright are just as bad, and Graham Norton (on TV) seems to spend half his time laughing at his guests as though they’re the comedians and he isn’t. The great interviewers are long gone.

  When you danced with me 11 out of 10

That's exactly what I thought when I watched the live stream with Benny and Björn. Her over-excitement seemed not genuine. But it was the first time I saw her, so I can't judge.