Abba: The band's top charts with their first album in 40 years
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- The winner took over in the weekly battle on the UK album charts, and on Friday, the spoils fell to Abba "over the moon" for the 10th time.
Swedish band Voyage's long-awaited album - their first album with new material in 40 years went straight to number one also earned them their most significant selling week to start an album in four years. His sales of 204,000 in the first-week rankings were the highest since Ed Sheeran's Divide.
Abba's latest studio album, The Visitor, from 1981 also topped the charts. Since then, the former Eurovision winners have been a number one hit with their collection of the biggest hits, The Singles and Gold. "We are thrilled that our fans seem to have enjoyed our new album as much as we did," they told the Official Charts Company.
"We are ready to have another album at the top of the charts."
It is also the band's best-selling LP, released eight years after One Direction's Midnight Memories. Apart from Abba, Sheeran, and One Direction, the Adeles 25 has crossed the 200,000 mark in the 1st week of the last decade alone.
Voyage is also the fastest-selling vinyl release of the century, ahead of the Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino Arctic Monkeys in 2018. Only The Beatles and Elvis spent more time in the first place than Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, and Annie-Fried. Despite appearing to be a hit among music fans, Voyage's 10-track album broke the criticism.
"This is a retro Abba equivalent to a classic '70s performance," Rolling Stone said in a four-star rating. But The Guardian's two-star text said it was a "disappointment" that turned into an "often confused retreat."
On Friday, singer Abba Ani-Fried Lingstad told the in her first interview for reunification that her comeback album would be her last. "I've learned never to say no to say," he told Zoe Ball on Radio 2 about the prospects for future projects. Elsewhere on Friday, another recurring star, Adele topped the singles chart for four straight weeks with Easy on Me.
The ballad is the first track to be released from their highly anticipated fourth album, which is due next Friday, November 19. Easy on Me maintains stiff competition from Sheeran, who with Shivers resp.