ABBA’s comeback album ‘Voyage’ has gone platinum just weeks after release
The Swedish legends topped the charts in 18 countries last month
By Joe Goggins
ABBA’s comeback album has gone platinum within a month of its release.
‘Voyage’, their first new record since 1981, debuted at the top of the charts in 18 countries last month including the UK. It was well on its way to platinum status from the off, selling more than one million copies in its first week; it’s also racked up in excess of 275 million streams to date.
The ten-track LP, the group’s first since ‘The Visitors’ forty years ago, is also the fastest-selling vinyl record of the 21st century in the UK where it sold more than 200,000 copies across all formats in its first week. It made ABBA only of four acts to achieve the feat in the past decade.
It’s also the biggest-selling international release of the year in the UK.
Speaking in a statement in response to the early success of ‘Voyage’, the Swedish pop icons said: “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”.
New music from the band had been in the offing since 2016 when they reunited at a private party in Stockholm. ‘Voyage’ was announced in September, during a YouTube livestream that saw them air two new singles: ‘I Still Have Faith in You’ and ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’. Critical reaction to the record was generally positive, with Rolling Stone UK’s Darren Styles calling it a “pop masterclass” in a five-star review.
News of ‘Voyage’s platinum status comes a week on from the release of ABBA’s first-ever Christmas single, ‘Little Things’, which hit streaming services last Friday (December 3). All proceeds from the track are going to Unicef’s Global Child Protection Fund.
“We think it is impossible to eradicate poverty without the empowerment of women,” the Swedes said in a statement. “That’s why we support Unicef in protecting girls from sexual violence and empowering them through the Global Child Protection Fund.”
Next year, the group will launch their ‘ABBA Voyage’ concert residency at a specially-constructed venue within London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The band will not be physically present at the shows but will instead be represented by virtual avatars.
The holograms were created using motion-capture technology from Industrial Light and Magic, and have been years in the making. ‘ABBA Voyage’ gets underway on May 27, 2022 and runs until December. No dates outside London have yet been announced.