ABBA is back in the top 40 of the Billboard 200 albums chart for the first time in over three years, as the Swedish pop pioneers’ Gold: Greatest Hits surges from No. 114 to No. 34 on the Sept. 18-dated survey.
The set vaults following the release of two new singles from the quartet on Sept. 2, the announcement of a forthcoming studio album – Voyage, its first in 40 years, due Nov. 5 – and a series of concerts in 2022.
Gold earned 15,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 9, up 61%, according to MRC Data. Of that sum, album sales comprise 5,000, also enabling the set’s 33-11 jump on the Top Album Sales chart.
Gold was last in the top 40 of the Billboard 200 on the chart dated Aug. 11, 2018, when the set ranked at No. 40. It was last higher than on the latest list just one week earlier, when it placed at No. 25, its peak. Gold was released in 1993 in the U.S. and has spent 186 weeks on the chart in total.
On Catalog Albums, Gold rallies from No. 30 to No. 3. (The Catalog Albums chart ranks the most popular older albums of the week, generally defined as those at least 18-months old and no longer within the top 100 of the Billboard 200 chart.)
ABBA Goes Global: ABBA’s two new songs previewing Voyage, “Don’t Shut Me Down” and “I Still Have Faith in You,” both bound onto the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart in the top 40: “Shut” at No. 26 and “Faith” at No. 37. The former starts with 13.9 million streams and 23,900 sold outside the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 9, while the latter opens with 14.1 million streams and 20,300 sold.
On the Billboard Global 200, “Shut” begins at No. 54 (15.4 million streams; 26,900 sold worldwide) and “Faith” enters at No. 62 (15.7 million streams; 22,600 sold).
Meanwhile, Back on the U.S. Charts: On the U.S. based Digital Song Sales chart, ABBA’s 1977 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “Dancing Queen” is the group’s top seller, re-entering at No. 19, a new best, with a 314% surge to 3,900 sold. “Shut” starts at No. 32 (3,000).
“We took a break in the spring of 1982 and now we’ve decided it’s time to end it,” ABBA said in a statement released Sept. 2. The group will return to live performances with its residency, ABBA Voyage, set to begin May 27, 2022, in London, in which the act’s members will be depicted as avatars (aka, “ABBAtars”), circa 1979.
