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| Voyage | |
|---|---|
| Studio album by ABBA | |
| Released | 5 November 2021 |
| Recorded | 1978, 2017–2021 |
| Studio | Riksmixningsverket, Stockholm |
| Genre | Disco pop synth-pop |
| Length | 37:03 |
| Label | PolarUniversal |
| Producer | Benny Andersson |
| ABBA chronology | |
| Live at Wembley Arena (2014)Voyage (2021) | |
| Singles from Voyage | |
| “I Still Have Faith in You” / “Don’t Shut Me Down“ Released: 2 September 2021″Just a Notion“ Released: 22 October 2021[6]“Little Things“ Released: 3 December 2021[7]“No Doubt About It” Released: 11 February 2022[8] |
Voyage is the ninth studio album by Swedish group ABBA, released on 5 November 2021. It is the group’s first album of new material in 40 years following The Visitors (1981), and it contains 10 songs all composed by ABBA’s songwriters, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.
The album was supported by the dual single release of “I Still Have Faith in You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down“, released alongside the album announcement on 2 September 2021. “Just a Notion” was issued as the second single on 22 October 2021, followed by the third single “Little Things” on 3 December. A digital concert residency also called ABBA Voyage will take place in London, beginning on 27 May 2022.
Voyage debuted atop the charts of Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. It also became the group’s highest-charting album ever in Canada and the United States, debuting at number two on the charts in both countries.
Background
ABBA informally split up in 1983, following the release of their retrospective greatest hits album The Singles: The First Ten Years in late 1982. Renewed interest in the band grew from the 1990s onwards following the worldwide success of their greatest hits album ABBA Gold, the ABBA-based musical Mamma Mia! and the subsequent film of the same name, and the use of their songs in some other film soundtracks such as The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel’s Wedding.
However, the members steadfastly refused to reunite. In 2000, they reportedly turned down an offer of $1 billion to perform again. In July 2008, Björn Ulvaeus categorically stated to The Sunday Telegraph, “We will never appear on stage again. There is simply no motivation to re-group.” Ulvaeus reiterated this in a 2014 interview while promoting the publication of ABBA: The Official Photo Book.
On 6 June 2016, however, ABBA did informally reunite at a private party in Stockholm. This led to a more formal reunion. Two years later, in April 2018, they announced they had recorded two new songs, “I Still Have Faith in You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down“.
The new songs initially were intended to support both a TV special produced by NBC and the BBC and the ABBA Voyage tour which the TV special itself supported. However, this project was later cancelled in favour of the “ABBAtar” tour announced months prior.
One of the album’s tracks, “Just a Notion“, was previously partially included in a demo version as part of the medley “ABBA Undeleted” from the 1994 Thank You for the Music box set. The reworked song was released as a single two weeks before the album, on 22 October 2021. Whilst the vocals date from 1978, its instrumentation was mostly re-recorded.
Promotion and announcement
Promotion for Voyage began with the website, abbavoyage.com, going live on 26 August 2021. Billboards were erected in London, and social media accounts titled “ABBA Voyage” were also set up. The band announced during a 2 September 2021 YouTube live stream that Voyage would be released on 5 November 2021. The two songs first announced in 2018, “I Still Have Faith in You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down“, were confirmed as the double-sided lead single from Voyage during the September 2021 live stream.
Tour
During the album announcement live stream, ABBA also announced that a concert residency, known as ABBA Voyage, is scheduled to begin on 27 May 2022 and last until December 2022 at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.
ABBA first announced they were preparing digital avatars in September 2017. Dubbed the “ABBAtars”, they will appear during the ABBA Voyage concerts in place of the four actual band members. To animate the avatars, the ABBA band members wore motion capture suits and were filmed using 160 cameras, with graphics later added by Industrial Light & Magic, a visual effects company.
The ABBAtar tour was originally set for 2019, but was delayed due to technical issues. The COVID-19 pandemic then forced the band to push the tour back to 2022, it now turning into a seven-month residency in London. As of February 2022 no further tour locations had been announced.
Critical reception
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AnyDecentMusic? | 7.1/10 |
| Metacritic | 72/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    |
| The Guardian | |
| The Independent | |
| The Line of Best Fit | 6/10 |
| Mojo | |
| NME | |
| Pitchfork | 7.4/10 |
| Rolling Stone | |
| The Telegraph | |
| The Times | |
Voyage was met with positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 72 based on 16 reviews, indicating “generally favorable reviews”. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7.1 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.
Commercial performance
Voyage sold more than 1 million units worldwide in its first week of release. The album recorded 40,000 UK pre-orders in the first 24 hours following the announcement of its release. Three days after the album was announced, it had received over 80,000 pre-orders in the UK alone. This broke the record for the biggest pre-ordered album for Universal Music UK, previously held by Progress (2010) by Take That. By October 2021, the album had recorded 111,000 pre-orders. Advance orders in the Netherlands totalled 40,000 copies.
The album entered the UK Albums Chart at number one, with 204,000 chart sales, 90% (180,000) of which were physical sales. It was the biggest opening week for an album in the UK since Ed Sheeran‘s ÷ (2017), and became the fastest-selling album of 2021 as well as the fastest-selling vinyl LP of the 21st century, with 29,900 vinyl copies sold. It is ABBA’s first number-one album since ABBA Gold, which topped the chart in 1992, 1999 and 2008. It became the 3rd biggest album of 2021 in the UK with 400,000 units and the 2nd best-selling album with 387,000 pure sales.
In Germany, the album also entered at number one on the albums chart with over 200,000 chart sales. In its first week, it sold more copies than the rest of the albums chart combined and also reached the top of the year-end albums chart for the time being. In Italy the album debuted at number six on the albums chart.
Voyage became ABBA’s highest-charting album in the United States, entering the Billboard 200 at number two on 20 November 2021, beating their previous high of number 14 with ABBA: The Album in 1978. It opened with 82,000 album-equivalent units, including 78,000 album sales (60,500 of which were physical), making it the highest-selling album of the week.
Track listing
All tracks are written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | “I Still Have Faith in You“ | 5:09 |
| 2. | “When You Danced with Me” | 2:50 |
| 3. | “Little Things“ | 3:08 |
| 4. | “Don’t Shut Me Down“ | 3:56 |
| 5. | “Just a Notion“ | 3:31 |
| 6. | “I Can Be That Woman” | 4:01 |
| 7. | “Keep an Eye on Dan” | 4:05 |
| 8. | “Bumblebee” | 3:57 |
| 9. | “No Doubt About It” | 2:56 |
| 10. | “Ode to Freedom” | 3:32 |
| Total length: | 37:03 |
Personnel
ABBA
- Agnetha Fältskog – vocals
- Anni-Frid Lyngstad – vocals
- Björn Ulvaeus – vocals, co-producer, lyricist
- Benny Andersson – vocals, piano, synthesizer, arrangements, mixing, producer
Other vocalists
- The Children’s Choir of Stockholm International School (track 3)
Other musicians
- Jan Bengtson – baritone saxophone, flute
- Mats Englund – bass (track 6)
- Pär Grebacken – clarinet, recorder, tenor saxophone
- Per Lindvall – drums, percussion
- Lasse Jonsson – guitar
- Lasse Wellander – guitar
- Margareta Bengtson – harp
Production and design
- Görel Hanser – coordinator
- Baillie Walsh – design
- Bernard Löhr – engineer, programming, mixing
- Linn Fijal – engineer
- Vilma Colling – engineer
- Björn Engelmann – mastering
- Kimberley Akester – music director, Children’s Choir of the Stockholm International School (track 3)
- Anneli Thompson – musical assistance, Children’s Choir of the Stockholm International School (track 3)
- Göran Arnberg – orchestrator/conductor, Stockholm Concert Orchestra (track 10)
Charts
| Weekly chartsChart performance for VoyageChart (2021)Peak position Australian Albums (ARIA)1 Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)1 Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)1 Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)1 Canadian Albums (Billboard)2 Croatian Albums (HDU)2 Czech Albums (ČNS IFPI)1 Danish Albums (Hitlisten)1 Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)1 Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)1 French Albums (SNEP)1 German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)1 Greek Albums (IFPI)1 Hungarian Albums (MAHASZ)3 Icelandic Albums (Tonlist)1 Irish Albums (OCC)1 Italian Albums (FIMI)6 Japanese Albums (Oricon)4 Japanese Albums (Oricon) Voyage with ABBA Gold16 Japanese Hot Albums (Billboard Japan)4 Lithuanian Albums (AGATA)23 New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)1 Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)1 Polish Albums (ZPAV)2 Portuguese Albums (AFP)1 Scottish Albums (OCC)1 Slovak Albums (ČNS IFPI)2 Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)2 Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)1 Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)1 UK Albums (OCC)1 US Billboard 2002 | Year-end chartsYear-end chart performance for Voyage Chart (2021) PositionAustralian Albums (ARIA)10 Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)1 Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)1 Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)3 Danish Albums (Hitlisten)12 Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)4 German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)1 Global IFPI Sales charts|2Hungarian Albums (MAHASZ)26 Irish Albums (IRMA)9 Polish Albums (ZPAV)43 Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)68 Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)1 Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)1 UK Albums (OCC)3 |
Certifications and sales
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Australia (ARIA) | Gold | 35,000 |
| Austria (IFPI Austria) | Platinum | 15,000 |
| Denmark (IFPI Danmark) | Platinum | 20,000 |
| France (SNEP) | Platinum | 100,000 |
| Germany (BVMI) | 2× Platinum | 400,000 |
| Japan | — | 25,839https://web.archive.org/web/20211110023453/https://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/dia/w/2021-11-15/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211117031727/https://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/dia/w/2021-11-22/p/2/ |
| Netherlands | — | 40,000 |
| Poland (ZPAV) | Gold | 10,000 |
| Sweden (GLF) | 2× Platinum | 60,000 |
| United Kingdom (BPI) | Platinum | 387,000 |
| United States | — | 78,000 |
| Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. |
Release history
| Region | Date | Format(s) | Edition(s) | Label | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Various | 5 November 2021 | CDCassetteLPDigital downloadStreaming | Standard | PolarUniversal | |
| Japan | 2×CD | Standard + ABBA Gold | Universal | ||
| CD + DVD | Standard + The Essential Collection | ||||
| CD + 2 DVDs | Standard + ABBA in Japan |
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