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Looking forward in seeing the "ABBAtars" tour and hearing theirtwo new studio songs recorded in Stockholm summer 2018.
Nik -- ABBA's Spokesperson & Friend - Gorel Hanser - has now, (August 21st 2019), said that the New ABBA Songs are not being released this Year. She says that we may get them at some time in 2020. We may get The ABBAtars Tour in 2021, but Benny has recently indicated that it may not happen at all. ABBA are having problems in getting them to work right. Benny also says that the New Songs are still not even 'Mixed' properly. ABBA did not initially record them in 2018. ABBA recorded them in June 2017 - over 2 Years ago. Bjorn now says that we should get at least 1 New Song in 2020, and The ABBAtars will be in its Promo Video...
'ABBA Gold' has sold nearly 6 Million USA copies, via SoundScan. However, it also sold 884,000 via the BMG Record Club, between 1993 and early 2003. SoundScan did not include those Sales. Some believe that 'Gold' has really sold over 8 Million in the USA, by now...
ABBA Gold actually sold 8.8 million pure copies in US by November 2016.
https://chartmasters.org/2016/11/cspc-abba-popularity-analysis/20/
Hi MJD! You obviously did an awesome job with ABBA, as usual, you never disappoint!
Just one thing though! For Arrival's total in Japan, you mention "N/A". While I realize that means you don't have enough information to set a precise figure, wasn't it a (late) huge seller in 1979, after some sort of Abbamania kicked out there following their promotional trip there in November 1978? I think I remember reading rather precise figures many times - including some posted by yourself - on other websites (Charts In France, UKmix or the defunct ABBA World Wide Chart Lists), in the range of 900,000 or something... Maybe these are wrong after all?
I also have one other question, which has more to do with their chart runs rather than their sales.
When the World Wide Chart Lists still existed, we could have access to ABBA's singles chart-runs on the US Billboard Hot 100. I obviously can't post a precise example anymore, but I remember being quite confused about these : in the US their singles always took weeks to climb up the charts, but they always dropped out of the Hot100 like heavy stones after reaching their peak. Let's say, for example, that the Waterloo single took 14 weeks to reach its #6 peak... After that, a typical end of chart run would look like something like this : [...climbs the chart slowly for 12 weeks...]-10-*6*-25-45-OUT. Why was that? I've never been able to explain it to myself... Was it some sort of manipulation by the record company, withdrawing the singles from sale once they were high enough on the singles chart in order to push people to buy the parent albums instead? That's the only explanation I can think of for now... Do you know what actually happened? I would be so grateful if you could give me an answer!
Sorry to be annoying but don't you think that figures for ABBA's first four albums + The Best of Abba reported by Rca Australia in Billboard in 1977 also include New Zealand sales? Wondering what you think of it?
Can you guys add their compilation sales? And maybe their sales by country too?
I have a question: What is with the album sales in Eastern Europe? They are completly missing in your list. On Wiki it says: "Due to the Cold war, Western music was actively discouraged throughout Eastern Europe at the time. Despite this, ABBA: The Album sold an unprecedented one million copies in Poland in 1977, exhausting the country's entire allocation of foreign currency. In Russia, only 200,000 copies were permitted to be pressed" and due to wikipedia "Arrival" has been sold 800.000 times in Poland - Abba even had a TV-Show on Polish Television to promote the album. Shouldn't you add these sales in your list?
Hi Bajazet!
You'll also find Billboard articles from ABBA mania years quoting very different numbers for Poland, more in the 10,000-20,000 range, so we should be careful with Wikipedia claims.
It's possible to check our receipts database to see their information, including from Poland / Russia, that we have been able to confirm.
When we published this article, to avoid blindly believing the numbers available on Wikipedia-like sources, but knowing they were indeed highly popular in Eastern Europe as well as in Norway and Denmark, we used larger than usual ratio for them when estimating European countries.
As for the countries listed, they are always the same ones as they are part of our templates, it doesn't mean that they are the markets where the album sold the most nor that we ignroed sales elsewhere. If you add the numbers from the 10 countries listed as part of Europe, you'll see the total is much lower than the listed European figure.
Thank you for your answer, you might be right (or maybe wrong) - it is not really important, I love ABBA's music, so "Don't shut me down" 😉
But those who claim that ABBA have sold over 380 million records what sources do they have ?????
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-2558702/Abba-admit-wore-ridiculous-outfits-avoid-tax-40-years-Waterloo-band-reveals-story-success-words-unseen-pictures.html
These articles just quote other articles usually. I'd imagine this figure was originally inflated for marketing or taken out of context decades ago.
I would be interested to see the sales for Abba this time next year (10/22).
