Summer Walker has landed atop the Billboard 200 album chart for the first time, but the most remarkable honor for the week may belong to the group landing in the No. 2 spot. Remarkably, ABBA’s second-place finish marks the first time the group has ever had a top 10 album in the U.S., and it only took returning after a four-decade hiatus to do it.
Walker is getting her third top 10 entry, but “Still Over It” is the first to top the chart, after its prequel, the two-year-old “Over It,” entered at No. 2. That album went on to be an ongoing smash, staying on the chart for more than 100 weeks. The new release had a very strong 166,000 equivalent album units in its opening week.
ABBA’s comeback, “Voyage,” was no competition for Walker’s numbers, but still came in with a forceful 82,000 equivalent album units to land in second place.
The quartet’s previous albums, all released well back into the pre-Soundscape era, never got any higher than the No. 14 peak for “The Album” in 1978. However, an album of ABBA songs, the “Mamma Mia!” film soundtrack, did reach the top in 2008.
Rapper Key Glock had the other top 10 bow, coming in at No. 7 with “Yellow Tape 2.” Its equivalent album unit tally was 36,000.
Holdovers in the album top 10 included Drake’s “Certifiable Lover Boy” dipping a spot to No. 3, Ed Sheeran’s “=” dropping from No. 1 to No. 4 in its second week, and Morgan Wallen and Doja Cat at Nos. 5-6 and Olivia Rodrigo, YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Lil Nas X at Nos. 8-10.
Walker will enjoy only one week at No. 1, as Taylor Swift will have one of the year’s biggest debuts with “Red (Taylor’s Version),” followed a week later by what is expected to be the most blockbuster bow of 2021, for Adele’s “30,” which comes out this Friday.