This year’s German pop charts are ruled by a Swedish group and a sea shanty singer.
ABBA‘s Voyage was the best-selling album of 2021 and “Wellerman” by Nathan Evans was the most popular single, according to GfK Entertainment, which tracks music sales and streaming in the German market. (The company’s charts count physical sales downloads and streams — plus airplay for singles — and weight them. The annual charts count sales from the 50th week of 2020 to the 49th week of 2021.)
The top ten albums list also includes two titles from the German schlager singer Helene Fischer (her new album, Rausch, at No. 2, plus and a compilation at No. 8), as well as AC/DC (No. 3, with Power Up), Iron Maiden (No. 6, with Senjutsu), and Adele (No. 7, after only a few weeks of sales for her new 30).
Nathan Evans
The singles chart includes Ed Sheeran (“Bad Habits,” No. 2), Tiësto (“The Business,” No. 3), The Weeknd (“Save Your Tears” at No. 5 and “Blinding Lights” at No. 9), The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber (“Stay,” No. 6) and Olivia Rodrigo (“Good 4 U,” No. 10).
ABBA’s Voyage has been especially impressive, according to related GfK data, given it delivered first-week sales of 235,000 and total sales of 400,000 in a country with about 83 million people — about a quarter of the U.S. population. A full 33,000 of those sales were vinyl.
The charts represent good news for Universal Music Group, which has ABBA, Fischer and Evans, among others. Overall, the company had five of the top ten albums and six of the top ten singles.
