| Voulez-Vous | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by ABBA | ||||
| Released | June 23, 1979 | |||
| Recorded | March 13, 1978–March 29, 1979 | |||
| Genre | Europop, disco | |||
| Length | 41:33 | |||
| Label | Polar Atlantic (US original release) |
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| Producer | Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus | |||
| ABBA chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Voulez-Vous | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| BBC | (positive) [2] |
| Uncut | [3] |
Voulez-Vous is the sixth studio album by Swedish pop group ABBA, released in 1979. It was the first ABBA album to be recorded at Polar Studios in Stockholm, and the only ABBA album to include a studio recording made outside Sweden. Some of the songs were secretly written and demoed at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, and the title track was recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami. Voulez-Vous was first released on CD in 1984. The album has been digitally remastered and reissued four times; first in 1997, then in 2001 and in 2005 as part of the The Complete Studio Recordings box set, and yet again in 2010 for the Voulez-Vous Deluxe Edition.
Contents |
All songs written and composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.
| Side one | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "As Good as New" | 3:23 | |||||||
| 2. | "Voulez-Vous" | 5:09 | |||||||
| 3. | "I Have a Dream" | 4:45 | |||||||
| 4. | "Angeleyes" | 4:20 | |||||||
| 5. | "The King Has Lost His Crown" | 3:32 | |||||||
| Side two | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Does Your Mother Know" | 3:15 | |||||||
| 2. | "If It Wasn't for the Nights" | 5:09 | |||||||
| 3. | "Chiquitita" | 5:25 | |||||||
| 4. | "Lovers (Live a Little Longer)" | 3:31 | |||||||
| 5. | "Kisses of Fire" | 3:16 | |||||||
|
Total length:
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41:34 | ||||||||
Voulez-Vous was remastered and reissued in 1997 with two bonus tracks:
Voulez-Vous was remastered and reissued in 2001 with three other bonus tracks:
Voulez-Vous was remastered and reissued again in 2005 as part of the The Complete Studio Recordings box set with several bonus tracks:
Tracks 14–16 are from the album Gracias Por La Música (Septima SRLM 1, 23 June 1980).
Voulez-Vous was reissued once again in 2008 as part of the The Albums box set but without any bonus tracks.
Voulez-Vous has been remastered again and was issued as a Deluxe Edition in 2010. The bonus tracks were the following:
Voulez-Vous Deluxe Edition was packed with a bonus DVD containg the following material::
In the UK alone, seven of the ten tracks from the album were released on singles as either 'A' or 'B' sides, the second highest number of tracks issued as singles from any ABBA album.
A demo recording made on June 25, 1979, it does not feature any vocals.
A demo recorded in 1978 with lead vocals by Björn Ulvaeus. A brief excerpt of the track was released in the box set Thank You for the Music.
A complete version with a different intro that can be heard on the TV special ABBA in Switzerland. Part of this version comes from the unrecorded song "I Want You" (1975) and was included in the "Does Your Mother Know" scene in the Mamma Mia! musical. Also, if you listen closely to the live version of 'Does Your Mother Know', released on the ABBA in Concert DVD, you hear an instrumental guitar riff of this edit. A few notes from the unused early intro would later end up in the 1982 recording of "You Owe Me One".
A song recorded in September 1978 with shared vocals by Fältskog and Lyngstad and solo passage by Fältskog. The song was recorded during sessions for the Voulez-Vous album. Composers Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus decided, however, that "Dream World" was not suitable for release, and instead, agreed to scrap the recording. The melody and chord sequence of the middle-eight of "Dream World" were re-used, with different lyrics, as the bridge for the middle-eight of the song "Does Your Mother Know", later released as the second single from Voulez-Vous In the 1980s, the song was heard for the first time in a Swedish radio programme featuring ABBA's engineer Michael B. Tretow, and subsequently found its way onto a bootleg album. In 1994, "Dream World" was released in Sweden, Germany and Australia as a promotional-only CD-single with other ABBA rarities to advertise the Thank You for the Music four CD box-set, which also contained the track. The version of the song released in 1994 differs from the version heard in the radio show in that its fairground-like synthesiser intro fades in rather than starting abruptly. However this is because the tape from which the track was taken was partly destroyed. Voulez-Vous Deluxe Edition, released in May 2010, contains the track with its original beginning. It is unknown how the full intro was resurrected from the partially destroyed tape. It was reported just before its 1994 release that Benny and Björn were in the studio remixing the track, and hence it is most probably a new mixdown of the song done expressly in 1994. Indeed it exhibits a certain "digital" sound suggesting it was mixed down to a digital recorder as opposed to previously released songs from this period which were mixed onto analog tape. "Dream World" was included in full form (without the fade-in) for the first time on the Voulez-Vous Deluxe Edition CD/DVD package, released on May 31, 2010.
A demo recorded in 1978 with lead vocals by Björn and Benny, a brief excerpt of which was released in the box set Thank You For The Music. Part of the chorus was later reused in "I Know Him So Well" from the musical Chess.
With music by Agnetha and lyrics by Björn, the was performed live on the North America and Europe tours in 1979. Later recorded in Swedish by Polar Music artist Kicki Moberg.
Performed on The Mike Yarwood Christmas Show, and most noticeably differs from the released version in that it doesn't have any string overdubs.
An early demo version of "Chiquitita". An excerpt can be heard in the TV documentary The Winner Takes It All. It featured lead vocals by Lyngstad. A later version "Chiquitita Angelina" was sung by both girls in unison.
Recorded in 1978, a snippet of this track was released in the box set Thank You for the Music. A complete version was recorded by cover band Arrival, which features original ABBA bass player Rutger Gunnarsson, and was included on their 1999 album First Flight. This recording features a full set of lyrics (which are identical to those which ABBA used), unlike the small snippet of the released ABBA version. Carl Magnus Palm has also confirmed that the verse included in "ABBA Undeleted" is in fact the second verse of the song. The full version was intended to be released on the 2010 'Voulez Vous' Deluxe Edition but for some unknown reason it was not included.
An instrumental demo, later reworked in "Someone Else's Story" from the musical Chess.
Several demos recorded in 1978. The composition underwent several changes and [fun] demo titles during the sessions. At one point the demo featured lyrics and vocals by Ulvaeus entitled "Mountain Top", and another instrumental attempt ("Part I") and later reworking "Part 2" (with lead vocals by Fältskog and Lyngstad) was released as a brief excerpt in the box set Thank You for the Music. Parts of the composition would re-surface in the June 1980 demo "Burning My Bridges", but eventually the song was defined as a 'schottis' and put aside until Benny made his first instrumental folk album Klinga Mina Klockor in 1987, and there named "Lottis Schottis".
An instrumental demo with Benny Andersson playing synthesizers, recorded on December 13, 1978. The track remains unreleased.
A demo recorded in 1979. The lyrics do not make sense - they were recorded so that Ulvaeus could get a feel for the sound of the song, before any real lyrics were to be written. The lead vocals are shared by Fältskog and Lyngstad. A brief excerpt of this track was released in the box set Thank You for the Music. The melody would later be heard as a part of the verses in ABBA's final single "Under Attack" ("and every day the hold is getting tighter.../I wish there was a way that I could show you...").
A tribute song for Görel Johnsen's 30th birthday recorded in 1979. It was never commercially released; however, a very limited number of records were pressed and given to people who attended the party.
Additional musicians
Production
Album
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1979 | Billboard 200 (USA) | 19 |
| RPM albums (Canada) | 6 | |
| CRIA albums (Canada) | 4 | |
| UK | 1[4] | |
| Austria | 2 | |
| Norway | 1 | |
| New Zealand | 2 | |
| Australia | 5 | |
| International Albums Chart (Mexico) | 1 | |
| Argentina | 1 | |
| Belgium | 1 | |
| Finland | 1 | |
| France | 6 | |
| The Netherlands | 2 | |
| Spain | 3 | |
| Japan | 1 | |
| Switzerland | 1 | |
| Germany | 1 | |
| Zimbabwe | 1 | |
| Sweden | 1 | |
| 2010 | UK (deluxe edition)[5] | 148 |
According to The Official Charts Company, the album spent 25 consecutive weeks in the Top 40 from 19 May 1979 to 3 November 1979. It also charted in the lower reaches of the Top 40 for 7 weeks over Christmas 1979/New Year 1980 whilst Greatest Hits Vol.2 was in the Top 5. It went straight into the Top 40 at Number One.
Weekly chart positions from 19 May 1979 and 3 November 1979: 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-3-5-5-5-6-5-5-4-5-2-4-5-7-6-9-14-14-15-18-22-27-20-20-20-20-24-38-36
Singles (USA and Canada)
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | "Does Your Mother Know" | Billboard Hot 100 (USA) | 19 |
| Billboard Adult Contemporary (USA) | 41 | ||
| "Voulez-Vous" | Billboard Hot 100 | 80 | |
| Billboard Adult Contemporary | 40 | ||
| "Angeleyes" | Billboard Hot 100 | 64 | |
| Billboard Adult Contemporary | 37 | ||
| "Chiquitita" | Billboard Hot 100 | 29 | |
| Billboard Adult Contemporary | 15 | ||
| "Does Your Mother Know" | RPM singles (Canada) | 12 | |
| RPM Adult Contemporary (Canada) | 2 | ||
| CRIA singles (Canada) | 8 | ||
| "Voulez-Vous/Angeleyes" | RPM singles | 42 | |
| CRIA singles | 39 | ||
| "Chiquitita" | RPM singles | 36 | |
| RPM Adult Contemporary | 14 | ||
| CRIA singles | 17 | ||
| 1980 | "I Have a Dream" | RPM Adult Contemporary | 1 |
Singles (Music Week, United Kingdom)
| Year | Single | Position | Weeks on chart |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | "I Have a Dream" | 2 | 10 |
| "Does Your Mother Know" | 4 | 9 | |
| "Angeleyes" b/w "Voulez-Vous" | 3 | 11 | |
| "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" | 3 | 12 | |
| "Chiquitita" | 2 | 9 |
Singles (Nederlandse Top 40, Netherlands)
| Year | Single | Position | Weeks on chart |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | "Chiquitita" | 1 | 13 |
| "Does Your Mother Know" | 4 | 9 | |
| "Voulez-Vous" | 4 | 9 | |
| "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" | 2 | 9 | |
| "I Have a Dream" | 1 | 11 |
Singles (Norway)
| Year | Single | Position | Weeks on chart |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 | "Summer Night City" | 3 | 10 |
| 1979 | "Chiquitita" | 4 | 17 |
| "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" | 2 | 17 |
| Preceded by Factory by Factory |
Swedish Chart number-one album 4 May 1979 – 3 June 1979 |
Succeeded by Communiqué by Dire Straits |
| Preceded by Breakfast in America by Supertramp |
Norwegian VG-lista number-one album 19/1979 – 24/1979 |
Succeeded by Discovery by Electric Light Orchestra |
| Preceded by The Very Best of Leo Sayer by Leo Sayer |
UK number one album 19 May 1979 – 15 June 1979 |
|
| Preceded by Twist II by the Twist |
Japanese Oricon LP Chart number-one album 21 May 1979 – 3 June 1979 |
Succeeded by Sora wo Tobu Tori no You ni, No wo Kakeru Kaze no You ni by Chiharu Matsuyama |