Voulez-Vous (album)

Voulez-Vous
ABBA studio album
Publication (s)	April 23, 1979
Label (s)	Polar (original edition) Universal International (CD version)
Format (s)	CD, LP, MC
Genre (s)	pop
Title (number)	10/13
running time	41m33s
occupation	Synthesizer / keyboard / vocals : Benny Andersson Singing : Agnetha Fältskog Singing : Anni-Frid Lyngstad Banjo / guitar / vocals : Björn Ulvaeus
production	Benny Andersson Bjorn Ulvaeus
Studio (s)	Polar Music Studio, Stockholm
chronology ABBA - The Album (1977) Voulez-Vous Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (1979)
Single releases February 16, 1979 Chiquitita April 27, 1979 Does your mother know July 6, 1979 Voulez-Vous 7th December 1979 I have a dream

Voulez-Vous is the sixth studio album by the Swedish pop group ABBA and was released in 1979. It is the only work by the group that was not exclusively produced in Sweden . The recordings took place between March 1978 and March 1979. Voulez-Vous became the number one album in eleven countries and made it into the top ten of the album charts in six more. A total of four singles were released, each of which became a number one hit in at least one country .

Music genre

Today, Voulez-Vous is mostly seen as the ABBA album that already largely corresponded to the disco style of the late 70s. However, there were also some pop ballads among the recorded songs, which means that Voulez-Vous cannot be defined as a pure "disco album". In addition to comfortable dance beats and strongly emphasized rhythms, gentle piano passages and calm guitar accompaniments also shape the musical style of the album.

History of origin

The recordings for the album began in the spring of 1978. At the beginning it was planned to finish the album by the end of 1978 and release it. It started with the two songs Lovers (Live a Little Longer) and Lovelight in March 1978. After a promotional stay in the USA from late April to early May, Summer Night City was recorded in the coming month , the first in Polar, which opened at the same time Music Studio recorded the ABBA song. The sessions continued with The King Has Lost His Crown in August , and the recording sessions' first single, Summer Night City , was released in September . Although the piece was a problem child for the composers in its development phase, it reached number 1 on the charts in Sweden , making it ABBA's third number one hit there after Dancing Queen . Although it was planned to release the single in the USA in the fall , the release was canceled because the release date of the new album was not yet known and the President of Atlantic Records , Jerry Greenberg, did not want to launch a single without a rapidly following album .

After the two songs Angeleyes and If It Wasn't for the Nights had been recorded in October 1978, the group devoted themselves to a ten-day promotional tour in Japan in November. Although Japanese music experts said in advance that ABBA would not achieve the same level of success there as in Europe and Australia, they convinced the Japanese audience through media interviews, television appearances and their own TV special. Just a week after her departure, Summer Night City reached number 1 in various single charts, as well as the previous albums Greatest Hits , Arrival and ABBA - The Album in the top ten of the album charts.

Between ABBA's return to Sweden, further promotional appearances for example in Great Britain and the continuation of the recordings, the production of the album was also overshadowed by the separation of Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus. After there had been private differences since 1977, the conflict came to a head by the end of 1978 that Fältskog moved out of the house with the children after Christmas. She later commented on the album, “I'm not sure if the production was better because of that. We threw all of our feelings into the balance. We also talk to each other about the respective texts, some of which on Voulez-Vous are very personal in nature. A lot of things happen on an emotional level; on stage, in the studio, but also privately, and this always resonates a little with the records. "

In December, the recordings for Chiquitita followed , which was completed in the same month and first performed in January 1979 as a contribution to the UNICEF benefit concert of the "International Year of the Child" in New York City . While the song was immediately released as a single in Europe and became a hit, it didn't hit the US market until October. Also in January 1979, Andersson and Ulvaeus went on a trip to the Bahamas to find inspiration for new songs. Among other things, they endeavored to hear a lot of music from American radio stations and thus gain more distance from the outdated hits from Swedish radios. When the two returned from their trip to Sweden, and had gained experience and basic tracks in the Miami- based Criteria Studios, the recordings for the album could be recorded at the end of March 1979 with the songs Does Your Mother Know , Voulez-Vous , I Have a Dream , Kisses of Fire and As Good As New .

The LP Voulez-Vous was released on April 23, 1979 in Sweden and four days later in Great Britain. It contains a total of four singles. Due to the great demand for interviews from media from all over the world, the group decided not to go on its own promotion tour after the publication. Just before the group embarked on their next major tour of the United States and Europe in the fall of 1979, the new song Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) and released as a single in October. Although Summer Night City and Lovelight were also not on the album's track list, they did appear on the remastered version in 2001 .

Track list

page 1

1. As Good as New
2. Voulez-Vous
3. I have a dream
4. Angeleyes
5. The King Has Lost His Crown

Page 2

1. Does your mother know
2. If it wasn't for the nights
3. Chiquitita
4. Lovers (Live a Little Longer)
5. Kisses of Fire

A digitally revised version was published in 1997 and 2001.

Publications and chart successes

album

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)						Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US	SE
1979	Voulez-Vous	DE1 platinum (58 weeks)DE	AT2 (40 weeks) AT	-	UK1 platinum (43 weeks)UK	US19th gold (27 weeks)US	SE1 (26 weeks) SE

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

The LP reached number 1 in the album charts in Germany , Finland , Norway , Sweden , the Netherlands , Great Britain , Portugal, Japan, Zimbabwe, Mexico and Argentina. In addition, Voulez-Vous made it into the top ten in six other countries , reaching No. 2 in Austria and New Zealand, No. 3 in Spain, No. 4 in Canada, No. 5 in Australia, No. 6 in France and No. 19 in the USA.

In Germany, the album was awarded a gold record in 1979 and achieved platinum status in 2004 for at least 500,000 units sold. In Sweden, 290,000 albums were sold in the first few months after its release. In the UK, Voulez-Vous went platinum for at least 300,000 units shortly after its release. In Canada, the album went platinum for 100,000 sales after three weeks, while in the US it went gold for at least 500,000. In Japan, a total of over 620,000 units of LP and music cassette were sold; the album also went platinum in Hong Kong for 15,000 units and sold over 10,000 copies in Malaysia. The album was also sold over 200,000 times in Argentina and over 450,000 times in Mexico. In Ireland the album sold over 30,000 copies within six weeks and even in Hungary a first edition of 75,000 copies were sold.

Singles

year	Title B side	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, B-side , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)						Remarks	[↑]: treated together with the previous entry; [←]: placed in both charts
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US	SE
1979	Chiquitita Lovelight	DE3 (26 weeks) DE	AT6 (16 weeks) AT	CH1 (15 weeks) CH	UK2 gold (9 weeks)UK	US29 (12 weeks) US	SE2 (24 weeks) SE	First published: January 16, 1979
	Does Your Mother Know Kisses of Fire	DE10 (15 weeks) DE	AT13 (12 weeks) AT	CH6 (10 weeks) CH	UK4th silver (9 weeks)UK	US19 (14 weeks) US	-	First published: April 27, 1979
	Voulez-Vous Angeleyes	DE14 (16 weeks) DE	-	CH9 (6 weeks) CH	UK3 silver (11 weeks)UK	US80 (3 weeks) US	-	First published: July 6, 1979
	Angeleyes[DE: ↑][AT: ↑][CH: ↑][UK: ↑]					US64 (5 weeks) US[SE: ↑]		First published: July 6, 1979 A-side: Voulez-Vous
	I Have a Dream Take a Chance on Me (Live)	DE4 (27 weeks) DE	AT1 (22 weeks) AT	CH1 (12 weeks) CH	UK2 gold (10 weeks)UK	-	-	First published: December 7, 1979

Single releases in other countries

• As Good as New / I Have a Dream - Mexico (# 1 - October 1979 - 2 weeks )
• Angeleyes / Voulez-Vous - Great Britain (# 3 - 07/14/1979 - 11 weeks )

Sources and literature

• John Tobler: ABBA Gold - The Success Story, HEEL Verlag 1992, ISBN 3-89365-371-6
• Carl Magnus Palm: Abba. Story and songs compact. Bosworth Edition, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86543-227-8 (German translation: Cecilia Senge)
• Carl Magnus Palm: Light and Shadow. ABBA - The real story. Bosworth Edition, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-86543-100-4 (German translation: Helmut Müller)
• http://www.abba-world.net/

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Story and songs compact. P. 62f
2. ↑ ^{a b} light and shadow. ABBA - The real story. Pp. 436-484
3. ↑ ^{a b} Official German Charts ABBA, Voulez-vous, Album. Retrieved April 20, 2018
4. ↑ ^{a b} austriancharts.at ABBA - Voulez-vous. Retrieved April 20, 2018
5. ↑ ^{a b} Official Charts VOULEZ VOUS, ABBA. Retrieved April 20, 2018
6. ↑ ^{a b} BILLBOARD 200 The week of September 1, 1979. Retrieved April 20, 2018
7. ↑ ^{a b} swedishcharts.com ABBA - VOULEZ-VOUS (ALBUM). Retrieved April 20, 2018
8. ↑ ABBA - The Worldwide Charts Lists ( Memento of the original from June 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Finnish albums. Retrieved April 20, 2018 
9. ↑ norwegiancharts.com ABBA - VOULEZ-VOUS (ALBUM). Retrieved April 20, 2018
10. ↑ Dutch Charts ABBA - Voulez-vous. Retrieved April 20, 2018
11. ↑ ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento of the original from May 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Portuguese Albums. Retrieved April 20, 2018 
12. ↑ ^{a b} ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento of the original from April 26, 2012 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Japanese albums. Retrieved April 20, 2018 
13. ↑ ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento of the original from March 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Zimbabwe albums. Retrieved April 20, 2018 
14. ↑ ^{a b} ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Mexican Albums - English Charts. Retrieved April 20, 2018 
15. ↑ ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento of the original from April 5, 2012 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Argentinian Albums. Retrieved April 20, 2018 
16. ↑ charts.org.nz ABBA - VOULEZ-VOUS (ALBUM). Retrieved April 20, 2018
17. ↑ ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento of the original from October 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Discos en España / Spanish Albums. Retrieved April 20, 2018 
18. ↑ ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Canadian Albums. Retrieved April 20, 2018 
19. ↑ ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Australian albums. Retrieved April 20, 2018 
20. ↑ ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento of the original from March 29, 2012 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. French albums. Retrieved April 20, 2018 
21. ↑ Bundesverband Musikindustrie - IFPI.de Search for ABBA albums in the database. Retrieved April 20, 2018
22. ↑ ABBA 5 YEARS Billboard Magazine, September 8, 1979, Sweden section. Retrieved April 20, 2018
23. ↑ bpi - British Phonographic Industry BRIT Certified, database search. Retrieved April 20, 2018
24. ↑ ^{a b} ABBA 5 Years Billboard Magazine, September 8, 1979, Argentina and Canada section. Retrieved April 24, 2018
25. ^ RIAA Gold & Platinum. Retrieved April 20, 2018
26. ↑ ABBA 5 Years Billboard Magazine, September 8, 1979, Hong Kong section. Retrieved April 24, 2018
27. ^ ^{A b} ABBA 5 Years Billboard Magazine, September 8, 1979, Hungary, Ireland and Malaysia section. Retrieved April 24, 2018
28. ↑ ABBA 5 Years Billboard Magazine, September 8, 1979, Late Breaking News section . Retrieved April 24, 2018
29. ↑ ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento of the original from April 6, 2012 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
30. ↑ Official Charts Abba, SINGLES. Retrieved April 20, 2018