‘Voulez-Vous’ Album: ABBA End The 1970s In Style
The super-Swedes spent almost the whole of 1979 on the singles and album charts around the world.
Among ABBA’s weighty total of nine No.1 albums in the UK, the fourth arrived on the chart of May 19, 1979. Voulez-Vous, their first LP recorded at Polar Studios in Stockholm, smashed straight to the top to begin a four-week reign and a 43-week stay among the bestsellers.
Just to underline the might of the super-Swedes by this time, the album had gone silver, gold and platinum in Britain even before it made the charts. Within five weeks, it was in a million UK homes. As if they needed any reassurance, the group’s fans knew they were buying another winner, because the record arrived with two big hits already secured.
Early in the year, “Chiquitita” had reached No.2 in the UK and been a No.1 in Spain, Holland and much of Europe, and further afield from New Zealand to Mexico. Then as the album was being released, “Does Your Mother Know” was released, going to No.4 in the UK.
The Voulez-Vous album ensured that ABBA spent almost the whole of 1979 on the singles and album charts around the world. In the UK, those introductory singles were among no fewer than five hits from the LP that year, all of them Top 5 successes but none of them No.1s. Those other hits were the double-sided single that paired “Angeleyes” and the title song, then came the non-album track “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! A Man After Midnight,” after which they returned to the LP for the Christmas hit “I Have A Dream.”
Listen to the best of Abba on Apple Music and Spotify, featuring three hours of their pop classics.
The album ended a three-week run at the top for a Best Of release by one of the UK’s favorite pop stars of the 1970s, Leo Sayer. It also stopped Thin Lizzy’s Black Rose (A Rock Legend), which had climbed 3-2 the week before, from reaching the summit. It was a countdown that additionally featured the album chart debut of Irish new wave favourites the Undertones, with a self-titled LP. By September, ABBA were mounting their first US tour, as their worldwide musical domination grew ever greater.
Buy or stream the multi-format, 40th anniversary reissues of Voulez-Vous.
oliver
May 20, 2015 at 12:46 am
Does Your Mother Know did not reach Number One in Germany. It only reached Number Ten. In fact, most of the Single-releastes from the Voulez-Vous-album were less succesful than previous releases. The Voulez-Vous-single did not even enter the Top Ten in Germany but stalled at Number Fourteen (the first time this happened since the So Long–single some five years earlier). I Have A Dream reached Number Four.
Kurt De Deygere
October 29, 2015 at 11:46 am
Yes, you’re right, but ‘Chiquitita’ reached number one all over the world an especially in the Latin contries, as well as ‘I have a dream’. And later came ‘The winner takes it all’ from the ‘Super trouper’ album, one of the most beautiful songs every! Greetings. Kurt
George Mayer
May 20, 2015 at 8:26 am
They were great years of fantastic music, the rubbish of today is not music.
Tony
October 29, 2015 at 2:29 am
I totally agree. The music that they make nowadays is just garbage, it is not memorable. You listen for a few times, well you might not even remember a month after. Most songs are mixed with hip pop, rap that kind of shit, it is just awful.
Bernard Grauwin
May 22, 2015 at 10:27 am
My best group of music. I love it a big lot.
tenzing
May 22, 2015 at 11:16 am
Best ever group.Never tired of listening to Abba.
Pedro Valtencir Correia Vera
May 22, 2015 at 4:50 pm
Sou fã do ABBA DESDE QUANDO ELES SURGIRAM,E ATÉ HOJE CURTO MUITO A S SUAS MUSICAS E SEMPRE QUE DA UM TEMPO ESTOU ESCUTANDO -AS,GOSTO MUITO DELES.
Walker
May 22, 2015 at 5:59 pm
No spik englich – im poland – pllaise reponds in polish – OK !
Joe
July 21, 2015 at 3:24 am
@Walker, a o Google-Tłumaczu nigdy Ty nie słyszał??? Nie jest on wprawdzie doskonały ale dużo lepszy niż Twój rojący się od byków angielski. Przy okazji okazał byś trochę więcej szacunku dla czytelnika, nie kalecząc tak straszliwie tego międzynarodowego języka.
Jenny Walsh
May 22, 2015 at 9:07 pm
Have always loved your music. Drove from Oklahoma City to Deltona, Fl. playing your cds. Best trip I ever made. Turning 81 years old next month.
Baz
May 23, 2015 at 7:15 am
Hi Jenny. Loved reading your comment about you driving to Florida listening to ABBA.
Your 81 wow. Happy Birthday to you next month. I love ABBA too and the Voulez Vous Album.
ABBA’s music timeless
Billy
May 23, 2015 at 8:57 am
Loved this album.i think we forget that to reach the top 10 in the UK in the 60s 70s 80s you had to shift loads more sales to get there than you do to have a number one today. Some years there would be as few as 10 number ones. Sadly today that has escalated to 40 -50. Kind of devalues the number one status .
David
May 22, 2020 at 3:54 am
Yea, it was a great album. Chiquitita, As Good As New…wonderful songs
Marius
May 23, 2015 at 9:00 am
The good years of my life. ABBA were quite a big thing down here in South Africa just to show that we also appreciate quality music.
bev currie
May 23, 2015 at 5:49 pm
love abba ..when are they coming to Canada ??
T Fung
May 23, 2015 at 6:20 pm
Hi, Bev Currie
ABBA have been in Canada when they had their N. America World Tour in 1979, their first stop was in Canada, Edmonton. You must be very young or not even born yet.
I love the design of Voulez Vous album, the color was so fresh and bright, Frida and Agnetha on the cover looked so beautiful.
Nádia maria Alves
June 15, 2015 at 8:02 pm
Amo você Agnetha. Amo o Benny também. Não me canso de ouvir e assistir aos videoclipes.Moro no Brasil. No estado do Paraná.
Joseph U.
July 19, 2015 at 12:18 am
“Far Out Stuff”….
Pedro R.
July 20, 2015 at 11:04 pm
I remember Does Your Mother Know as nr 3 or 4 in Belgium, then Voulez-Vous/Angeleyes nr 3 or 4 again, and the expected “music video” announced on RTL TV: “Et quand on vous voit mesdames, on le veut bien! (And when we see you ladies, we sure want it!). We had had Chiquitita as nr 1 previously, and Voulez-Vous (LP) as “Disque du Mois” around June or July 1979… Topped the charts for months… Then they toured at Leysin Stadium on October, with Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! as the current hit but I had moved away like weeks before so missed their live performance!! AAAAHHHH!! Just like their 1977 live show at the same place (I had arrived a month later…).
Carole-ann
July 21, 2015 at 10:36 am
OH my glory days”
I remember buying the record from Woolworths going home on the bus and looking at the picture on the front, Then looking at the inner sleeve but no picture ‘. I love ABBA always will. I’ve now got this album five times but different labels. And it always reminds me oft Holliday in France. Xx
ERDZ
July 21, 2015 at 12:23 pm
THE INCOMPARABLE GROUP AND THEIR VOICES THE LEGEND THE UNBEATABLE, TIMELESS SONGS AND VOICE. OR THE GOLDEN SOGNS AND VOICES OF ABBA.
Roberto
July 21, 2015 at 1:38 pm
Toda mi vida amaré a este grupo y la calidad interpretativa de Frida y en especial de la hasta hoy hermosa Agnetha
Jamie
July 21, 2015 at 4:21 pm
I discovered this album in 1989 or 1990 , aged 12 . Everyone laughed but I knew it was awesome . Anni – Frid looks very chic on the cover but Agnetha’s dress is bulging open a little . Surprised she okay’ed that !
Ron
August 5, 2015 at 5:08 pm
Even more surprising… Frida looked a little “chilled” if you know what I mean.
Chandra
February 8, 2016 at 11:20 pm
I love most of the song,but some of it sound sad when Agnetha sing, it may be she was going through a lot at that time, it is lately I begin to listen to it more.
I wounder how she is now. hope her life is changed,would love to hear from her one day..
Chandra
Ko Jin @ wankyin.
September 19, 2016 at 6:12 pm
I loved sll all ABBA hits since I was yong.
K
May 22, 2021 at 4:31 pm
When I went to Tower Records in NYC to get this in ’79, I was so taken by the album cover. Especially after “The Album” the previous release, had drawings of them on the cover. I knew at that moment I was with the right group. And then listening to the super sophisticated tracks, it was heaven.