Abba - Voulez-Vous. Is it an underrated album?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Bobby Morrow, Mar 8, 2018.

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  1. Hermes

    Hermes Past Master

    Location:
    Denmark
    No. Every Abba-album is great, and every sane person knows it :)
     
  2. Classicrock

    Classicrock Senior Member

    Location:
    South West, UK.
    All their albums sold big before the CD era started. They were pretty much out of favour until the Gold compilation was released in the early 90s. I just think vinyl of the studio albums must be far more common. It appears to have been compilations that sold well on CD over the past 20 years. As for Voulez Vous it sort of is their Disco album which might steer people away from it. However it's got about 80% great songs and is one of their best for sound quality.
     
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  3. filip_kbh

    filip_kbh Forum Resident

    Voulez-Vous is an instant classic - I love the disco feeling it has, the production, the songs and the cover.
    Some of the tracks were performed in early versions without violin overdubs on TV shows, and especially the early version of Does Your Mother Know rocks with it's heavy drum and guitar intro that was sadly edited out of the final version.

     
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  4. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    There may be some truth to the fact they fell out of favour, but I also think their albums fall into that "too good for the charity shop" category (the sort of category that includes most classic rock; how frequently do you see Led Zeppelin in charity shops). I thought I would be good with just their Greatest Hits, but I enjoyed The Album and so I will seek out a copy of Voulez-Vous and their other albums.
     
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  5. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    I like VOULEZ-VOUS quite a bit, but then I was a late adopter of ABBA, not actually hearing the full album until the 21st Century when I bought the COMPLETE STUDIO RECORDINGS box to finally fill in where the comps missed.

    No one ever seems to discuss it - even in this thread - but the title song, "Voulez-Vous" sounds like a perfect disco record to me, and I like it a lot. It's the first song I go to on this album. I'm also partial to the added "Summer Night City", particularly the extended full version.
     
  6. CBS 65780

    CBS 65780 "Could I do one more immediately?"

    Location:
    Dublin, Ireland
    [​IMG]


    Summer Night City RSD 7" Picture Disc next month!
    Bagsy me! (Agnetha in her Blade Runner make-up, anyone?)
     
  7. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Go for the early WG copies. Not that I need to tell you that.:D
     
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  8. RichC

    RichC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Charlotte, NC
    Voulez Vous is a fantastic record, maybe one of my favorite ABBA releases. Take out "I Have A Dream" and there's not a single bad track, and the deep cuts (As Good As New, If It Wasn't For The Nights, Kisses Of Fire) are uniformly strong. Plus two of their best non-album singles (Summer Night City and Gimme Gimme Gimme!).

    While Super Trouper has the unimpeachable "The Winner Takes It All," I personally don't think it's as strong start-to-finish. For me, that's the dip before ABBA comes back to peak form with The Visitors.
     
  9. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    I love the fact Abba always looked like they got dressed in the dark.:D
     
  10. Castle in the air

    Castle in the air Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Carolina
    I don`t know any of the songs except the singles.
    They are catchy tunes but to me not on par with their other singles.
     
  11. Peachy

    Peachy Forum Resident

    My Favorite ABBA album.
     
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  12. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA
    in my opinion, its certainly one of their best recordings and mixes. Some of the sound quality, for 1979, is very very good. They really knew what they were doing in terms of all that. Benny, Bjorn, and Tretow were an amazing team at the console.

    To me, this is the period where they finally pushed most of the Phil Spector vari-speed trix either out for good, or, buried them farther back into the mix. Things sound a lot clearer and cleaner. It could also be that this is also the period where songs featured one lead vocal, instead of the shared lead vocal.

    However, really great sound aside - this isnt my favorite Abba album. WAAAAAY too much cheesy disco. The first 30 seconds of As Good As You are like a time capsule, you want to start pointing your index finger in the air like John Travolta. Its kind of laughable now, almost cartoon-like.

    the King Has Lost his Crown is weird to me. A really great intro and a verse thats excellent... then that weird angular chorus. I never liked it. Just my opinion.

    So half the album for me is prime - Voulez-Vouz, the title track, awesome disco rock song, hella good guitar-keyboard riff, really clever.. probably Benny's work.

    Chiquitita, most Abba fans adore that one. Angeleyes, same. To me, its a throwback to the 60s girlgroup sound, but I might be wrong about that. This one sounds like it might have a bit more of the vari-speed thing happening, not sure about that either, but its got those "dense" sonic sections. I also like I Have a Dream, sue me.... and I also like the Way Old Friends Do. Lovelight is pretty good.

    The others, meh. If It Wasnt for the Nights, that may have gotten airplay where i lived in the 70s, because I swear I had heard it before, but I thought it was by some other disco queen like Gloria Gaynor.

    So half great, half not my thing. The half that is great, wow. Not many bands get things that good.
     
  13. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA
    on I have a Dream - does anybody know if thats a coral Sitar guitar thing, or if its Benny on some insanely manipulated keyboard patch?
     
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  14. Mike_with_G1042

    Mike_with_G1042 Forum Resident

    Great album. I remember my brother playing it when it came out and thinking how new a fresh it sounded. I own several copies of it today on both vinyl (Epic and discomate) and CD (Japanese CD POCP before the remasters).
    Feel good fun album.
     
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  15. CBS 65780

    CBS 65780 "Could I do one more immediately?"

    Location:
    Dublin, Ireland
    I always felt Voulez-Vous was to Abba: The Album what Crisis? What Crisis? by Supertramp was to Crime Of The Century.
    Some decent songs left over from the first album's sessions with a few half ideas to flesh it out as a new record.
    Pivotal things were happening in Abbaland at the time; Bjorn and Agnetha had a second child (Peter Christian was born in December 1977) but then they separated Christmas 1978, while in the interim Benny and Frida wed.
    I don't think song writing was a priority at the time, maybe that's why Super Trouper is so good; time to write, plan and record.
    I still stick it on of course, but it is ranked below Arrival, Super Trouper, and The Album in my book.
     
  16. yarbles

    yarbles Too sick to pray

    No, LOL.
     
  17. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

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  18. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA
    if theres any consolation to the people not loving the album in its entirety... at least you have Abba in Switzerland on DVD... the girls never looked more beautiful than this.

    Can you believe Bjorn let that girl go just a few months later?
     
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  19. sunking101

    sunking101 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Yorkshire, England
    Of course I Have A Dream and Chiquitita are two of Abba's very best songs.:tiphat:
     
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  20. sunking101

    sunking101 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Yorkshire, England
    That looks like a disposable party plate.:D
     
  21. bare trees

    bare trees Senior Member

    My father bought me the 8 track in the fall of 1979. Loved it instantly. A little over a month later, I got a second copy from aunt for my eighth birthday. I wore both copies copies out over the next few years and never bothered to replace them. ABBA was one of those bands that I outgrew as I hit my teens. I bought the FLAC download from 7Digital in 2016 on a whim and I have to say that it has held up quite well. The singles are great but there are some wonderful deep cuts such as "Lovers Live A Little Longer" and "The King Has Lost His Crown". The only track that I'm not too fussy about is "I Have A Dream".
     
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  22. Classicrock

    Classicrock Senior Member

    Location:
    South West, UK.
    Mixed bag maybe but at least half a dozen classic / top notch albums in the top 30. Would die for a chart like that today.
     
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  23. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    i'm not really an abba fan, but to me arrival and voulez vous were their strongest records, with super trouper probably next in line
     
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  24. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA
    this sort of begs a different question -

    I mentioned that Voulez Vouz is just too late 70s disco-heavy for me, and that sound, in my opinion, has not aged well.

    Throughout Abbas career, they were not musical stylistic innovators per se, they more or less went with the styles of the times and did them in their own way.
    This album is a classic example, disco was hot, so Abba did a disco album. In some ways... clearly its not ALL disco but theres enough disco on it to make it seem that way.

    A few years later, 1982 especially, synthi-pop was hot, so their final recordings are somewhat heavy into that.

    AND some of the earlier stuff, seems heavy into the glam rock thing. A friend once told me they were ripping off Noddy Holders closet.

    however I cant really pigeon-hole Arrival or The Album. Those two... to me, just seem like "abba" albums. I have no other description - they dont fit into any other category I can think of, except general pop-rock.

    Sure theres dancing queen and its universally known as a "disco" song, but it doesnt have a lot in common, musically, with what disco came to be. Except for the lyrics, I dont really define that song as a disco song. And then some people say Eagle is California Soft Rock. And I dont think it is. But those just my opinions.

    Does anybody else have a category they think Arrival or The Album fits into specifically?
     
  25. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    I believe "Dancing Queen" was inspired by George McCrae's "Rock Your Baby", which was sort of proto-disco. Also, I think "Eagle" is more Pink Floyd-y than Californian.
     
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