ABBA – Voulez-Vous

When Miami Disco Met Swedish Perfection

ABBA released “Voulez-Vous” on July 2, 1979, as a double A-side with “Angeleyes” in the UK and Ireland, while most other territories treated it as a standalone single. The track hit number three in Britain during a four-week top ten run and topped the charts in Belgium. In the United States, where it peaked at number 80, the timing proved catastrophic. The single arrived the same month Chicago DJ Steve Dahl detonated a crate of disco records at Comiskey Park during the infamous Disco Demolition Night on July 12. The backlash against disco was immediate and brutal. ABBA’s embrace of the genre, perfectly timed for disco’s peak in early 1979, collided headfirst with America’s rejection of everything the music represented.
The chart performance revealed cultural fault lines. While Britain embraced ABBA’s disco experiment, making the Voulez-Vous album one of 1979’s five best-sellers and keeping it at number one for four weeks, American audiences turned hostile toward anything disco-adjacent. The double A-side became ABBA’s 13th biggest UK hit when accounting for both pure sales and digital streams through 2021. The extended 12-inch version, running 6:07 instead of the album’s 5:09, became the only official ABBA dance remix ever released, distributed by Atlantic Records as a promo to generate club support. That remix is now a collector’s item, reissued in 2019 as part of the 40th anniversary colored vinyl singles box set and as a standalone picture disc.
Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson wrote the song during a January 1979 trip to the Bahamas, renting an apartment to escape Stockholm’s conservative radio environment and absorb American music. They’d left Sweden immediately after “Chiquitita” hit number two in the UK, blocked from the top spot by Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.” Two songs emerged from the Bahamas sessions: “Voulez-Vous” and “Kisses of Fire.” Excited by the former, initially titled Song X and then Amerika, they flew to Miami and booked Criteria Studios, the same facility where the Bee Gees had crafted their mid-1970s disco dominance. Björn struggled with lyrics for the short riffs until French suddenly emerged in his head. He later recalled trying a thousand variations before the phrase Voulez-Vous appeared like a bullseye.
Recording at Criteria on February 1, 1979, brought together Miami’s disco royalty. Engineer Tom Dowd, pulled from vacation to work with the world’s biggest pop group, oversaw sessions featuring the disco band Foxy, whose “Get Off” had peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 the previous year. Foxy members Richard Puente, Charlie Murciano, Arnold Paseiro, and Joe Galdo laid down the backing track alongside session guitarist George Terry. Engineer Michael Tretow flew from Sweden to Miami specifically to ensure compatibility between Criteria’s equipment and Polar Studios back in Stockholm, returning to Sweden the same day. The Miami-disco foundation gave “Voulez-Vous” its distinctive sound, marked by the Phrygian dominant scale, extremely unusual for pop music and creating what Billboard described as almost Russian sounding musical accents.
The track appeared as the second song on the Voulez-Vous album, released April 23, 1979. The album cover, shot at Alexandra’s nightclub in Stockholm, emphasized ABBA’s shift toward disco aesthetics. Where previous albums balanced ballads and uptempo material, Voulez-Vous committed fully to the dancefloor. The album topped charts in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Japan, entered at number one in the UK, and peaked at number 19 in the United States. The horn section came from Swedish singer Björn Skifs’ band Vision, whose contributions have been sampled repeatedly, including in stage and cinema productions of Mamma Mia! Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad shared lead vocals, their harmonies cutting through the disco production with characteristic precision.
The song’s influence survived disco’s death. Erasure included it on their 1992 chart-topping covers EP Abba-esque, helping spark the first major ABBA revival. Culture Club tackled it for the 1999 multi-artist ABBAmania album alongside Madness, the Corrs, Steps, and S Club 7. Icelandic rock act Ham recorded a version, and countless club remixes kept it alive on dancefloors long after disco’s commercial collapse. The 1992 reissue, timed to promote Gold: Greatest Hits, introduced the track to new audiences who’d never experienced disco’s initial run. The compilation initially featured a 4:21 edited version before switching to the full 5:09 album cut in 1999.
“Voulez-Vous” stands as ABBA’s most adventurous studio recording, the only track they ever recorded outside Sweden aside from live performances. The decision to work with Foxy and embrace Miami’s disco infrastructure showed creative ambition at a moment when their personal lives were fracturing. Ulvaeus and Fältskog’s divorce had been announced in January, attracting media speculation about the band’s future, yet the sessions produced some of their most confident work. The song’s use of disco’s vocabulary without abandoning ABBA’s pop craftsmanship proved they could adapt to any genre while maintaining their identity. When Disco Demolition Night tried to kill the sound ten days after the single’s release, ABBA had already moved on, their mission accomplished. They’d conquered disco on their own terms, then watched America burn it down.

Video: Live performance from ABBA’s 1979-80 tour of North America and Europe