"Angeleyes" (also known as "Angel Eyes") is a pop song written and recorded in 1978 by the Swedish group ABBA, and is featured on their sixth studio album, Voulez-Vous. Released as a double A-side with the title track of the album in July 1979, the lyrics and music were composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. As one of ABBA's most popular tracks in the United Kingdom, the song was a successful hit, peaking at No. 3 on the singles chart.
Video Angeleyes
History
"Angeleyes" (which had the working title "Katakusom") is a song in which the protagonist beseeches women to avoid the deceptively innocent looking gaze of a handsome yet deceitful man, warning them to beware of the "game he likes to play". The vocals came from Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
Maps Angeleyes
Reception and reviews
In the United Kingdom, "Angeleyes" was released as a double A-side with "Voulez-Vous", this being an unusual move for the group. ABBA and the personnel at Epic, the group's British record label, believed that with its classic ABBA arrangement, "Angeleyes" would be considerably popular with the record buying public. No promotional video for "Angeleyes" was made; as ABBA had filmed one for "Voulez-Vous", this was used to promote the double A-side single. The double A-side peaked at No. 3 in the UK in August 1979.
Coincidentally, ABBA's "Angeleyes" was in the UK Top 20 at the same time as another unrelated song called "Angel Eyes" by the British rock group Roxy Music. The latter track was composed by musicians Bryan Ferry and Andy Mackay, and although the two songs possess some lyrical similarities, Ferry and Mackay's song is more reminiscent of contemporary pop rock.
In critical terms, when the track was featured on the BBC's popular TV series Juke Box Jury, the panel (which featured Alan Freeman, Johnny Rotten, Joan Collins and Elaine Paige) unanimously voted the song a "miss", predicting that it would not be a hit for the group. Oddly enough, only "Angeleyes" was mentioned on the show, with no reference made to "Voulez-Vous". A retrospective review of the Voulez-Vous album by AllMusic critic Bruce Eder gave "Angeleyes" a citation as an 'Album Pick' while praising the work as a whole.
In the United States, the individual "Angeleyes" single failed to climb that high in the charts, reaching No. 64 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1979. "Voulez-Vous" fared even worse a month before, peaking at No. 80. Compared to expectations, the songs' parent album only performed modestly in the US.
In October 1979 (three months after the single release), "Angeleyes" was included on the group's compilation album Greatest Hits Vol. 2. It was not featured on ABBA's 1982 double-album compilation The Singles: The First Ten Years.
"Angeleyes" has also been a part of numerous other ABBA compilations over the years, including More ABBA Gold: More ABBA Hits (1993); the four-CD box-set Thank You for the Music (1994); The Definitive Collection (2001), and The Albums (2008).
Cover versions, appearances in other media, etc.
- German eurodance group E-Rotic covered the song for their 1997 ABBA tribute album Thank You for the Music. It was featured on Dancemania's 1998 compilation Dancemania 8.
- American alternative rock band The Czars covered the song on their 2006 album Sorry I Made You Cry.
- Various eurodance cover remixes by Abbacadabra were released by Almighty Records during the late 1990s. A version was included on the 2008 compilation We Love ABBA: The Mamma Mia Dance Compilation. Audio samples can be heard on the official Almighty Records website.
- It features in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and is sung by Christine Baranski, Julie Walters and Amanda Seyfried; in the first verse by Baranski and Walters and in the second Seyfried
Charts
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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