Summer Night City

The recording sessions for "Summer Night City" began in early 1978. It had the working titles of "Kalle Sändare" and "Dancing in the Moonlight". ABBA's new recording studio, Polar Music Studio, had opened in May 1978, but had not been ready to use initially, so the primary backing track had been recorded at Metronome Studio. A 43-second ballad-style introduction to the song had been edited out to improve the overall quality, but nothing seemed to work. Allegedly, mixing the single took at least a week, far more than it took to mix any other track in ABBA's recording history. In the end, the song had an enormous amount of compression applied to it to give it a more "driving" sound. Agnetha Fältskog has been quoted as saying she did not like the song to start with, as she felt "it wasn't ABBA" but later on grew to like it. A reluctant ABBA decided to release "Summer Night City" as a single in September despite their disappointment with the track in its current form. It garnered minor controversy in the United Kingdom due to some listeners mishearing the fade out line "walking in the moonlight" as the more explicit "fucking in the moonlight". The group still performed the song live on their 1979 world tour, though with the original introduction that had been removed from the studio recording. The previously unreleased version with the extended introduction was finally released as part of the box set Thank You for the Music in 1994. Their ambivalence about the record has surfaced occasionally in interviews where Andersson said "we shouldn't have released that one", and Ulvaeus called the recording "really lousy". On the single, "Medley" was actually a re-equalised version of the original 1975 version that had been issued on the German charity album Stars im Zeichen eines guten Sterns (Polydor). However, the 1978 compressed version is very similar, so much so that a mistake was made in the booklet notes of the 1994 4-CD boxed set Thank You for the Music. It turned out that the 1975 original version was included in that set but it was claimed to be the 1978 compressed. The "Medley" mystery was allegedly solved when the UK single master tapes were returned by Epic Records to Polar Music in Sweden in the early 2000s. As the UK tapes had definitely included the 1978 compressed version, it then became possible to determine which version was which. As explained by ABBA historian Carl Magnus Palm: ==Critical reception==

In a contemporary review, the British Record Business gave it a mixed review. Although noting the "hustling disco rhythm swathed in the customary rich, intricate ABBA production" would give the group another hit, they also called it the group's weakest single in years. Classic Pop ranked it as ABBA's 23rd best song. == Commercial reception ==

United Kingdom In the United Kingdom "Summer Night City" debuted at number 21 on the UK Singles Chart the week of 16 September 1978 and was the most added song to UK radio stations that week. It was certified Silver on the day of its release. It reached a peak position of number five in its fourth week before exiting the top ten, spending nine weeks in total on the chart. Although it marked ABBA's ninth consecutive UK top-ten hit, it was their first since "SOS" to miss the top three and was ABBA's lowest-peaking single for the period between 1976 and 1980. The song's lower than usual British chart placement, along with Ulvaeus and Andersson's disliking of the released recording, led to the full-length version being scrapped from Voulez-Vous. Europe Across Europe "Summer Night City" entered the top ten in nearly all markets where it charted. In the group's native Sweden the single debuted at number three on the Sverigetopplistan before rising to number one, marking ABBA's last number-one hit in their own country for 43 years until September 2021 when their comeback single "Don't Shut Me Down" reached the top spot. In neighboring Denmark, Norway, and Finland the single reached position numbers nine, three, and one, respectively. While it peaked at number three on Belgium's Ultratop 50 chart, "Summer Night City" marked the group's first single since "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" to miss the top two. Similarly in the Netherlands, usually a successful market for ABBA, "Summer Night City" stalled at number ten in the Single Top 100, the group's poorest showing since "Mamma Mia" peaked at number 12 in 1975. The single reached the top spot in Ireland and top-ten status in Iceland, Switzerland, and West Germany. Australia The group were already experiencing a decline in sales in Australia and New Zealand when "Summer Night City" was released there via RCA Victor. In Australia the single debuted the week of 16 October 1978 on the Kent Music Report at number 57 and reached as high as number 13 on 27 November; it was an improvement from the group's previous single "Eagle / Thank You for the Music", which only peaked at number 82, but was the third consecutive single from the group to miss the top ten. It charted even worse in neighboring New Zealand, debuting and peaking at number 37 on 26 November 1978, and stayed in the RMNZ Singles Chart for only one week, becoming ABBA's lowest charting hit until "One of Us" stalled at number 43 in February 1982. North America and other territories "Summer Night City" was all but ignored in North America. In the United States it was shelved by Atlantic Records, ABBA's North American record label. Although Atlantic realized the song's potential to be a chart hit, the group couldn't guarantee its inclusion on an album to be released before Christmas of that year, so the label refused to release the single without a much more profitable and immediate follow-up album. However, it did get a release in Canada, where the single reached a dismal position of number 90 on the RPM Top Singles listing; it charted higher at number 34 on the CRIA chart, which tracked sales only at retailers. The single also charted in Mexico, peaking at number 10, and marked the group's eighth consecutive top-ten hit. It proved a success in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Japan, peaking at number four in the former and number 24 in the latter. == Use in media ==

"Summer Night City" is featured in the musical Mamma Mia!, heard in scrambled "nightmare" form during the entr'acte and as scene-change music between the numbers "The Winner Takes It All" and "Take a Chance on Me". It has been included in the set list for ABBA's Voyage concert residency in London since its opening in May 2022. ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts == Release history ==

In alphabetical order: • Abbacadabra - "Summer Night City" (Almighty Definitive Radio Edit) (1998). • Claire Richards and Andy Bell — singer of Erasure — recorded their version as the second single from Claire Richards' 2023 album Euphoria. • Offer Nissim & Maya - "Summer Night City" from the album First Time (2005). • Therion - "Summer Night City" (Digipak edition of Secret of the Runes (2001). ==References==