The Album Review Club - Christmas Break Until 8th January

Coatigan said:
I think it is no surprise that, overdone overcooked throw as much at it 80s bands that despite chucking a whole bunch of stuff into the mix to sound interesting sound like most other 80s bands, are not my thing. First listen was not a comfortable one. The bass is great and should be a redeeming feature, but then it continues to be so repetative and it is all the same pace. Let's see what the next two listens bring.
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We'll probably have diametrically opposed views on this one. Interestingly the one thing I've fallen out of love with on this album over the years is some of the basslines and their treatment. In fact as much as I admire Trevor Horn and was a fan of quite a lot what he and our fellow blue Paul Morley put out on ZTT, over the years I've come to actively dislike quite a lot of the bass production for a number of his acts even though it's often seen as part of his signature sound.
 
Coatigan said:
I think it is no surprise that, overdone overcooked throw as much at it 80s bands that despite chucking a whole bunch of stuff into the mix to sound interesting sound like most other 80s bands, are not my thing.
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I get why ABC got lumped in with a load of 80s bands including the guitar under the chin brigade that Bimbo loves so much; but there’s a reason I think why I, and a fair few other people I knew, hated the likes of Spandau Ballet and Haircut 100 but didn’t feel the same about ABC. Beyond the wedge cuts, floppy fringes and ostentatious dressing up I think there’s some differences most notably driven by the music scene where they came out of.

For me, apart from geography, it’s hard to knock the Sheffield music scene of the era. It was relatively small, a bit incestuous, innovative, vibrant and more often than not political will both a little and a big P. Though ABC were very different in some ways from the likes of early Human League, Cabaret Voltaire or Clock DVA they had some of the same sensibilities. I think, though they undoubtedly wanted to get on TOTP, they had more artistic aspirations and bore little resemblance to the aspirational spiveyness of Islingtons finest new romantics or the effete nonsense from the sweater wearing types of a place like Beckenham. (At the time I also lumped chubby simon and his brummie mates into the same bin but with the benefit of hindsight I think a bit unfairly). Fry’s on record saying they were looking to mash up the slick world of US soul and the more recent new wave influences such as Joy Division. Though I don’t think that always came through or came off, they were trying to do something interesting and aspirational in a less vacuous sense of the word. Even though I have no familial connections to the place, one of the reasons I later liked Skyscraping was I was quite chuffed that Martin Fry and Glenn Gregory were keeping the Sheffield flag flying together.

So yes, it’s a busy record with lots of signature 80s pop stuff going on thanks in no small part to Mr Horn but (a) they really lent into it in such a knowing way that made it cool rather than naff (b) there were some atypical interesting things going on with the music too. Chesterbells mentioned Mark White but the other unsung hero on this is, a pre Art of Noise, Anne Dudley who was still pretty inexperienced but created really confident proper orchestrations. Thinking back to the time I take the view that fashion aside, ABC were sort of their own category ploughing their own furrow, which was probably why unconsciously I didn’t see them in the same light as some bands they are often mentioned in the same breath as. Most of the time it works but sometimes less so, which to me again is a sign of a band trying to do something interesting. I think the part of the post-punk world that veered towards new romanticism and similar, split into two camps: the thatcher era poster boys and girls mostly concerned with getting famous and enriching themselves and the ones who were trying to do something artistically interesting. For me ABC fall in that latter camp.
 
Love this album .. definitely made to be played start to finish with know skips.
Legend has it they stole the look and part of the sound from Edinburgh band Boots for Dancing after seeing then at Fururama or some festival.

Went to see them a few years ago when they played Brannigans ? Edinburgh
The posters started off saying

ABC
Then it was Martin Frys ABC
Martin Fry sings ABC
Then just Martin Fry
Obviously some contractual problem

Anyway come the night it was just him and backing tapes
Did 5 songs but did them twice

It was free so didn't matter that much
 
The Lexicon of Love – ABC

“Poison Arrow” is perhaps more of a significant song to me than I would first admit. I remember singing along to it playing pool with my mate. I think I was getting closer to liking music as the early 80s went on: I was aware of Spandau Ballet’s “Gold”, Duran Duran’s “A View to a Kill” as well as the music that I would grow to love such as Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” and Van Halen’s “Jump”. Not enough to buy any music, you understand, but the seeds of musical hunger were obviously there.

"Show Me” is a lively opening showcasing Martin Fry’s vocal talents as well as the 80s production and some very good bass. As noted, I remember “Poison Arrow” from the time and it still remains a catchy little number.

By the time “Many Happy Returns” has been playing for a minute or so, you start to get the nagging impression that you are hearing the same song for the third time with little tweaks here and there to convince the listener that they are hearing a different song. Not only that, you could probably call Tony Hadley or Simon Le Bon off the subs bench and things with still run like a smooth machine.

I can see why several people on the thread, including @BimboBob, hold this album in high esteem. The negatives can easily be glossed over by a forgiving teenage audience and as the years pass by, because the album holds a special place in the listener’s heart, the faults even become part of the nostalgic magic – we are all guilty of this even though there is nothing to be guilty about. Music reminds us of those happy and sad times, and we’ll always carry it with us, good or bad.

Now to that “exciting” comment I mentioned earlier in the thread – or should I say, “excitable”. There’s no doubt that the productions is, arrrr, busy. You can just imagine Trevor Horn running around the studio whipping everybody into an excitable frenzy. When the backing singers and saxophonist are looking for a breather after a breathless opening treble, somehow he gets them even more frenzied for “Tears Are Not Enough” – surely he has fitted Martin Fry in some tight Y-fronts to get him to sound like this? By the time “Valentine’s Day” rolls around, the production has got out of control. It’s all very slick but just a bit too much, crimes repeated later on “Date Stamp” and “4 Ever 2 Gether”.

“The Look of Love, Pt1” is a great song and the best of the bunch is “All of My Heart” – an absolute perfect pop song with brilliant vocals and sweeping string backing. After this highpoint, it’s all downhill to the end of the album.

For the reasons I outlined at the start of this review, I enjoyed listening to this album for the first time because in a way, it forms a bridge between the point in time where I couldn’t care less about music (other than those TV sports theme tunes and film scores!) and the time where my ears started to prick up to the possibilities of music.

Several times on these threads, I’ve mentioned my cherished time listening to Radio One’s Stereo Sequence on a Saturday afternoon in the mid-80s, and ABC’s “When Smokey Sings” was a regular feature for a while, a song I’ve always loved. I enjoyed listening to Martin Fry’s vocal throughout and for all its faults, excess gloss and dips in quality (who shouted “filler!”?), there’s no denying the timeless catchiness of “Poison Arrow”, “The Look of Love” and “All of My Heart”. Most bands would be happy to have just one hit record that has stood the test of time like any of these three, and yet ABC did it three times on one album. It’s more than worth 7/10.
 
RobMCFC said:
For the reasons I outlined at the start of this review, I enjoyed listening to this album for the first time because in a way, it forms a bridge between the point in time where I couldn’t care less about music (other than those TV sports theme tunes and film scores!) and the time where my ears started to prick up to the possibilities of music.
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I'm putting a tenner on the Ski Sunday theme being one of them??
 
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