Open Web Player
It would seem that ABC's second album
Beauty Stab
didn't exactly do a whole lot for them career wise. Kind of awkward in a way because,creatively it was not a sophomore slump but commercially it was for sure. Martin Fry's own wittily anti corporate sentiments seemed to be coming true here,as it became apparent audiences and the media were zeroing in mostly on the surface glitter and outward style of the band as opposed to anything they had to say. So happens all the time right? Well a couple years after that ABC re-emerged with an album that took all of it's musicalcues from their debut
Lexicon of Love
,that is matching Fry's culturally aware lyrics with a more stylized dance production. Of course the years between 1982 and 1985 here represented a lot of changes in the way the music was starting to sound. As synthesized and stylized the production of their debut was,there wasn't much of a place by this time for much of a live rhythm section such as a bass or guitar. Luckily they had had the right idea for that-not to attempt to replace live instrumental sounds with artificial ones but to allow the electronics and digital production to be itself.
"Fear Of The World","Vanity Kills" and the title song are very much mid 80's dance-pop songs musically,with a very strong early sense of that somewhat downbeat retro disco sound of the Pet Shop Boys. Of course the lyrics actually are more pointed and direct than either of their first two albums. Fry is constantly fingering corrupt capitalists and the media. At the same time it's all in the spirit of laugh at them as opposed to being angry about it. The breakout hit of course was "Be Near Me",a very sunny melody and a well assembled synth-dance number to be truthful. "Ocean Blue" is rather a unique and more cryptic song with very poetic lyrics and something of a contemporary jazz-pop flavor about it. That influence is heard much more obviously on "15 Story Halo",one of my favorite songs on the album that takes some mid 80's cliches (synthesized horns,etc) into a swinging Benny Goodman,pre Brian Setzer (but not pre Sray Cats) type rhythm. It's very futurist in retrospect. "A To Z" brings some hip-hop/electro funk type break beats to the affair as each band member introduces themselves in a little mini rap.
"How To Be A Millionaire","Tower Of London" and "So Hip It Hurts basically conclude the album,along with the official closer in the romantically inclined "Between You And Me" the way it began with a trio of somewhat darkly funky dance-pop numbers about fashion police,obsession with money and materialistic women. In short,the cliches through which many perceive the mid 1980's. The heightened commentary of the lyrics,as well as the bands new found androgynous image made it more than clear that ABC had a new and more in your face persona. And that they could comment about media and corporate thought processes while giving the impression they'd completely caved into them. Anyway a less critical audience basically ate it up. Even though I was five years old I can even remember "Be Near Me" and the saturation radio play it got even in rural America. I didn't mind at all. It was all well done,amusing and as I grew,it grew with me. So even though 1985 in particular seems to inspire a lot of haters,it did have it's strong points and cultural commentators who "talked it and did it". So that's where ABC were to me.
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2012
Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2017
Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2010
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2016
Top reviews from other countries
Andrew Hurst
ABC - How To Be A Zillionaire
Reviewed in Australia on November 13, 2020
Jason Parkes
ABC's neglected pop-classic from 1984...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 20, 2006