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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Definition of Style, September 25, 2003
1981: Just when you thought you had heard every David Bowie and Bryan Ferry imitator to warble his discontented angst into the wind, along came ABC. They were smart like Bowie, fashion-mad like Ferry, and (before he became producer du jour) sonically adventurous with Trevor Horn at the dials. Lyrically witty to the point of brilliant, "The Look Of Love" remains a sonic marvel. It combined the lush orchestrations of disco with the propulsion of Motown, with enough English mannerisms to broach "new wave." Horn's production touches also made it sound completely unlike anything else on the radio or dancefloors at the time.Yet there was more than a dreaded one hit wonder here. Songs like "Poison Arrow" and "Tears Are Not Enough" had more hooks than a hardware department and made radio sound vibrant in the early 80's. Lead Singer Martin Fry also had the looks down for the early generation of MTV, and the high style of the band's early videos (including one of the earliest longform music vid/movies in "Mantrap") gave them the extra boost that they needed to conquer the US. But what really mattered was, and remains, the music. "The Lexicon Of Love" has held its original splendor years after many of the other MTV bands of the period have lost their sheen. This was one of the first CD's I bought when Disc players were relatively new, and the remaster here, as it does with Roxy Music's "Avalon," brings out even more of the original disc's depth and sparkle. I can't imagine my record collection without "The Lexicon of Love."
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A benchmark for the digital recording era., November 5, 2005
"We spend a lot of time writing and crafting the songs-they must be danceable, memorable, intelligent, functional, passionate. These things shouldn't be excluded from pop music-they should be exploited and exaggerated."
ABC's debut album, coming out in 1982 amongst a flurry of Post-Disco/Brit New Wave acts, linked ABC with bands like Spandau Ballet, Human League, Culture Club, Kajagoogoo, Gary Numan, Scritti Politti and Howard Jones. Certainly many of those bands shared a love of classic Motown, but ABC was never part of any scene, and considered themselves outsiders. From the first "The Lexicon of Love" was something else entirely and seemed to cut through the airwaves like a knife once the first piano chords and wailing saxophone of "The Look of Love" gave way to the funky syncopated baseline and lead singer Martin Fry's choir-boy inflected voice declaring dramatically:
"When your world is full of strange arrangements
And gravity won't pull you through
You know you're missing out on something
Well that something depends on you...."
The song instantly propelled them to fame in the US and Europe, but unlike many of their contemporaries, ABC had a fully realized album to back up their single. Over twenty years later, "The Lexicon of Love" is increasingly mentioned in the list of recording studio masterworks, largely due to the skill, audacity and precociousness of studio engineer wonderboy Trevor Horn, who cut his teeth with the Buggles, and had embraced the DIY - Keyboard/Synth/Pop esthetic and with this recording, declared himself heir apparent the minute it was released and people realized just how damn good a bunch of machines in service of some well crafted pop songs could sound.
I don't think it's hyperbole whatsoever to say that this album was a dividing point and paradigm shift in the history of modern recorded music. It subsequently inspired what is now a long line of producer/engineers as artists, and can be traced directly to the work of Jimmy Jam/Terry Lewis, and contemporary acts like NIN, Prodigy, Daft Punk, Crystal Method, and the collected works of Dr. Dre. The samples, the lush orchestral flourishes, the Fairlight, the pulsing Base and Drum lines that still sound fresh twenty years later -- this is an album that is best described as unabashedly artificial, in service curiously to the demands of idealists who would accept nothing less than a sound that would grab your ears, and pack the dance floor of London's most fashionable night club.
Certainly ABC as credited, was primarily Martin Fry, who gave the band it's New Romantic front man image, Motown influences, and sex appeal (not to mention that bit of vintage 80's sexual-preference ambiguity) supported primarily through the years by guitarist Mark White. Fry's arch english annunciation and distinctive warbling tenor voice which frequently jumps a falseto octave when the time seems right, matched perfectly his penchant for ambiguously clever rhyming wordplay. But the ABC of "Lexicon of love" was more a collaborative studio project with contributions not only from Horn and the other 2 members of ABC, but also Anne Dudley (who would become Art of Noise with Horn) providing Orchestral flourishes on keyboards, and Tessa Web who sings choruses, and provides backing vocals on several tracks most notably "Poison Arrow" which became a major radio hit, and staple of MTV.
"The Look of Love" is very much studio lightning in a bottle, and provides a high water mark of the studio art joining the list of similarly regarded albums like "Pet Sounds", "Sgt. Pepper's" and "Dark Side of the Moon". What the IPod/MP3 generation will likely miss is that "Lexicon of Love" was also a carefully constructed and arranged collection of song, with instrumental diversions inserted between tracks, and songs that flow from one to another elevating the collection to something more than the sum of its parts. That this was the intention and design was made quite clear in the album liner, which featured what appeared to be lyrics to a song, but were in fact, snippets of lines from each of the songs placed together to form one continuous lyric.
In the short-attention-span 21st century, where software on our digital player creates a virtual radio station, few newcomers to the songs on the album will probably ever fully appreciate the way the absence or presence of a second or two of silence can help build on the theatrical design of an album like this one -- how the opening track "Show Me" flows into "Poison Arrow" for example. If you can, listen to the CD without those features on to get the full effect. It's no surprise that in the years since the album was released, people who first experienced it on vinyl and were blown away and forever changed by what it accomplished sonically, have made sure the album appears on magazine and critics best lists, despite all the assumptions that accompanied it originally, when ABC was seen as one of many bands to be consumed and dicarded as byproducts of a short lived fad.
The bands follow up, "Beauty Stab" was a major departure from this album, and perhaps an attempt to acknowledge that despite the 14 additional musicians the band required to to perform the songs of "Lexicon of Love" on their first world tour, ABC actually had aspirations to be an honest to goodness guitar/drums/bass performing unit. It would be an understatement to say that what for many other bands would have been seen as a strong collection, for ABC was a spectacular disaster.
Which is not to say, that it's even possible to seperate where the artistry of Fry and his bandmates, and their years of songwriting and performance, honing their material ends, and the studio wizardy and session musician contributions begin. In other words, without the songs, and the conceptual design, studio perfection can only get you so far. The two halves were required for the whole. "The Lexicon of Love" was born of collaboration and shared aspirations, and despite Fry's deliberation, long recruitment and rehearsal period, and intense focused vision, it certainly is less the product of a band, and more a carefully crafted art piece, offering a first glimpses of what the digital age had in store for us.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You can never go over-the-top enough!, August 17, 2005
The New Romantic movement gave us many memorable artists, but perhaps none left as stylish and indelible a mark as Sheffield's ABC. The band first hit the U.K. charts with "Tears Are Not Enough" on their own Neutron label. Interest in the single lands them a deal with a major label and Trevor Horn (Yes, Art of Noise) agrees to produce their first full length recording. The end result "Lexicon of Love" is one of the quintessential New Romantic recordings. A lush paean to love it summons echoes of Roxy Music, but at the same was very original and unique. Fronted by vocalist extraordinaire Martin Fry the crack four man group was ably augmented by Horn's studio wizardry. Equal parts intelligence, flamboyance and swagger Fry commands the show and his lyrics reflect a mixture of ecstasy and agony, treachery and regret, irony and sorrow. Hearing the original demo of "Tears..." you can hear the genesis of what would evolve under the benevolent tutelage of Trevor Horn. Who made who is obvious.
The curtain lifts on with the dramatic opener "Show Me" with Fry soaring to a wonderful falsetto at points amid a lush orchestrated backdrop, the perfect set up for "Poison Arrow," perhaps one of their best tracks. The video of "Poison Arrow" is perhaps most indelibly etched in people's memories for the band in white ties and Martin cavorting in the infamous gold lamé suit with an 80s beauty. On the pulsating track the wonderful Tessa Niles plays vocal foil to Martin who posits "I thought you loved me, but it seems you don't care" to which Tessa counters "I care enough to know I can never love you" to a crescendo of drums. The song is absolute ecstasy and my all-time favorite. "Many Happy Returns" starts off with a spoken into and then rapidly picks up tempo and actually points the direction ABC would go with the following release "Beauty Stab." Fry's lyrics and the raw emotionalism of the song is quite striking and it gives yet another chance to show off his astonishing falsetto. "Many Happy Returns" glides into the rambunctious "Tears Are Not Enough" which kicks off with Martin's highest falsetto. The track crackles with life recalling Haircut 100 (a contemporary New Romantic band) with its lively horns and prominent bass line. While it bears a passing resemblance to the demo version it's clear that Trevor Horn is the mastermind pumping life and energy into the recording. Heavy strings and glockenspiel (or is it fairlight?) open "Valentines Day" with Martin pushing his vocals to their very limits building to a crescendo where Martin implies "I'd be a Millionaire; I'd be a Fred Astaire." There's nowhere to go but the first single that broke ABC in the USA, "Look of Love (Part One)" which summons up images of the dapper band from their music video. Vocally this is a showcase for Martin's full range, from low spoken asides and growls up to his falsetto. Musically its ABCs absolute zenith with full orchestration and once its over its hard to imagine where you could go from such ecstasy, but there's more cards up Martin's sleeve. "Date Stamp" is pure Trevor at the intro pointing at things to come for Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Propaganda, and others. Martin and Tessa heat things up in what is practically a duet against a thumping bass line. What follows is perhaps one of my favorite track "All of My Heart" a profoundly felt song on love, loss, and regret reflected in Martin's vulnerable and heartfelt vocals. For me the recording could and should have ended here as there's no way you could top the sentiments and raw emotionality in "All of My Heart." Recalling not so much "Manifesto" or "Flesh and Blood" era Roxy Music as it does "Avalon" it would be the obvious direction for ABC to continue. Instead things resume with "4 Ever 2 Gether" a slight tune with a rather creepy intro and eerie backing track that hints somewhat at where they would go with "Beauty Stab." The rather fitting coda to it all is the closing blast of "Look of Love (Part Four)." The original recording had "Look of Love (Part Two)" which is not included here, but "Theme From Mantrap," a track from their spy movie/accompanying full length video (on VHS and Laserdisc). Thematically "Mantrap" fits in with the rest of the tracks, and many of the tracks on "Lexicon..." were used in "Mantrap."
ABC epitomized everything great about the New Romantics and this recording perfectly encapsulates 1982 and that era. ABC were on the cutting edge with sumptuous videos and sterling production. From "Lexicon..." they moved to the perceived misstep of "Beauty Stab" from which they would recover. "Lexicon..." has nary a dull track and will have you enthralled from start to finish. A must for any fan of 80s or New Romantic music!
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