ABC, The Lexicon of Love (1982)

Where bought: again - unsure. There are two old style price logos on my copy for £6.99 that could be from the original release or my picking it up as a second hand record. I definitely got this more recently, which says possibly Mod Lang in Ludlow or the market in Worcester.

 

Even when I was a fan, almost exclusively, of horrible grotty noise and music that was more about a communicable performed energy than songcraft, I had a fascination for a realm of certain 80s bands that mixed ostensibly slick pop with some kind of visual gimmick. ABC, in their spangly jackets and occasionally straw boaters, looked kind of great but also like a bunch of pillocks. 

Now I'm older I can recognise The Lexicon of Love for what it is: literate upper echelon pop writing with state of the art production values. Whatever people are hearing when they hear SOPHIE and Drake in 2020 is what I hear here. Whatever nostalgia is reserved for Spaundau Ballet and Duran Duran nearly all deserves to be redirected to this album instead.

Trevor Horn, known chiefly for his productions which essentially enhance artifice (he made Yes sound stiff as a board on 'Owner of a Lonely Heart', but he also gave some clarity to their increasingly muddled writing) but adds a sense of gravitas and boldness. ABC were a bunch of Sheffield chancers; with Horn, JJ Jeczalik on Fairlight, and Anne Dudley adding keening strings they were matinee idols and world-beaters.

It would be almost impossible to overstate how much I love 'Tears Are Not Enough'. It is a perfect pop song. Overshadowed by the more famous 'Poison Arrow' and 'The Look of Love', both of which would be the best cut on the records of their contemporaries, the song arrives in full pp flight and eventually develops space and coolness, like the initial rage subsiding.

Two great singles off a record is something: The Lexicon of Love has four. 'Valentine's Day' has these torrid strings and glockenspiel runs with enough voltage to charge a small town for an hour. There is a fifth single ('All of My Heart') which some think is the high point: for me it is the only one that doesn't quite hit the same Matterhorn heights.

Anne Dudley, who would go onto be part of The Art of Noise and an acclaimed composer in her own right, nails the sound of the record better than I can:

I remember hearing the mix of The Look of Love and being amazed at how loud Trevor had made the strings. It was really nailing the ABC colours to the mast: this was to be an unapologetically lush and epic album. From then on, it was a given that we would add strings to many tracks, developing the unique sound of the album – a combination of cutting-edge technology, electronic sounds and real instruments.

There will be other British 'sophistipop' (a slightly naff sobriquiet given to a host of theoretically- and politically-inclined bands taking pop to new places in the early '80s) releases later in this exercise but I'm struggling to see how any of them (in my collection) hold a candle to this. It's funny ("If you gave me a pound for the moments I missed / And I got dancing lessons for all the lips I shoulda kissed /
I'd be a millionaire, I'd be a Fred Astaire") even when it is lush and funky, approachable even when in the midst of a reverie.

An easy keeper. One of my favourite pop albums of all time.