ABC
ABC revolved around Martin Fry (a onetime fanzine editor of a
rag called Modern Drugs) and rose from the ashes of
post-punk group Vice Versa.
On this Sheffield band's first album, Lexicon Of Love ,
Fry set his own Bryan Ferry-influenced
vocals in lustrous pop production (by Trevor Horn) laden with
keyboards and strings to a techno-soul disco pulse and succeeded
admirably with Poison Arrow and The Look of Love.
The album hit the Number 1 spot in the UK.
It was always going to be a problem following the debut album
and their subsequent records, however varied, were inevitably
compared unfavourably with their debut. Several band members left
but Fry and White chose to soldier on, and found that in trying to
move on musically they had been left behind by critics and public
alike.
Beauty Stab (1983) was a lunge into rock, complete with
guitar solos - it was almost universally loathed, but in
retrospect it was one of the more daring career moves of the time,
and it pre-empted a trend of political pop two or three years
later.
How To Be A Zillionaire (1985) was a better record, but
showed that, once again, Fry and White were in the right place at
the wrong time. This time they were under the influence of New
York disco and the emerging electro and
hip-hop trends which were not quite yet mainstream genres in
Britain.
ABC nearly split up, not least because Fry had fallen seriously
ill during 1985-86. Thankfully he recovered and, inspired by the
American success of Be Near Me (Zillionaire's
closest relative to the much-missed sound of Lexicon), the
next album was very much a back-to-basics affair.
A contemporary pop-dance LP, Alphabet City (1987) was
their most successful since their first. It also contained their
tribute to Smokey Robinson, When
Smokey Sings, a big hit single on both sides of the Atlantic.
Fry and White's enthusiasm for the burgeoning house trend led
to the spirited but ultimately forgettable UP (1989), while
Abracadabra (1991) was a half-hearted attempt to reheat the
formula created and perfected a decade earlier.
With no official announcement of a split, it was something of a
surprise to find ABC (now essentially a Fry solo project)
returning in 1997 with a brand new LP Skyscraping.
Unfortunately, sporadic glimmers of pop excellence failed to
propel it into the public consciousness, and judging by their
inclusion on the bill of Culture Club's
comeback tour at Christmas 1998, it would seem that ABC and Fry
can only exist as part of an 80s revival bubble.
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