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 unfavorably
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.
| The
Band |
Martin Fry
Vocals
Mark White
Guitar
Mark Lickley
Bass |
Steve Singleton
Sax
David Palmer
Drums |
|
