★★★★★
If ever a band was in danger of being defeated by its own benchmark, it was ABC. Their 1982 album The Lexicon Of Love, an extravagant and meticulously assembled song cycle flamboyantly produced by Trevor Horn, became one of the landmark albums of the 80s, threatening to turn them into the Orson Welles of pop - a startling Citizen Kane that could never be bettered.
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-12-06
★★★★★
ABC appeared at a turning point in pop, as the rough and tumble of post-punk gave way to a more sophisticated, lithesome Brit-funk, expounded by bands like Pigbag and Funkapolitan. Decked out in tailored suits and gold lame, the Sheffield quartet - fronted by the elegant Martin Fry - pounced onto dance floors in October 1981 with the splendid "Tears are Not Enough"...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2010-08-22
★★★★★
No one could have made a more stunning entrance into early eighties pop than ABC. First album 'The Lexicon Of Love' was a pop classic dripping in strings and white-boy funk which, having done the chart-topping business here, went on to slay America and confirmed Martin Fry and his shapeshifting line-ups as true pop gold as their lame suits. Then, the difficult second ('The Beauty Stab'), underrated and mad third ('How To Be A Zillionaire') and 'Lexicon.....
- uk.launch.yahoo.com
2010-07-31
★★★★★
For all their recorded lushness—and was there a more pristine '80s bauble than The Lexicon Of Love?—ABC never quite nailed the visuals. The Jerome K Jerome river-larks of "The Look Of Love" and cartoon capery of "How To Be A Millionaire" aside, it was disappointingly standard fare: Martin Fry doing lost and lovelorn while being cold-shouldered by aloof waifs. As the decade (and the hits) thinned out, the videos almost stopped trying altogether. Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
- www.uncut.co.uk
2010-06-19
★★★★★
The look of the Mark I ABC fooled Anglophobes into dismissing the music as fashion-plated pandering even though it was as politically suggestive as Anglophile heroes get. So don't let the look of the Mark II ABC fool you into hoping the music is outrageous, or even campy. Sure "Be Near Me" is catchier than anything on Beauty Stab, but when Martin Fry is on his game the hooks that make ABC sell coexist with the glossy electrofunk and dense wordplay that make (or made) them sparkle...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-17
★★★★★
For two whole albums in the early '80s, nearly 18 months, Martin Fry poised on the dizzying edge of parody without cramping up. Then he nosedived. When he came to, he'd turned into the disco dandy he'd pretended he was so much smarter than, doomed to envy Neil Tennant till the end of his alienated days. If you want to honor Fry's artistic integrity, The Lexicon of Love can be had cheap. Poetically, this cheapo looks cheap while making Fry seem more pop-savvy than he actually was.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
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