The Greatest Album Ever Made

Let me tell you about the greatest album ever made. It is both polished yet flawed. It is dumb yet clever. It dares to dream yet is rooted firmly in reality. It is The Lexicon of Love by ABC.

During the late-Seventies/early-Eighties, Sheffield produced a handful of bands who spearheaded a new electronic era for British pop. The Holy Trinity of this Steel City explosion were the Human League, Heaven 17 and ABC.

Whilst the Human League and Heaven 17 embraced dynamic synths and other electronic sounds born from the undeniable influence Krautrock was having at the time, ABC were swayed as much by 60s Motown and the idealised glamour of 50s Hollywood as they were Roxy Music and David Bowie - no more so than on their 1982 debut.



The most recognised tracks on the album are Poison Arrow and The Look of Love, yet this is an album where every song, barring the 0:59 interlude of The Look of Love, Pt.4 (although itself a beautifully lush passage of heavenly harps), could have been released as a single.



With Trevor Horn in the control room, the band had one of the most creative pop brains in Britain adding an unashamed gloss to the album: the guitars are tight and choppy; basslines are slapped up and down the fret-board (like all good 80s pop); and string sections add a grand, dramatic sweep to many of the songs.

Where the album races ahead of its contemporaries, however, is in the lovelorn lyrics of Martin Fry. Possessing a voice which is full of painful yearning, once-bitten-twice-shy heartache, and innocent optimism, Fry's witty wordplay and intelligent observations are that rare thing - believable and relateable.



If I were pushed I would say the album reaches its zenith on Valentine's Day, which sees a bruised Fry looking both bitterly and regretfully over a past love. It also has the genius lyrical denouement:

And I'm shaking a hand and clenching a fist/If you gave me a pound for the moments I missed/And I got dancing lessons for all the lips I should have kissed/I'd be a millionaire/I'd be your Fred Astaire



This is simply pop music at its best: both clever and with a heart.


Track listing:
1. Show Me
2. Poison Arrow
3. Many Happy Returns
4. Tears Are Not Enough
5. Valentine's Day
6. The Look of Love, Pt.1
7. Date Stamp
8. All of My Heart
9. 4 Ever 2 Gether
10. The Look of Love, Pt.4
11. Theme from "Mantrap"