Add and subtract, but as a matter of fact, now that you're gone I still want you back.
Remembering, surrendering, remembering that part.
All of my heart.
ABC are an influential New Romantic/Synth-Pop/New Wave band from Sheffield, UK. Originally a minimalist electronics group called Vice Versa, Keyboardist Martin Fry joined them and they eventually changed their name to ABC. They are most famous for their debut album, The Lexicon of Love, which was very highly acclaimed and a commercial smash. Their later albums were not so well received, and they split up in the early 1990s. But they made a comeback soon enough, and from then on have had a lucrative career on the 80s revival circuit.
Not to be confused with The Jackson 5 album ABC and its title song, nor the American television network ABC, nor the early-90s hip-hop group Another Bad Creation. Nor for that matter with the Alphabet Song.
Discography:
- The Lexicon of Love (1982)
- Beauty Stab (1983)
- How to be a...Zillionaire! (1985)
- Alphabet City (1987)
- Up (1989)
- Abracadabra (1991)
- Skyscraping (1997)
- Traffic (2008)
- The Lexicon of Love II (2016)
ABC's work contains examples of:
- Animated Music Video: "(How to Be A) Millionaire."
- Break-Up Song: The Lexicon of Love is a breakup album.
- Dented Iron: Martin Fry had a nasty bout with cancer in 1985 (Hodgkin's lymphoma), and although the touring schedule was still impressive after his recovery, it wasn't as intensive as it had been before.
- I Am the Band: Martin Fry has been ABC's sole official member since the mid-1990s.
- Money Song: "How to Be a Millionaire"
- Record Producer: Trevor Horn, for their first album.
- Sexy Sax Man: Their sax player Stephen Singleton is said to be this in the introducing-the-band song "Alphabet Soup": "Now sax equals sex, equals sax / Which makes Stephen pornographic..."
- Singer Namedrop: "The Look of Love (Part 1)" has this, along with Spoken Word in Music:And though my friends just might ask me,
They say "Martin, maybe one day you'll find true love."
I say "Maybe, there must be a solution,
To the one thing, the one thing, we can't find!" - Sharp-Dressed Man: The band, especially lead singer Martin Fry, were well known for their stylish suits and other outfits.
- Shout-Out: "When Smokey Sings" is, of course, a tribute to Smokey Robinson but also contains nods to Luther Vandross, Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown and Marvin Gaye
