Don Waller of the Los Angeles Times praised the album, stating that Horn "deserves a share of the applause, but the songs — credited to all four ABC members — are the real deal: apocalyptic, widescreen romances with more hooks than a meat-packing plant. Mitchell Cohen of Creem contemporaneously declared it to be a "piece of sumptuous kitsch", adding that "the whole shebang is so florid, so exaggerated, so damned catchy – you want to hear "The Look of Love" a second time before it's even half over; it's a casserole of about forty different pop hits and advertising jingles – that you may feel guilty for falling for it. I guess Michael Jacksons Thriller and Fleetwood Macs Tango in the night would also be contenders but Lexicon of love truly is a timeless album and blows your mind everytime you hear it. In case it’s not clear from the above, there is no CD version of The Lexicon of Love available as part of this 40th anniversary campaign! 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".

My wife and I listened to it in the car on a long journey and it is still as good if not better now as it was more than a quarter of a century ago.Released by Neutron Records on 21 June 1982, it entered the UK Albums Chart at number one, also topping the New Zealand and Finnish charts.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.Here’s what Martin Fry has to say about Wilson’s work on this album: “…Part-alchemy and part-archaeology. Show Me' is a lively opener whilst '4 Ever 2 Gether', which weighs in at over 5 minutes in length, is quite inspired. The band’s timeless debut is, undeniably, their defining album; it reached number one in the UK album charts and delivered three UK top 10 hit singles: ‘Poison Arrow’, ‘The Look of Love” and ‘All of My Heart’ with first single – the original version of ‘Tears Are Not Enough’ – breaching the top 20 in late 1981. surround mix of the album (individual and continuous mix) by Steven Wilson plus notes from Martin Fry himself, and essay by Record Collector’s Daryl Easlea, this is a suitably sumptuous celebration of one of the most perfect pop albums ever.

Produced by Horn and engineered by Gary Langan, it features orchestrations by Dudley and programming of the recently-developed Fairlight CMI by J. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Band and producer Trevor Horn gelled immediately when they met to record : Horn described Fry's songs as "like disco, but in a Bob Dylan way". In The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Colin Larkin awarded the "superb" album 5 stars (outstanding).ABC and lead singer Martin Fry were an 80's pop band and along with the likes of Spandau Ballet, Ultravox and Duran Duran brought out some great songs which are still classics and played extensively today. and stereo for this reissue, but before we get to that, let’s establish the formats for this re-release. In 2009, ABC (with Fry as its sole member) performed the entire album at the Royal Albert Hall in London, accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra and conducted by Dudley. In 2004, a two-disc deluxe reissue including previously unreleased outtakes and early demos and a live performance of the album from 1982 was released by Neutron Records.