ABC

Sheffield

ABC grew out of Vice Versa, an electronic band formed in Sheffield in 1977 by the synthesizer players Stephen Singleton and Mark White. Martin Fry, who edited the fanzine Modern Drugs, interviewed them and was soon asked to join on synthesizer. By late 1980 the band had become ABC, with Fry singing, Singleton on saxophone and White on guitar and keyboards. White later said Fry took the microphone during a session at which the band swapped instruments, and that everyone in the room got the chills. Vice Versa's first gig opened for Wire at the Outlook Club in Doncaster, and the band started its own label, Neutron Records, for the EP Music 4. As ABC they also went to Sheffield clubs where DJs mixed 12-inch records, and White said they got into Chic. Their first single, Tears Are Not Enough, reached number 19 in 1981.

The Lexicon of Love

For the debut album they chose Trevor Horn, whose work with Dollar they had admired. The Lexicon of Love came out on 21 June 1982 and entered the UK chart at number one. Anne Dudley arranged and played keyboards, J. J. Jeczalik programmed the Fairlight and Gary Langan engineered. Horn persuaded the band to replace bassist Mark Lickley with Brad Lang. Fry wanted songs about really loving or hating someone, in the manner of Rodgers and Hammerstein or Cole Porter, with strings like those on Chic records. Four singles reached the UK top 20: Poison Arrow, The Look of Love, which reached number four, All of My Heart and Tears Are Not Enough. The album spent 50 weeks on the chart and was the fourth biggest seller in Britain in 1982. The band's image was gold lamé and dinner jackets, and Fry's gold lamé suit, which became his visual trademark, was inspired by the wardrobe of Billy Fury. Julien Temple made the long-form spy pastiche Mantrap. A year later Horn, Langan, Dudley and Jeczalik formed the Art of Noise.

Changing course

The follow-up went the other way. Beauty Stab (1983), which the band produced with Langan, swapped the strings for guitars, peaked at number 12 and was mostly reviewed badly. Palmer had left to tour with Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Singleton went soon after the release. Fry and White added Fiona Russell Powell, known as Eden, and David Yarritu for How to Be a ... Zillionaire! (1985), an album presented in cartoon form that brought the band their first US top 10 hit with Be Near Me. Fry was then treated for Hodgkin lymphoma. As a duo with White, he made Alphabet City (1987) with Bernard Edwards of Chic assisting. It reached number seven in the UK, and When Smokey Sings gave them their biggest US hit at number five. Up (1989) experimented with house music, the 1990 compilation Absolutely reached the UK top 10, and Abracadabra (1991) was the last album with White.

Since

Fry continued as ABC, making Skyscraping (1997) alone and Traffic (2008) with Palmer. In April 2009 he played the whole of The Lexicon of Love at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Concert Orchestra, Dudley conducting and Horn joining them on stage. The show has since been repeated at Drury Lane, in Birmingham and in Sheffield, where a recording of the 2022 concert was released in 2023. The Lexicon of Love II, a sequel written with several collaborators, followed in 2016 and entered the UK chart at number five. Steven Wilson remixed the original in Dolby Atmos and stereo for a 2023 reissue.

Pitchfork's Jess Harvell wrote that ABC became the embodiment of the new pop scene. Horn said the early records endure because you can feel the era in them and because Fry's lyrics are the best. Fry himself said in 2015 that the debut set the benchmark: people loved it and still do. He is now the only official member of ABC.