The Lexicon of Love

Neutron Records released it in Britain. Mercury handled the US and Japan, and Vertigo Canada and Europe. The title came from the headline of an NME review of an ABC gig. Trevor Horn produced and Gary Langan engineered. Most of the album was recorded at Sarm East in London, with further work at Abbey Road, Townhouse, RAK and Good Earth, and the strings were recorded at Abbey Road and Advision to Dudley's arrangements. Songs were written collectively by the band, with Dudley credited on some. Fry said the aim was to fuse the strings and soundscape of Chic and Earth, Wind & Fire with the Cure and Joy Division. He has denied that it is a concept album, although all ten tracks deal with romance.

Once Lang and Dudley had joined, the band laid down most backing tracks live, and Horn described Valentine's Day as a live take. Dudley overdubbed keyboards, among them the Fender Rhodes that doubles a grand piano through All of My Heart, and Horn edited the multitrack of Many Happy Returns to double the length of its outro around her improvised Rhodes part. He gave Fry seven vocal tracks and had him sing each song seven times, then assembled the vocal. The album was mixed twice: Horn disliked the first cut, which he thought too soggy, and asked for two more weeks.

It entered the UK chart at number one, stayed 50 weeks, and was the fourth biggest seller in Britain in 1982. In the US it peaked at 24. It went platinum in the UK and gold in the US. Robert Christgau gave it an A-minus. Reviewing the 2004 deluxe edition for the BBC, Rob Webb called it a landmark album in British pop. Dave Simpson of the Guardian wrote in 2019 that it was one of the artistic triumphs of 80s pop. Record Mirror placed it fourth among the albums of the 1980s in December 1989, and it appears in the 2018 edition of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Neutron issued a two-disc deluxe edition in 2004 with outtakes, demos and a 1982 live performance, and a 2023 reissue added Steven Wilson's remixes.