Trevor Horn's masterly production skills are very much to the fore on this wonderful constructed pop album of the early 1980s. I talked them into getting a better bass player, which maybe wasn't a kind thing to do,” he said, "[but] Brad Lang was quite brilliant". All four Steven Wilson mixes are previously unreleased and an instrumental version of the album is entirely unheard (and fascinating! ABC appeared at a turning point in pop, as the rough and tumble of post-punk gave way to a more sophisticated, lithesome Brit-funk, expounded by bands like Pigbag and Funkapolitan. Lead vocalist Martin Fry said that they had wanted to fuse the attitude of punk and the sophistication of disco.

Some of the founding members of the later record label ZTT Records and the band The Art of Noise collaborate in the production of the album. 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. ABC leader Martin Frey sings with a histrionic despair, at once naive and cynical, and all dressed up by horn and string sections that feel positively overwhelming. In a review of a 2005 retrospective of Trevor Horn's work, Pitchfork concluded: "If you don't already own the original records, all can be found cheap and all (especially ABC's Lexicon of Love) are essential documents of their era".

This is a really good LP for turning up loud and blowing away the cobwebs so it's a thumbs up from this reviewer. With rare tracks and concert performances never before on vinyl, plus the original album half-speed mastered at Abbey Road by Miles Showell; a first time HD restoration on Blu-Ray of ABC’s feature film, Mantrap, plus a brand new Atmos and 5. 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". Decoding the Dolby Atmos mix requires a Dolby Atmos-certified soundbar or a Dolby Atmos-compatible AV Receiver/Amp.

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. 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. It is amazing to see a review saying "two decades on and still going strong" and to realise it was written 11 years ago. Lexicon of Love contains their biggest hit Look of Love, along with a whole host of others which will rapidly grow on you if not heard before. Including] songs as perfect as 'The Look Of Love' – replete with knowingly absurd talkover – or the jaw-dropping 'All of My Heart,' still one of the '80s most underrated singles.Ken Tucker of The Philadelphia Inquirer was less enthusiastic, dismissing the album as "prissy dance music, light on the beat and heavy on the sort of maundering crooning that the effete English rock musicians frequently mistake for passion.

However, one has to wonder what Trevor Horn would do if he dared to do a surround mix or revisit of this masterwork. 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". My remix of ABC’s classic 1982 album The Lexicon of Love was released on 4th August 2023 for its (somewhat belated) 40th anniversary. Brilliant service throughout from this seller, my item arrived earlier than expected and in brilliant condition. In The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Colin Larkin awarded the "superb" album 5 stars (outstanding).

But if vinyl doesn’t interest you the good news is that there is also a standalone blu-ray edition exclusively available from Super Deluxe Edition.

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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. However, the blu-ray that comes with the vinyl box doesn’t include the original 1982 mix of The Lexicon of Love (it’s on the SDE disc in hi-res 96/24 stereo) so the disc in the vinyl box set has four versions of the album and not five. Disc 2 features some early demos and a previously unreleased live run-through of virtually the entire album, recorded during the band's heyday in 1982. Steven had unearthed all the magic that lay within the analogue tapes of the original recordings with dexterity and diligence, shining a light on all that lay inside.