Friday 18 January 2008

ABC Affectionately (part 2)

In a case of blogs eating themselves (or blatantly copying) here are my 10+1 favourite ABC tracks. There's a crossover of 5 but no 90s stuff here. I bought the Up album with much the same trepidation as I bought The Human League's Romantic? and left it at that. I've had a mega ABC post on the tip of my tongue forever, so until then, this is a perfect excuse to at least do a list!

1. S.O.S. (mp3 zShare)
My absolute favourite, the second single from the album Beauty Stab and the ninth most played on my iPod. Bloody geek.

The very homo-erotic S.O.S. video, 1984

2. Vanity Kills
Listen! A trumpet! Domino Dancing! Torch!

Vanity Kills, video, 1985

3. Look of Love (Part 1 and 4)
"What's the look? Look for your information, yes there's one thing, there's one thing that still holds true..."

Look of Love, Top of the Pops, 1982

4. That Was Then But This is Now (mp3 zShare)
"Can't complain, mustn't grumble, help yourself to another piece of Apple Crumble"

5. The Night You Murdered Love (mp3 zShare)
Another follow-up, this time to the massive When Smokey Sings. I love any track which manages to sing the calendar with panache.

6. Show Me (mp3 zShare)
Ah. Strings. Lots of 'em. Especially in that extended intro.

7. All of My Heart
"Add and subtract, but as a matter of fact. Now that you're gone I still want you back"

All of My Heart, video, 1982. At 3:31... the plug and the blood!!!??

8. A to Z (mp3 zShare)
In an attempt to not appear as the duo they really were, Martin Fry and Mark White had a gay bald midget, David Yarritu and a bewigged Face journo Fiona Russell-Powell (known as Eden) join the band in a Monkees-stylee (see above). This track is the ABC anthem for the How To Be a Zillionaire cartoon album. Martin Fry quotes a Bette Davis movie: "Who needs the moon, when we got the stars" and Eden invites everyone to kiss her snatch. Nice.

Now. Where do we begin? Firstly, who got these kids hooked on this pop filth in the first place? Secondly, the enthusiastic boy on the left is, at a guess, the ringleader/choreographer. Aw, bless, and you KNOW what I'm thinking. And thirdly, someone cut the "snatch"! haha! Just watch the little 'un at the front! Aw, again.

9. 4 Ever 2 Gether (mp3 zShare)
Hot Lips? Speak. No.

10. (How to be a) Millionaire
Martin Fry: "Real life was rubbish. We wanted to reinvent ourselves and our world in cartoons. Larger than life and twice as ugly".

(How to be a) Millionaire, video, 1984

+1. Fear of the World (mp3 zShare)
Another track from the Zillionaire album. This is the opener and the hook.

Postscript: loving the new track!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

ABC-tastic!
Great list with quite a few of my personal faves.
'How To Be A Zillionaire' is probably my most cherished ABC album - I loved them when they went a bit weird - even the 'Beauty Stab' era with thrashing guitars and apple crumble.
'Up' was quite a forward thinking album back in 1989 - there are one or two killer basslines on it. You should give it a spin ;)

DanProject76 said...

Oh yeah!

That Vanity Kills video makes me feel old. I looked at the American video after watching it and I think we got the better deal. Freaky pop!

I might have to go buy me some ABC now.

xolondon said...

I did not know Fear Of The World until now! Everything from this era has those banging drums. Still, I do think Zillionaire is better than Beauty Stab.