Daily Record 7/12/11: Beauty Stab-ABC (1983)
Just a few sentences about today's Daily Record, ABC's 1983 opus, Beauty Stab:
This awkwardly ambitious (ambitiously awkward?) album is the very definition of "sophomore slump." And yet, there is something fascinating about it, at least to these ears.
After having a few hit singles ("The Look of Love" and "Poison Arrow") from their debut album, The Lexicon of Love, ABC decided to add some heaviosity to their "new romantic" sound, mostly in the form of a smattering of chugging eletric guitar bits and some pointedly political lyrics. Sadly for ABC, the singles from Beauty Stab were only minor hits in their native U.K. and didn't crack the Top 40 at all in the United States. The band's two biggest hit singles (1985's "Be Near Me" and the even bigger "When Smokey Sings" two years later) were still ahead of ABC but after the misguided Beauty Stab, I doubt that anyone took the idea of an entire ABC album seriously again.
As for me, I never bothered with Beauty Stab in 1983 and probably passed it by in bargain bins for years thereafter. Recently though, I've developed a fascination for any music released in 1983 (the year I graduated high school/started college) as well as an interest in records that have over the years either faded into obscurity or have developed cult followings in the years following their unsuccessful releases. Beauty Stab certainly falls into at least two of those categories.
So just this year I found a cheap copy of Beauty Stab on vinyl and, several spins later, I kind of like it. Not every song, mind you, but a bunch of them, even (maybe especially) those with the intrusive electric guitars.
So there you have it. ABC's Beauty Stab: the Daily Record.
This awkwardly ambitious (ambitiously awkward?) album is the very definition of "sophomore slump." And yet, there is something fascinating about it, at least to these ears.
After having a few hit singles ("The Look of Love" and "Poison Arrow") from their debut album, The Lexicon of Love, ABC decided to add some heaviosity to their "new romantic" sound, mostly in the form of a smattering of chugging eletric guitar bits and some pointedly political lyrics. Sadly for ABC, the singles from Beauty Stab were only minor hits in their native U.K. and didn't crack the Top 40 at all in the United States. The band's two biggest hit singles (1985's "Be Near Me" and the even bigger "When Smokey Sings" two years later) were still ahead of ABC but after the misguided Beauty Stab, I doubt that anyone took the idea of an entire ABC album seriously again.
As for me, I never bothered with Beauty Stab in 1983 and probably passed it by in bargain bins for years thereafter. Recently though, I've developed a fascination for any music released in 1983 (the year I graduated high school/started college) as well as an interest in records that have over the years either faded into obscurity or have developed cult followings in the years following their unsuccessful releases. Beauty Stab certainly falls into at least two of those categories.
So just this year I found a cheap copy of Beauty Stab on vinyl and, several spins later, I kind of like it. Not every song, mind you, but a bunch of them, even (maybe especially) those with the intrusive electric guitars.
So there you have it. ABC's Beauty Stab: the Daily Record.