The Lexicon of Love – ABC’s Elegant Heartbreak

Martin Fry sings in Date Stamp, “Love has no guarantee, no promise of eternity.” It’s a perfect summation of The Lexicon of Love — an album that wears its title like a romantic manifesto yet reads, lyrically, as a litany of love gone wrong. Every track is drenched in longing, irony, and heartbreak, but Martin Fry’s clever wordplay keeps the whole affair light, witty, and exquisitely poised. Rather than wallowing in despair, he turns heartbreak into high art — part torch song, part pop theatre. It's interesting to note that Fry was a music journalist of sorts prior to joining the band. Other journalists who've ventured into the music world successfully include Morrissey, Chrissie Hynde and Neil Tennant.

The arrangements throughout the album are nothing short of spectacular. Strings swoop, horns shimmer, and percussion crackles with precision. Much of this brilliance can be credited to the powerhouse partnership behind the scenes: Anne Dudley and Trevor Horn. Dudley — composer, arranger, and member of the pioneering electronic group Art of Noise — gave the album its lush orchestral sweep. Horn, fresh from his work with The Buggles, Yes, and pop duo Dollar, transformed ABC’s demos into cinematic soundscapes. Together, they created one of the most polished and ambitious pop albums of the 1980s.

From the urgent shimmer of Poison Arrow (“Who broke my heart? You did, you did!”) to the dazzling sophistication of The Look of Love, the record leaps from one perfect pop-soul confection to another. It’s a masterclass in marrying style and substance. These songs could easily have been dismissed as glossy chart fodder, but beneath their sheen lies craftsmanship, sincerity, and a beating human heart. Fry may play the wounded dandy, but his emotions are disarmingly genuine.

Nowhere is this truer than on All of My Heart, the album’s emotional centerpiece. With its sweeping strings and bittersweet melody, it encapsulates everything The Lexicon of Love set out to achieve: romance as theatre, heartbreak as poetry. When Fry pleads, “What’s it like to have loved and to lose her touch? What’s it like to have loved and to lose that much?” — it’s pop perfection at its most poignant.

Upon its release in 1982, The Lexicon of Love became an instant classic. It soared to number one on the UK Albums Chart and stayed there for 50 weeks, eventually becoming the fourth biggest-selling album of the year. Critics hailed it as a dazzling blend of sophistication and pop sensibility — a record that brought emotional intelligence and orchestral grandeur to the New Romantic era.

Over forty years later, The Lexicon of Love remains a benchmark for intelligent pop — elegant, emotional, and eternally stylish. Love may have no guarantee, as Fry reminds us, but great music like this most certainly does.

Check out: ABC - The Lexicon of Love