The Lexicon Of Love

I’m not sure what genre of music this is, but I hate it.

80-talsdisco, kände bara igen ”the look of love” som en vanligt förekommande discolåt. Ser framför mig typiskt 80-tal med spretiga frisyrer med mycket klet, neon, midjekorta kavajer med axelvaddar osv. Inte min musiksmak. Ger högst en 1 i betyg.

Put off by the over the top theatricality.

Unfair, but I can't take this seriously because of Drew Tarver's Martin Sheffield Lickly played on Comedy Bang Bang.

Awful

Repetitive, it all sounds very similar. It almost sounds like parody of what an album from 1982 would sound like, if I was making music for a film set in that era. I really love the cover. I want to read the book with that cover.

Boring

Generic, overly theatrical 80's crap. I didn't need to hear this.

It was okay but I felt like I couldn’t tell one song from another. I liked the last song though.

As someone else said, it was nice of them to include an album that really showed everything that was wrong with 80s music.

This is terrible. This is like knock off Bowie. Another knock against 80s music. This sounds like every other crappy 80s dance music ever made. This album makes Duran Duran sound like The Rolling Stones. They could have made two lists out of this project, albums that you really have to listen to and shitty, obscure British bands in various genres that someone else did better. This is particularly egregious in light of the albums that didn't make the list. The Look of Love, Pt. 1 is the hit and the only song I've recognized so far and it is terrible. All of My Heart is awful. 4 Ever 2 Gether has a stupid title that looks like a 13 year old girl scribbled it on a love note to her crush and is the worst song on the album so far. I have to say so far because this album is plumbing the depths of awfulness that music can reach. The Look of Love, Pt. 4 is not only a dumb title for skipping the 2 and 3, but is just a more horn-driven instrumental of Pt. 1. Truly awful.

Nah

Yawn. This is the kind of euro-trash that gives new-wave a bad name. It’s all so disingenuous and it feels aggressively designed by committee, like record execs saw what was popular at the time at wanted to cash in on far better new-wave bands success. This music was clearly designed for radio airplay, and that kind of thing is just always so evident. It’s like what Pearl Jam was to the grunge era, entirely forced and unenjoyable. This album doesn’t even really deserve to be critiqued from a production standpoint. I didn’t enjoy a second of this album, and I look forward to forgetting it exists.

Hated it. Everything that was wrong with the 80’s. Nothing about this was good.

Another unnecessary and terrible 80s brit pop

Well that was pretty terrible. So dated and sooo cheesy. Definitely not something anyone needed to hear before they die. Don’t we have some Duran Duran on this list somewhere. This is like a sad ridiculous version.

Oh saxophone, thou foul cheese on the charcuterie board of euro-pop-trash new wave, why must thou torture mine ear holes so? I mean, this album was good for a laugh, and I could see clearly the trajectory from disco to euro-pop through this album that surrounds a one-hit wonder with more of the same same. “Poison Arrow” made me straight up giggle. Still, I will not revisit this. Because it was good for a lol, it’s properly a 1.5, but it left me wondering what the hell the 1001 record guy was thinking. He probably made out with his big-haired girlfriend to this utterly forgettable album or something.

1 stern

Fuck this album!

Meh not for me

I didn't end up finishing it .....

Subpar pop music that at least takes some ambitious swings, so not entirely flavourless. Ahhh The Look of Love - that's why these guys are popular I guess? Not my cup of tea.

80s glamp star

enough is enough with this 80s trash. This should only be on this list as a cautionary tale to never make music this bad again.

oh yeah. i remember this.

Nope. Did not need to listen to this.

Corny and dated and kind of annoying

The whole 80s production gang is here! Rubbery bass, disco guitars, digi synths, gated reverb big drums, awful strings, hyper compression, diva backing vocals, corny keyboard sounds, crazy decision making... It's like an AI amalgam of 80s pop, lacking its own personality aside from the drama in the vocals. Bands with better songs and more interesting taste can wrangle this sound into really effective distinctive albums that bear the scars of their era but stand the test of time - this band isn't one of those though. Not terrible, but it just constantly reminds you of the bands who made the same songs but 45% better.

Absolutely godawful

I thought I heard a saxophone and white-privilege arrangements coming from my garbage can, but realized it was just this album. I can't believe they killed disco for this garbage.

Opener “Show Me” launches with a funky and infectious bassline, but then the vocals kill it, like apparently 90% of British music from the 80s. Then we trade the great bass for an obnoxious saxophone on “Poison Arrow,” and you’ve totally lost me. The worst part is that we are left without the full picture of what love looks like. Where are “Look of Love” part two and three!? It's been a while since I've given a ⭐️. Wrong place, wrong time?

A spray fart in album form.

It’s like if the Pet Shop Boys all had lobotomies and then sat down to recreate what a white Prince would perform at a retirement home

Like a parody of Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark done by somebody who hates that kind of music

Had I been old enough in 1982 I would have absolutely fucking hated Lexicon of Love. I’ve listened to a lot 80s music in this project, this is the first time I’ve really disliked it. It’s pop trash 2.7/10

I wonder about some of these albums. This is one of those. I don't understand it. It is passionate, but def not my jam. It sounds like everything 80s in one place, and not in a good way.

1.5 too much 80s again

There are 80s and 80s. I don't understand this one...

1.5 Disco Duran Duran Sucks

too 80s too theatrical

Bad 80s.

Pure generic 80s pop.

Dear God. This is terrible.

Clever, polished, knowing songs full of artistry and artifice but utlimately it's souless, vacuous, contrived and artificial music that may just have made the mark it if the singing were not so weak. Good bass playing, arrangements and production though but as soon as the singing starts... yuk. I hate it.

This album sucks. There's no other way to say it. It's not always a good thing to be different, and this album is different from other 80s albums by going for the classic, super clean, pop sound of the 80s but absolutely sucks shit at production and mastering. The production is so tinny and crackly I can't decide what to make of it. The lyrics, dear god. The lyrics are a bunch of nothing burgers with no consistent cadence or rhyme. I'm pretty sure its not even on beat for most of the album. Absolute garbage. Have no idea how it could make it on to this list.

Stopped before the end of the third song, if you want to call it that…what a bloody shambles…if this is what is needed to help my neuroplasticity, I think maybe I’d rather go petrified…not even worth a star, but the app won’t allow me to go lower

This album is a lot, all the crooning and whispering. It's very dramatic and it's not for me.

Ouch. That was painful.

This band was everywhere in the MTV mid 80’s. I’m still not a fan.

In a nutshell: a copy of a copy. Why listen to ABC’s Lexicon of Love when you can listen to a-ha, Duran Duran, Frankie Goes To Hollywood or The Buggles? The production is good though (courtesy of Trevor Horn). Overall: 2/10

I hated this

pela capa, achei que era um album de big band ou swing dos anos 60. qual não foi a minha surpresa ver que era um álbum de new wave dos anos 80 que eu nunca tinha ouvido falar? infelizmente, o motivo pelo qual eu nunca tinha ouvido falar antes provavelmente é porque esse álbum é péssimo. datado e sem graça.

Awful. A true Worst Of the 80s

Thoughts before listening: I've heard of this band and the album cover looks familiar, but I've never listened to them. My initial thought is that they are 80s synth pop, but I'm not really sure. This is the type of album where I'm often surprised to recognize a song or two, but I definitely can't name any of their hits. Review: This isn't for me. The bass player is really good...kind of has a disco feel to his playing that I'm enjoying, but everything else isn't really doing much for me...and I might even call it annoying. This is the sound people are thinking of when they say they hate 80s new wave music.

Too much disco and pop for me.

Very 80’s - too dated to really be enjoyable

Meh

This sucks. It sounds like Walmart David Bowie waffling his way through some of the most tepid, uninspired disco instrumentals of all time. This entire album washed over me like a glass of room temperature milk. I can’t believe people dedicated their hearts and souls to this music (actually, probably not. If they had, it would be far better).

It's a very 80s album, containing all the things I don't like about that style of music. That dated pop sound just hasn't aged well in my opinion.

Painfully 80s. Did not enjoy it at all. Poison arrow is the pick of a bad bunch but it's all pretty bad Mercifully, parts 2 and 3 of the look of love don't seem to exist, or at least aren't on this album.

Meh, very boring

No me gustó nada.

This might be the most '80s album ever. And not in a good way. It's like it went out of its way to be every corny cliche possible.

Típico do pop oitentista, do tipo que não gosto.

Not my cup of Tea at all

New artist! Not for me! 1/5

ugh. Not to my taste. Too 80s schmick. Almost funky. Almost soulful. Almost sophisticated. Trying too hard to be polished. Just not there for me.

Sorry I didn’t like those sounds back than in the 80ies nor do I like them now. To much shiny surface, zero soul.

Ok. I don’t know why this was on the list…

80's TRASH

Don’t like it at the timeand it’s certainly not aged well. Middle or the road bilge that’s all sounds the same. Avoid.

Awful

Evil evil terrible horrible throwing up

Not a fan.

Tytul albumu mowi wszystko co trzeba wiedziec o tym debiutanckim krazku wyspiarskiej bandy ABC z 82, ktora tworzy w gatunku sophisti-pop, wiec ultimejt kombinejszyn nowej fali z elementami rockowania i jazzowania w przesadnie podnioslych aranzacjach, bo przeciez temat jakim jest milosc zobowiazuje, wiec 37 minut tortury mialkosci podzielonej na 10 trakow z ktorych nie ma co szukac slabszych i lepszych, bo brzmia zupelnie tak samo, jeden z najbardziej spojlerujacych okladkowo tytulowo pickow listy jak do tej pory

1.4 - pretty awful drivel. Gave it multiple chances and then an extra listen just for the singles. Score got lower each time. I doubt I’ll ever listen to this album again willingly.

I am just not a fan of 80s pop.

Not for me. That 80s synth pop still grates.

To be fair, lead singer Martin Fry sings with passion and conviction, not unlike a 14 year old girl alone in her room and pining over her own unrequited love. Unfortunately, the maturity of his lyrics are about the same as said young teen: ‘Who broke my heart? (You did, you did.) Bow to the target, (Blame Cupid, Cupid.) You think you’re smart. (Stupid, stupid.’ (‘Poison Arrow’) The banal subject matter and forced rhymes (‘A mathematical equation won’t describe my emotion,’ – ‘4 Ever 2 Gether’) are almost forgivable, until this one from ‘Many Happy Returns’: ‘Like the world, spinning ‘round on its axis, I know democracy, but I know what’s fascist.’ Again, a gross example of forced rhyming; but worse, the idea of using fascism in the context of a romantically broken heart is extremely insensitive to the millions of victims of actual fascist regimes under rulers such as Hitler and Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and Paul Pot, Idi Amin and Muammar Gaddafi, etc. The music itself? Catchy, danceable, for sure. It’s got that slap bass sound (the bass player is the best in the band) common to funk and disco, guitar and drummer are in their proper places. Martin Fry has a decent voice, lots of falsetto (if you’re into that- I’m not.) Other than that, not much more to say, really. If this is ABC’s lexicon of (romantic) love then they are in desperate need of a thesaurus. And a good high school poetry 101 class wouldn’t hurt, either. And in conclusion, I can’t help but echo a statement my good friend and fellow 1001 LPs reviewer already made: the trash can on the cover pic might be the most fitting depository for 'The Lexicon Of Love.'

take a bad idea, distil it, repeat it over the course of an entire album

Bon.. on s'en est jasé pas mal... Pénible... Duran Duran vibes La bass est le fun à jouer sûrement mais le tone est un peu too bright pour moi, bien produit, ça sonne mais c'est quétaine ... J'écouterais jamais ça 2 fois

J’aime bien ça, ça ne se prend pas au sérieux, mais c’est assez bien fait pour qu’on se demande. Par contre, ça ne mérite certainnement pas d’être dans cette liste.

J’ai l’impression d’écouter une comédie musicale. Je n’aime pas les comédies musicales. La basse est cool et certains petits éléments, mais je n’y reviendrai pas.

Nope

I really hated this. Everything on it is so over the top

FUCK 80s MUSIC

I’m not very difficult to please with 80s synth pop, and yet this bored me a lot.

Nope. I didn’t care for this.

Really, truly, very much not for me.

That certainly is A LOT of synth for so little enjoyment.

ugh. Not to my taste. Too 80s schmick. Almost funky. Almost soulful. Almost sophisticated. Trying too hard to be polished. Just not there for me.

Jesus. 80's corn-fest. 5 stars on Allmusic?! Fuuuuck off.

This is a low rating where I want to make my bona fides clear: I like 80s music, and I specifically like new wave and synthpop. That said: This annoys the everloving shit outta me; it sounds like Robert Smith fell into The Love Cats and couldn't get out.

Oof. The worst of the worst 80's shit. Bad synth drums. Shit 80s voice. Some cool bass with a Jamiroquai or Dua Lipa vibe. Kind of like disco without the fun.

Not my style or cup of tea. nothing wrong with it just boring to me.