408 Hello ABC - Tears Are Not Enough

Chart  entered : 31  October  1981

Chart  peak : 19

Number  of  hits : 18

Here  come  another  band  from  Sheffield  who  became  prisoners  of  their  own  success.

ABC  evolved  out  of  Vice  Versa  , a  synth  trio  formed  in  1979  including  Mark  White and  Stephen  Singleton. They  set  up  their  own  record  label  Neutron  to  distribute  their  music. They  were  purveyors  of  a  particularly  dour  and  minimalist  synth  music  somewhere  left  of  John  Foxx  and  early  Human  League  with  Mark  providing  the  dehumanised  vocals  intoning  their  future  shock  lyrics. In  January  1980  they  put  out  a  four  track  EP  "Music  4"  which  got  Single  of  the  Week  in  the  NME.  This  led  to  an  interview  by  English  graduate  Martin  Fry  for  his  fanzine  Modern  Drugs  ; as  the  other  guy  in  the  trio  had  just  left  he  was  invited  to  join  as  a  keyboard  player. Martin's  arrival  did  not  greatly  change  the  sound  as  their  cassette-LP  "8  Aspects  Of"  and  Dutch  single  "Stilyagi"  later  in  the  year  prove.

While  jamming  in  Holland  the  guys  discovered  that  Martin  had  a  pretty  good  singing  voice  , opening  up  new  possibilities  for  the  band. Mark  happily  gave  up  lead  vocal  duties  and  suggested  they  ditch  the  synths. He  switched  to  guitar  and  Steve  to  saxophone.  The  name  of  the  band  was  changed  to  ABC  after  the  last  Vice  Versa  gig  at  Futurama  in  September  1980 and  they  started  playing  pop  with  a  distinct  funk  and  soul  element  in  deliberate  contrast  to  their  previous  oeuvre. They  needed  a rhythm  section  and  so  recruited  drummer  David  Robinson  and  bassist  Mark  Lickley.

It  took  them  a  full  year  to  get  a  single  out  but  they  were  well  repaid  with an  instant  hit. Lavishly  packaged  with  a  rather  Fry-centric  essay  on  the  back  of  the  sleeve  which  would  have   long  been  held  against  them  if  they  hadn't  been  successful , "Tears Are  Not  Enough"  sounds  rather  lumpy  by  comparison  with  what  was  to  come  and  was  reportedly  quite  difficult  to  record. David's  drumming  is  leaden  to  say  the  least  and  he  was  immediately  replaced  after  promotional  duties  had  been  fulfilled  and  producer  Steve  Brown  was  also  jettisoned  in  favour  of  a  certain  Mr  Horn . Still  the  song  was  strong  enough  to  cut  through  the  murk   with  Martin's  Bowie-esque  vocal   delivering  a  kiss-off  to  his  lover  while   demonstrating  his  taste  for  pop  irony  with  the  deliberate  references  to  Ken  Dodd's  MOR  mega-hit  of  yore. Some  of  Vice  Versa's  minimalism  is   detectable  in  Mark's  one  note  rhythm  guitar  and  the still -surprising    raw  percussion  break   (  which   was  softened  up  with  a  synth-line  when  they  re-recorded  it  on  The  Lexicon  Of  Love  ) .

I  thought  I  was  going  to  hate  it  having  read  all  Fry's  bravado  about  the  group  but  found  myself  thinking  actually  this is  quite  good.