ABC: "That Was Then but This Is Now"

27 October 1983

"Fast and furious, the song still manages to retain a stylish feeling of grandeur that is the hallmark of ABC's work — even though Fry tries to rhyme "grumble" with "apple crumble"!"

— Peter Martin

This is our third encounter with ABC on this blog as they join Kim Wilde in the Single of the Fortnight hat trick club. But while our Kim reeled off a string of star singles on the bounce, ver "C"'s trio are more spread out. "Tears Are Not Enough" showcased Fry and co. just starting to get their feet wet, their funk-pop tightly honed but with a sound lacking the production sheen that would soon take them over the top. "All of My Heart" captures them in all their imperial grandness, all orchestral pomp and dramatic pop flair. "That Was Then but This Is Now" is where the lush production begins to get dumped in favour of a more rugged, even abrasive, approach.

A new year (even though '83 was nearly up by then), a new line-up, a new direction, yet so much promise dashed. Beauty Stab, ABC's follow-up to their million-selling, critically-fawned-upon debut The Lexicon of Love, is now considered to be one of the most sudden and inexplicable falls from grace in the history of pop music. Simon Reynolds even lumped it in with Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, The Clash's Sandinista! and The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique in terms of "great career-sabotage LP's". But even here Beauty Stab stands alone. Those other albums may have disappointed commercially but all have received some degree of critical reappraisal since (I am far from alone in considering Tusk to be superior to the Mac's blockbuster predecessor Rumours) and in at least one instance helped pave the way for better things to come (without Paul's Boutique there is no Check Your Head). Beauty Stab didn't sell, was panned by the critics, didn't do anything for ABC's career in the long run and hasn't been bothered with by anyone for over thirty-five years.

"That Was Then but This Is Now" was the lead-up single and, struggling to get into the Top 20 when Top 5 hits had been the expectation just a year earlier, bore the brunt of ABC's new-found unpopularity. Yet, it needn't have been so bleak. Certainly Peter Martin senses a change in the air but it's welcome one, being "one of the most exciting things they've done". And, as the quote up top states, the song manages to hang on to the group's stately tone while still pushing forward. Beauty Stab wouldn't be released for a couple more weeks so few were to know the even more radically rock 'n' roll tunes on offer. It's possible the public were tiring of ABC anyway since "S.O.S", the follow-up single, only got a token Top 40 position before promptly disappearing (which happened to be, in the words of Andrew Collins in a Beauty Stab reissue review in Q, even less convincing as a conciliatory gesture towards their former sound).

In retrospect, it's a shame that they didn't stay the course. I like to think they were attempting a reverse Roxy Music, having started off doing classy, stylish pop in the vein of late-seventies hits "Dance Away" and "Angel Eyes" and had now moved on to the more rockist lounge act that produced "Love Is the Drug" and "Both Ends Burning", numbers which "That Was Then..." clearly borrow from (even Martin Fry's vocalisms sound like sub-Bryan Ferry). It's fascinating to think what ABC might have done once they'd got to the extraordinary low-budget art rock of "Virginia Plain" and "Editions of You" that is the basis of Roxy's zenith but this, alas, never came to pass — and that's assuming they ever had such a career trajectory in mind anyway, which they surely hadn't.

With its all-too on the nose title, "That Was Then but This Is Now" signals a way forward, albeit one that they would abruptly abandon. In 2016, Fry finally released The Lexicon of Love II, aka That Was Then but This Is Also Then.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Michael John: "Love Will Tear Us Apart"
Joy Division: "Love Will Tear Us Apart"

An original and a cover. Not, mind you, a cover of the original; Martin rightly points out that somehow-not-a-household-name Michael John's version is based on Paul Young's cover of Joy Division's remarkable 1980 single. For all we know, John was as unfamiliar with Joy Division as everyone else is with Michael John. Martin describes it as a "ghastly pub-rock effort that is truly laughable" but to these ears it sounds more like tenth-rate eighties soul mixed with some ludicrous stadium rock guitar work. (But he's right about it being laughable) Young's reading isn't a whole lot better but at least he seems to have some understanding of the song's very dark heart. Can anyone pull off a vanilla "Love Will Tear Us Apart"? It seems unlikely. As for Joy Division's original, I have no idea why Factory figured it had to be reissued at this time but if they wanted to spitefully tank Michael John's chart fortunes by reminding everyone of just what an amazing song this can be in the right hands then it was well worth it.