Recorded August–September 1983 Producer ABC
Gary Langan Release date 14 November 1983 Label EMI | Length 42:58 Artist ABC Genre Rock | |
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Released 14 November 1983 (1983-11-14) Studio Various
Sarm Studios East and West
Townhouse Studios
Abbey Road Studios Beauty Stab
(1983) How to Be a ... Zillionaire!
(1985) Similar ABC albums, Rock music albums | ||
Abc beauty stab full album
Beauty Stab is the second studio album by English new wave band ABC. It was originally released in November 1983, on the labels Neutron, Mercury and Vertigo. The album was recorded over a period of three months between August and September 1983, in sessions that took place at Sarm Studios East and West, Townhouse Studios and Abbey Road Studios. It was a departure from the stylised production of the band's debut album, The Lexicon of Love and featured a more guitar-oriented sound.
Contents
The album was produced by ABC with Gary Langan, who was the audio engineer on the band's first album. The band employed the rhythm section of Andy Newmark (drums) and Alan Spenner (bass guitar) both of whom had recently recorded and toured with Roxy Music at the time. The cover photography was by Gered Mankowitz.
The album was certified Gold by the BPI for shipments in excess of 100,000 copies, but was not as commercially successful as its predecessor. It peaked at No. 12 on the UK Albums Chart and spawned only two Top 40 singles (neither of which made the Top 10). In a 1995 article, music journalist Simon Reynolds listed Beauty Stab among "the great career-sabotage LPs in pop history".
In 2005, a digitally remastered reissue of the album was released with bonus tracks.
Abc beauty stab 1983
Music and legacy
According to Bob Stanley of The Guardian, Beauty Stab was a drastic departure from The Lexicon of Love, and was "their attempt to take on the preconceptions of their fanbase": "The strings were gone, replaced by some tough guitars that sounded weirdly dated – sometimes like Low-era Bowie, sometimes closer to Led Zeppelin. Had it been released two years later, when guitars were voguish once more, it would have kept the ABC boat afloat. Instead, it just sounded confusing."
In a list of follow-up albums featuring a change in style, Alfred Soto of Stylus Magazine said that "the band abandoned the marimbas and Mantovanni" of their previous album "for rawk power chords and declamatory singing." Although noting that "most of its songs are as politically informed as a can of hair spray", he felt that "Beauty Stab is touching, the sound of young men with too much money and too facile a talent for one-liners getting back at the philistines who dismissed them as nancy boys."
Track listing
All tracks written by Martin Fry, Mark White and Stephen Singleton.
Personnel
Songs
1That Was Then But This Is Now3:34
2Love & Dangerous Language3:41
3If Ever I Thought You'd Be Lonely3:55