Beauty Stab

Beauty Stab is the second studio album by English pop band ABC, released on 14 November 1983 by Neutron Records, Mercury Records and Vertigo Records. 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 studio album, The Lexicon of Love (1982), and featured a more guitar-oriented sound.

Beauty Stab
Studio album by
ABC
Released14 November 1983 (1983-11-14)
RecordedAugust–September 1983
Studio
Genre
Length42:58
LabelNeutron
Producer
ABC chronology
The Lexicon of Love
(1982)		 Beauty Stab
(1983)		 How to Be a ... Zillionaire!
(1985)
Singles from Beauty Stab
  1. "That Was Then but This Is Now"
    Released: October 1983
  2. "S.O.S."
    Released: January 1984
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[2]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[3]
Smash Hits6/10[4]
The Village VoiceA−[5]

The album was produced by ABC with Gary Langan, who had been the audio engineer on the band's debut studio album. The band employed the rhythm section of Andy Newmark (drums) and Alan Spenner (bass guitar)[1] both of whom had recently recorded and toured with Roxy Music at the time. The cover photography was by Gered Mankowitz.

On release, the album was received negatively by the majority of music critics. In a 1995 article, music journalist Simon Reynolds listed Beauty Stab among "the great career-sabotage LPs in pop history".[6] In retrospect, the band members themselves have been quite vocal in that they were less satisfied with the album with founding member Stephen Singleton leaving the band soon after promotion for the album was completed. Martin Fry later stated that "we were eager to go in a totally different direction [to The Lexicon of Love]. We didn't want to do a sequel. In retrospect, perhaps that is exactly what we should have done".[7] 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).[8]

In 2005, a digitally remastered CD of the album was released with three bonus tracks.

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."[9] The song "That Was Then but This Is Now" has appeared in several worst lyrics polls including one held in 2007 by BBC Radio 6 Music.[10]

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 Mantovani" 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."[11]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Martin Fry, Mark White and Stephen Singleton

Side one
No.TitleLength
1."That Was Then but This Is Now"3:34
2."Love's a Dangerous Language"3:40
3."If I Ever Thought You'd Be Lonely"3:55
4."The Power of Persuasion"3:32
5."Beauty Stab"2:06
6."By Default by Design"4:07
Side two
No.TitleLength
7."Hey Citizen!"3:55
8."King Money"4:02
9."Bite the Hand"3:06
10."Unzip"2:49
11."S.O.S."4:49
12."United Kingdom"3:23
Total length:42:58
2005 re-release bonus tracks
No.TitleLength
13."Vertigo"1:58
14."Selections from the Magnificent New ABC Long-Player 'Beauty Stab'"5:48
15."That Was Then but This Is Now" (Unedited)5:58

Personnel

ABC

Additional personnel

Production

Charts
Chart performance for Beauty Stab
Chart (1983–1984) Peak
position
Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)[12] 58
Canada Top Albums/CDs (RPM)[13] 36
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[14] 29
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)[15] 22
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[16] 50
Japanese Albums (Oricon)[17] 34
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[18] 42
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[19] 32
UK Albums (OCC)[20] 12
US Billboard 200[21] 69

References
  1. DeGagne, Mike. "Beauty Stab – ABC". AllMusic. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
  2. Larkin, Colin (2007). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). United Kingdom: Omnibus Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-84609-856-7.
  3. Sheffield, Rob (2004). "ABC". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 2. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  4. Rimmer, Dave (24 November 1983). "ABC: Beauty Stab". Smash Hits. Vol. 5, no. 24. p. 27.
  5. Christgau, Robert (24 January 1984). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
  6. Simon Reynolds (1995), ""Unknown Pleasures: Great Lost Albums Rediscovered" (Melody Maker free supplement booklet)", Melody Maker (free supplement booklet), IPC Media, archived from the original on 31 October 2013, Tusk ranks as one of the great career-sabotage LP's in pop history, alongside the Clash's Sandinista[!], ABC's Beauty Stab and Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique; one of those albums by bands apparently on a creative and commercial roll who nonetheless wilfully confound their audience, motivated by artistic frustration, or fucked-up/fucked-off confusion, or simply because they've succumbed to a kind of collective death-wish.
  7. "ABC's Martin Fry regrets not capitalising on early success". 27 June 2013.
  8. "ABC". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
  9. Stanley, Bob (7 March 2008). "How to lose 3 million fans in one easy step". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  10. "How OMD lost 3 million fans in one easy step". TheGuardian.com. 7 March 2008.
  11. "The Non-Definitive Guide to the Follow-Up – Article – Stylus Magazine". 5 February 2010. Archived from the original on 5 February 2010. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  12. Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 10. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  13. "Top RPM Albums: Issue 4443a". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
  14. "Dutchcharts.nl – ABC – Beauty Stab" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 23 June 2012.
  15. Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. ISBN 978-951-1-21053-5.
  16. "Offiziellecharts.de – ABC – Beauty Stab" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
  17. Okamoto, Satoshi (2006). Oricon Album Chart Book: Complete Edition 1970–2005. Roppongi, Tokyo: Oricon Entertainment. ISBN 4-87131-077-9.
  18. "Charts.nz – ABC – Beauty Stab". Hung Medien. Retrieved 30 August 2019.
  19. "Swedishcharts.com – ABC – Beauty Stab". Hung Medien. Retrieved 23 June 2012.
  20. "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
  21. "ABC Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
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