ABC – How to Be a… Zillionaire! – 180 Gram Vinyl Record

Description

ABC – How to Be a… Zillionaire! – 180 Gram Vinyl Record

ABC gave themselves a brightly colored reinvention for How to Be a… Zillionaire! The 1985 album pairs Martin Fry's recognizable voice with an electronic dance-pop setting and cartoon artwork that makes the change visible before the music begins. Fry and Mark White remained at the center of the group, joined in its public image by Eden and David Yarritu. It was ABC's third studio album, with Be Near Me, Vanity Kills, Ocean Blue, and (How to Be a) Millionaire providing four different routes into the ten-song program.

The arrangements make synthesizers and programmed rhythms a central part of the record's character. White's electronic parts give the songs a sharp, colorful surface, while Fry supplies the more human element through phrasing that can be elegant, amused, or slightly exaggerated. The combination suits material concerned with money, appearance, and the appeal of a glamorous life. ABC could make that world sound attractive while keeping an eyebrow raised at it. The musical sheen is part of the subject, so the relationship between the arrangement and the singer's attitude matters as much as the individual hooks.

Be Near Me brings the romantic side of that approach into focus, with a melody that gives Fry room to sound direct inside a carefully shaped pop production. Ocean Blue offers another change of mood on the first side, while Vanity Kills places image and self-regard closer to the foreground. Fear of the World opens the album, and 15 Storey Halo completes that side's sequence. Together, those songs show ABC working with electronic pop as a setting flexible enough for affection, unease, and satire, rather than treating the dance rhythm as the only idea available to them.

(How to Be a) Millionaire gives the second side one of the album's clearest statements about aspiration and excess. Its bright arrangement and memorable refrain suit a song in which wealth is both an attraction and a subject to be examined. So Hip It Hurts brings a related interest in fashion and attitude into the same half of the record. A to Z, Tower of London, and Between You & Me add further variations around that point of view. Fry's ability to sound engaged and amused at once helps connect the romantic songs with the more satirical writing.

How to Be a… Zillionaire! reached number twenty-eight on the UK album chart and number thirty on the Billboard album chart, establishing a substantial audience for this version of ABC. The record captures the band giving its sophisticated pop writing a distinctly mid-eighties electronic setting. This Music On Vinyl edition presents the original ten tracks on a single 180 gram LP and includes a lyric insert. Be Near Me remains an inviting starting point, but the combination of Ocean Blue's romantic character and (How to Be a) Millionaire's more pointed outlook gives the album its fuller identity.

Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic

Release Details

Artist

ABC

Album

How to Be a… Zillionaire!

Format

180 Gram Vinyl Record

Media configuration

1 LP

Original album release

1985

Label

Music On Vinyl

Vinyl weight

180 gram

Track Listing

Side A

Fear of the World

Be Near Me

Vanity Kills

Ocean Blue

15 Storey Halo

Side B

A to Z

(How to Be a) Millionaire

Tower of London

So Hip It Hurts

Between You & Me