Five New Wave albums you should not live without

Number 4: ABC, Lexicon of Love

ABC was always pop music, but they also sounded different in 1982 when they released Lexicon. Everything past that for them sounded a lot more aimed for chart position - "Millionaire," for example, is OK but a bit too plastic to be good - while Lexicon was exaggerated kitsch that was simply too good not to listen to. Heck, that doesn't go for just 1982 or 1983, but for 2023 and 2024 and beyond.

The album has nine proper songs (there is a tenth song on the original release called "Look of Love, Part Four" which serves more as a coda), and five of them were released as singles. This wasn't a reach to oversell the album, but because the songs are worthy of standing alone on their own. Even the songs that weren't singles could have been.

"Look of Love, Part Two" was the third single released but might just be one of the ten most perfect songs ever created. It's a sermon on anything but about be happy in love. What exactly is the look of love? Ihave no idea and neither does the band in this song, and that's the point.

It's odd for an album such a mixture of glam and cabaret to have lyrics that are so angry at times. This is the epitome of what that albums should be, however. Plus, even now, the production is so crisp that you could listen to the album all the way through, feel like you missed something good on it, and listen to it immediately after finishing the first listen.