Songoftheday 7/28/15 - Debonair lullabies in melodies revealed, in deep despair on lonely nights he knows just how you feel...

"When Smokey Sings" - ABC
from the album Alphabet City (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12

Today's SOTD comes from the English new wave group ABC, who had changed their sound dramatically on each of their first three albums, going from their stellar debut as a suave New Romantic quartet on The Lexicon Of Love, to their sophomore mainstream rock effort Beauty Stab (which flopped in the States), to the cartoonish pop-dance of How To Be A Zillionaire, which brought them back to American radio with the top-10 "Be Near Me" and top-20 follow-up "How To Be A Millionaire" in 1985. For their next release, the remaining duo of Martin Fry and Mark White went back to their roots with Alphabet City, a mature, lyrically entertaining batch of wit and storytelling that served as a much better followup to their debut. The first single, "When Smokey Sings", used a legend from the past that was just having his own revival on the charts with "Just To See Her", and paid reverence without being overly sugary...

"When Smokey Sings" became ABC's final triumph on American pop radio, climbing into the top-5 on the Hot 100 in September of 1987. The 12" remix went all the way to #1 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart, while the song also made it to #2 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list. Internationally, while the single reached the top-10 in Canada (#5) and New Zealand (#9), it just missed that mark in their native Britain at #11.

Their next single, "The Night You Murdered Love", which could have been on The Lexicon Of Love, missed the pop chart completely, though scaling to #3 on the US dance chart. ( A crime, I tell you!). In 1989, they released Up!, but the lead single "One Better World" only get noticed in the UK, becoming their final top-40 hit there (#32). In 1992, the pair recruited the guys behind Black Box to remix their next album's first single "Say It", which made it to #3 on the American dance chart, but fizzled out elsewhere. Since then, White has left leaving Fry carrying on the ABC name with original drummer David Palmer showing up again on the act's most recent album in 2008, Traffic.

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Here's the "Miami Mix" that helped the 12" single top the dance chart for two weeks in August/September of 1987...

...and their "mimed" appearance on Top Pop in the Netherlands...

...fast forward to 2001, with Martin alone appearing live with orchestra at the night of the Proms...

Up tomorrow: Another sophistipop group from Scotland gets a little religious.