Alphabet City by ABC

Alphabet City, ABC's fourth album, surfaced on Mercury in August 1987, two years after How to Be a ... Zillionaire! The gap had a grim reason behind it: Martin Fry spent it being treated for Hodgkin's disease. Once he was back on his feet, the band sank nine months into sessions at Marcus Recording Studios in London, with Chic's Bernard Edwards producing.

Fry and Mark White had lived for a spell in Manhattan's Alphabet City, and the neighborhood lent the album its name and several song titles. Edwards's touch shows in the groove: this is sleek, soul-soaked sophisti-pop, all glossy synths and a rhythm section that actually moves. "When Smokey Sings", Fry's valentine to Smokey Robinson, is the sweetest thing here, and "The Night You Murdered Love" and "King Without a Crown" followed it onto the UK singles chart. The album climbed to number 7 at home, ABC's first top-ten showing since The Lexicon of Love.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.