Friday, October 2, 2015

ABC - How to Be a...Zillionaire! (30th anniversary)

This month marks the thirtieth anniversary of How to Be a...Zillionaire!, the third studio album from ABC. The album spent forty-one weeks on the US Billboard Album chart, peaking at number 30.

For the full review of this favorite of mine from 1985, click here.

For more from ABC, click here.

2 comments:

John said...

I always liked this album. I remember when they appeared on THE TUBE, the UK TV show, and they performed "How To Be A Millionaire" and "Tower Of London" in a way that I preferred over the album versions. I have it on VHS somewhere but I'm not going to bother to look. 30 years already? Eesh.

HERC said...

After getting somewhat burned by their sophomore effort Beauty Stab, I took a chance on ABC's third album How To Be A... Zillionaire! without having heard any advance singles or seeing any videos. It was an unabashed delight to listen to from start to finish, cartoonishly unhinged to the same degree that their debut The Lexicon Of Love was unapologetically romantic. The new record was state of the art club sounding, adorably cheesey and as is my thing, I hyped it for a solid two weeks to everyone I knew, subjecting my co-workers to endless plays as well as my unsuspecting neighbors when I drove through the 'hood.

Discovering the twelve inch singles from the album with their remixes was an added bit of fun and it was cool when a few of them showed up on the CD when I picked it up a few years later. Even more remixes were included as bonus tracks on the 2005 reissue of the CD.

Intrigued by John's mention of the band's performance on THE TUBE, I went a lookin' and think I found it on YouTube. Great stuff!

(According to my diary, I purchased the album on September 19th, 1985 which is probably closer to the actual release date than October 2nd.)