Speaking of Prince (as I have been in my last few posts) Purple Rain is one of my two favourite albums. As I mentioned in my old blog, “The Lexicon of Love” by ABC is the other.

I was listening to Martin Fry on Ray D’Arcy’s radio show the other day, and I discovered that ABC released a sequel called (full marks for ingenuity) “The Lexicon of Love II” earlier this year. How exciting! Fry himself admitted that it is either very audacious or very foolish to release a sequel to something so successful and so beloved.

You can listen to the album on YouTube.

I listened to the new album over the weekend and (with the caveat that it was only the first time hearing it) I’m afraid that I don’t think it’s a worthy successor.

Anne Dudley was involved with both albums. She is credited with “keyboards and orchestration” on the first, and with “piano; keyboards; orchestration” on the second. She is also credited as a writer on one track from the first album and two from the second.

What I think is missing from the new album, however, is Trevor Horn. For me he was the genius behind the original album. One website claims that Horn was not available, while another says that Fry wanted to “try a slightly different direction”.

In the interest of fairness, I’ll have to give it another try.

Here is a nice arrangement called “Overture” from the original album: