The best albums I have ever come across were:
The Lexicon of Love – ABC - 1982
Purple Rain – Prince – 1984
The former contained a string of hits such as "Tears Are Not Enough”, "All of My Heart", "Poison Arrow", and "The Look of Love”. It was produced by the incomparable Trevor Horn. I bought the “LP” originally and then the “1996 digitally re-mastered edition” on CD (which included the brilliant “The Look of Love (U.S. Special Remix - Edit)”). I note that there was a 2 disc “2004 deluxe edition” as well.
The latter contained such gems as "Let's Go Crazy, "Take Me with U”, "The Beautiful Ones”, "Computer Blue", "Darling Nikki", "When Doves Cry", "I Would Die 4 U", "Baby I'm a Star", "Purple Rain". All the songs are brilliant: “Take Me with U” may be a little weaker than the others while “When Doves Cry” (one of my favourite songs of all time) and “Purple Rain” are the pick of the bunch.
I had the pleasure of seeing Price play Malahide Castle this summer. What a great night: the man is a total genius. I’ve never seen ABC live, unfortunately.
Interesting to note that both artists used single character abbreviations in their song titles: “4 Ever 2 Gether” for ABC and "I Would Die 4 U" for Prince.
I heard Prince being asked in an interview if we would take credit for starting this trend (which we now see very prominently in TXT/SMS messages). Wisely he declined to do so!
The chorus of “4 Ever 2 Gether” is a classic in this regard:
4 ever 2 gether, 4 years 2 come
4 love 2 strong, 4 us 2 part