ABC fused the attitude of punk with the sophistication of disco – and great tunes – to create hits like Poison Arrow on The Lexicon Of Love.

Has any album ever produced four such stone-cold classic singles as The Lexicon Of Love? If they never did anything else in their lives, ABC could rest assured of a place in pop’s pantheon for that quartet – Tears Are Not Enough, Poison Arrow, The Look Of Love and All Of My Heart.

Martin Fry’s stated aim was to fuse the attitude of punk and the sophistication of disco and he once said: “We wanted to hark back to Cole Porter and his ilk, but in a very modern way.”

In 1982 ABC did exactly that, creating an album of pop perfection with the help of producer Trevor Horn and arranger Anne Dudley.

I interviewed Martin Fry once for a magazine article about his hobby of cycling, about which he is serious enough to be a member of an Italian cycle club.

We met in Hatfield where I found him in a cafe, sheathed in the pink-and-blue lycra livery of his Italian cycle club, complete with clattering cleats.

Amusingly, after taking the requisite photographs, he accepted a lift back to London in my car and bunged his bike in the boot. I didn’t mention that in the article.

The highlight of our journey came when I spotted a side road called Cum Cum Hill (yes, really) and he informed me that Simon Pegg lived there, prompting much mirth – and speculation as to whether Pegg lived there by chance or chose the address for comedy reasons.

Because we were caught up talking about cycling (and rude place names), I never found out the story behind the birth of ABC, which by the time of our interview was nothing more than a registered trade name owned – after a legal battle – by Fry.

So I was unaware they evolved from the ashes of a Sheffield synth duo called Vice Versa – they made their debut supporting Wire – and had initially hired Fry to be their third synth player.

In 1980 the initial duo of Mark White and Stephen Singleton switched instruments, taking up sax, guitar and keyboards, and pushed Fry up front to sing in his sparkly suits. And hey presto – a pop group was born!

It’s hard to pick a favourite but I think it would be Poison Arrow, with that bubbling bassline, that piano melody, those horns, a tune you’d be singing for weeks – and this wonderful video by Julien Temple.

Here’s Martin, Mark (the lead singer) and Stephen performing as Vice Versa at Futurama in Leeds in 1980. Makes you think they could have been the new Cabaret Voltaire or Human League if they’d stuck to their synths.