Deformation quantization on varieties with singularities offers perspectives that are not found on manifolds. The Harrison component of Hochschild cohomology, vanishing on smooth manifolds, reflects information about singularities. The Harrison 2-cochains are symmetric and are interpreted in terms of abelian *-products. This paper begins a study of abelian quantization on plane curves over $$\mathbb{C}$$ , being algebraic varieties of the form $${\mathbb{C}}^2/R$$ , where R is a polynomial in two variables; that is, abelian deformations of the coordinate algebra $$\mathbb{C}[x,y]/(R$$ ). To understand the connection between the singularities of a variety and cohomology we determine the algebraic Hochschild (co)homology and its Barr–Gerstenhaber–Schack decomposition. Homology is the same for all plane curves $$\mathbb{C}[x,y]/R$$ , but the cohomology depends on the local algebra of the singularity of R at the origin. The Appendix, by Maxim Kontsevich, explains in modern mathematical language a way to calculate Hochschild and Harrison cohomology groups for algebras of functions on singular planar curves etc. based on Koszul resolutions.