Pictured, from left to right:
Joanne Catherall
Philip Oakey
Susan Ann Sulley
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OVERVIEW
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"There's a big misconception about the Human League that we're happy
making an album every few years before disappearing from view," says
Philip Oakey. "But that's not the case at all. Ideally, we'd like to
have made albums every eighteen months and toured continuously. It
hasn't worked out that way, partly through our own disorganization.
One thing we've come to appreciate during the making of this new
record is that The Human League is something that we want to do for
the rest of our lives."
Their name hijacked from an obscure science-fiction game, the earliest version of The Human League launched themselves off the pad in 1978 with a line-up consisting of Philip Oakey, Ian Craig-Marsh, Martyn Ware and Adrian Wright. Influenced as much by synth innovators like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder as they were by the spiky-haired nihilists of the New Wave, they quickly established themselves as prime movers on the post-punk avant-garde scene with early singles like "Being Boiled." When David Bowie remarked that The Human League were the sound of 1980, he was simply acknowledging the phenomenal impact they had made by virtue of an ingenious marriage of pop sensibility and synthesizer technology.
Shortly after the release of their second album, 1980's Travelogue, Marsh and Ware exited to forn the British Electric Foundation (which would later evolve into Heaven 17). Oakey and Wright then recruited new group members including Susan Sulley and Joanne Catherall, who were famously discovered while dancing in Sheffield's Crazy Daisy discotheque. After teaming up with producer Martin Rushent, The Human League emerged radically remodelled in the spring of 1981, achieving instant chart success with the euphoric "Sound Of The Crowd." This would be the first in a non-stop run of four Top Ten hits that year, culminating in a Christmas Number One with "Don't You Want Me" and a Number One album, Dare. Within weeks of its release, Dare was a runaway interplanetary success, firmly establishing The Human League as the definitive pop band of the era.
"There was a great deal of confusion at the time," recalls Philip, "because we were suddenly having hits and making an album full of pop songs. There was a general assumption that we were making [ironic] "pop" music. But it wasn't like that at all. Even when we were perceived as an avant-garde band, we would do a Gary Glitter cover because we happened to like his music. It was the same when we came out and said we wanted to make pop records in the tradition of Abba, who were hopelessly unfashionable at the time. We really loved Abba records and it seemed like a completely natural step for us."
Throughout 1982 and 1983, Dare continued to dominate the charts around the globe while The Human League scored further Top 10 hits with "Mirror Man" and "Fascination." Their next album, Hysteria, finally arrived in May 1984 with Nick Heyward memorably observing that he managed to record an entire album in the time it took The Human League to record a bass drum. By this time, the charts were filled with names like Soft Cell, Culture Club, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and Duran Duran, who gratefully acknowledged their musical and stylistic debt to The Human League. Meanwhile, Hysteria enjoyed huge world-wide success, cocking a snoot at the commercial and critical triumph of Dare.
"I think it was had for people to appreciate that we could only make Dare once," says Joanne. "You can only hold onto that innocence for so long. Besides, we had to move on and develop. With Hysteria, we got heavily involved in the whole technology thing and that meant that we took longer than we would have wanted. Dare had been recorded very quickly. With Hysteria, the group would take three weeks just to program the drum machine. It got crazy in the studio, and that obviously took its toll."
Through 1984 and 1985, the hits continued to pile up with "The Lebanon," "Life On Your Own," and "Louise" making a significant dent in the Top Twenty. Meanwhile, the follow-up to Hysteria proved to be another demanding and drawn-out affair, involving three studios and numerous producers. Finally completed under the production guidance of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Crash was released in September 1986. The League's most varied release to date, mixing synth ballads with feverish funk workouts, it continued the world-wide success of its predecessors and spawned a massive international hit in "Human." The group then closed their Eighties account with the release of their long-awaited Greatest Hits, a classic collection which bore witness to their remarkable pop consistency through that decade.
"It was around that time," Susan remembers, "that people started giving us some credit for the important barriers that we had broken down as a group. We were the first group to make a successful pop album with no guitars on it. Our whole approach was revolutionary and we influenced loads of other bands in the process. Then there was the impact that the female members of the group had made. At the time we joined The League, it was a kind of first. Girls were either backing singers or solo artists, but hardly ever an integral part of a group. Nowadays, you see girls in groups all the time. But when we went on Top Of The Pops for the first time, there was a general outrage because people just weren't used to seeing that kind of thing. These days, we take that sort of thing for granted and it's easy for people to forget the fact that we did it first."
The Nineties began for The Human League with the release of the greatly underrated Romantic? album, which brought further bold experimentation with dance rhythms and pop melodies. "People now look at the chart figures for Romantic?" says Philip Oakey, "and automatically dismiss it as The League's most obvious failure. But in retrospect, I think it's a better album than Dare. Basically, it's an album full of great songs made by a depressed group with no support whatsoever from anyone else in the whole universe."
Having terminated their long relationship with Virgin Records, The Human League then signed a long-term deal with East West, thus inaugurating an entirely new chapter in their career. Now, after a lengthy hibernation, they re-emerge at last with a new single, "Tell Me When," and an album entitled Octopus. Produced by Ian Stanley (famous for his work with The Pretenders, Sisters Of Mercy and Tears For Fears) Octopus brings the classic Human League sound crashing with a triumphant ring into the Nineties.
"Our main intention this time was to make a complete album," says Susan, "rather than a set of loosely collected songs. The time we've spent away has given us the chance to come to terms with what we're good at and what we're not good at. We've also been lucky in being encouraged to go away, work at our own pace and make the kind of album that we really wanted to make. There's been a new kind of enthusiasm about the making of this one, which we haven't felt for a long time. Part of the reason for that is working with a producer who functioned like an extra member of the group. We haven't worked that way since Dare. I think all that's reflected on the album as a whole. It feels like the best album we've ever made."
The Human League is still in existence and putting out albums.
They recently toured with Culture Club and Howard Jones in The Big
Rewind Tour '98/'99. It was the best concert I've ever been to!
|
The
Very Best Of The Human League |
|
Soundtrack
to a Generation [IMPORT] |
S O U N D C L I P S
Here are some samples of some of The Human League's songs. Try listening to all of them, because they all sound different. If you like what you hear, I highly recommend the album The Very Best of the Human League, which has all of the below songs on it.
Click on the sound file format of your choice:
If you want more samples and can run RealPlayer, go to Amazon.com or CDnow for streaming audio of more song samples. For quick links to any of the Human League's albums at Amazon.com, click on any title from my Discography section.
Here's a small collection of lyrics of some of the Human League's songs. Click on a song title to view or download lyrics.
When International
Lyrics Server reopens, you can obtain more Human League
lyrics by clicking
here. Until it reopens, you can see which lyrics for which
songs are available, but you will not be able to look at or download
the lyrics.
