Human League, The

Human League, The, harbingers of electropop, “allying technology with humanity and humour;” formed 1977, Sheffield, England. Membership: Phil Oakey, voc., synth. (b. Sheffield, England, Oct. 2, 1955); Martyn Ware, synth. (b. Sheffield, England, May 19, 1956); Ian Craig Marsh, synth. (b. Sheffield, England, Nov. 11, 1956); Ian Burden, bs., synth. (b. Sheffield, England, Dec. 24, 1957); Suzanne Sulley, voc. (b. Sheffield, England, March 22, 1963); Joanne Catherall, voc. (b. Sheffield, England, Sept. 18, 1962). Ian Marsh and Martyn Ware were computer operators who played synthesizers in their spare time. They started putting together all-electric bands like The Dead Daughters and The Future. In 1977, Ware brought in an old school chum, Philip Oakey, a hospital orderly with a deadpan, Bowiesque voice. They dubbed this new band The Human League, which came from a board game called “Star Force.” By 1978, the group was cutting mono demos of early songs like “Being Boiled” and “Circus of Death.” They also started to perform live. The band recruited Adrian Wright, a student at Sheffield Art Coll. who happened to live in the same building in which the band practiced. Wright joined the band as the visual director, preparing slide shows that accompanied the music.

The group’s demos attracted the attention of Fast Records, which released a single of “Being Boiled” in June to passing interest, enough to set themon the road with Siouxsie and the Banshees. In 1979, Virgin signed the band and they put out Reproduction, to little notice. In 1980, Virgin helped them open their own electronic music studio in an old veterinary clinic. They recorded the single “Holiday 80” backed with a totally electronic version of Gary Glitter’s “Rock ’n’ Roll” that actually charted in the 1950s in England. Their sophomore album, Travelogue, did even better, peaking in the album charts at #16. The group went on tour.

When the group played live, a lot of the material was prerecorded. Oakey saw this as cheating; Ware and Marsh saw it as a necessity, because they weren’t musicians so much as technicians. The debate came to a head during the tour supporting Travelogue.Ware and Marsh left the group to form the British Electric Foundation and its subgroup Heaven 17. Oakey, however, wanted to honor tour obligations (and didn’t want to go back to pushing gurneys). He encouraged Wright to learn the synthesizer and brought in bassist Ian Burden and former Rezillos guitarist Jo Callis to play synthesizers as well. In a final bit of inspiration, he hired two schoolgirls he found dancing at a local disco to perform on stage and discovered to his pleasurethat they could also sing.

The revamped Human League went into the studio with producer Martin Rushent. They started actually landing hits with “The Sound of the Crowd” (#12 U.K.) and “Love Action” (#3 U.K.). With the release of the group’sthird album, Dare, and the single “Don’t You Want Me?” they landed the #1 slot in both the album and single charts in England. The album came out in the U.S., their first release on this side of the Atlantic, and the sprightly, electro-Motown of “Don’t You Want Me?” topped the U.S. charts as well, while the album went to #3. Both were awarded gold records. Rolling Stone called Dare one of the Top 100 albums of the 1980s.

By the time the group released 1985’s Fascination, their sound had been copied by a mix of groups like Soft Cell and even Oakey’s previous cronies in Heaven 17. Still, the Fascination EP made it to #22 on the album charts, the title track hit #8, and “Mirror Man” hit #30 on the singles charts. It took another year, however before they released another full album. Hysteria did not fare as well commercially as its two immediate predecessors. Technically, it was a more complex album and more meaty. It also dared to dabble in tradition, with Burden and Callis actually playing guitar and bass. Singles like “The Lebanon” and “Life on Your Own” failed to make a significantdent in the pop market, however.

Steve Barron, who had directed several of the group’s videos, asked Oakey torecord a song for the soundtrack to his feature film Electric Dreams.It gave Oakey the opportunity to work with another electric pop pioneer Giorgio Moroder, the kingpin behind Donna Summer’s greatest records. The song, “Together in Electric Dreams” went into the Top Five in England, so the duo recorded an entire album together. In 1987, the group got back together to record with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. While they seemed an unlikely combination, their work on singles by groups like the SOS Band had impressed Oakey. While the album was by all accounts a trying project, Crash did land the group their first #1 single, the ballad “Human.” The album rose as high as #24.

The next Human League project, 1990’s Romantic?, sounded somewhat depressed, although still eminently danceable. The group started to feel a lack of support from their record company, even though the single “Heart Like a Wheel” eked it’s way into the Top 40, peaking at #32. After that, the band all but disappeared for five years. Everyone thought they had heard the last of the Human League when the group signed with East West records and released Octopus in 1995. Again, the pop audience barely paid attention, although it might be the group’s most thematically coherent record since the days of Marsh and Ware. The single “Tell Me When” scraped the Top 40, going to #31. The group toured with Culture Club and Howard Jones in a package called The Rewind Tour in 1998, and continued to play live.

Discography

Reproduction (1979); Travelogue (1982); Dare (1983); Love and Dancing (1984); Fascination! (1985); Hysteria (1986); Crash (1987); Greatest Hits (1988); Romantic? (1990); Octopus (1995). philip oakey with giorgio moroder:Philip Oakey and Giorgio Moroder (1985).

—Brock Helander