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The Human League (Music)
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The Human League are a Synth-Pop band from Sheffield, England. They formed in 1978 when the experimental synth duo the Future (consisting of Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh) teamed up with singer Phil Oakey to write pop tunes. At the point they formed, synth music was often in the proggy vein (e.g. Kraftwerk, Vangelis) or in the disco vein (e.g. Giorgio Moroder), but the group took note of the DIY punk aesthetic to create their own dark style of synth music with poppy structures. Unlike many other Synth-Pop bands of the era, they completely used electronic instrumentation (Including a full Roland System 100) with no guitars or drums, with their debut Single Being Boiled cited as one of the first examples of popular electronic music in the UK. This led to their signature electronic sound as noted by fans, which helped them gain popularity throughout the late 70s.Releasing two albums, an EP and several singles, the original lineup split in late 1980 due to Creative Differences, with Ware & Marsh walking out and going on to form BEF, and soon after, Heaven 17. Oakey and their visual director Philip Adrian Wright had to honour touring agreements so added Jo Callis and Ian Burden to the lineup. Additionally, Oakey hired female vocalists Joanne Catherall and Susanne Sulley initially as backing vocalists though the songs got written around their vocals later. This lineup of the group recorded their album Dare, which made them a household name with several singles, most notably "Don't You Want Me".While the success of Dare would be something of a miracle for the band at the time, it would later become an albatross around their necks, as each following album failed to meet the expectations their 1981 album established. By 1990, the group were generally regarded as has-beens among the general public, something the band themselves lampshaded with their song "The Stars Are Going Out". Their 1995 album Octopus would be seen as a return to form, and their following album, 2001's Secrets, was praised by fans and critics to almost Dare-levels, but it flopped on store shelves. Their next album, 2011's Credo, would receive middling reception from fans and critics. Since then, the band have focused solely on touring and performing.Despite their rocky history, the Human League are generally considered to be one of the most influential bands of the synthpop era, often being considered a Trope Codifier for the genre alongside Kraftwerk. Dare and its associated singles are still fairly well-remembered as high points of 1980's pop music, and several of their songs have continued to find new audiences through inclusion in movies, TV shows, commercials, and video games. Reproduction and Travelogue, despite underselling when released, gained a cult following in the following decades and has been continuously reappraised by critics as being ahead of their time.There's a fan website dedicated to preserving the content of Mk. I Human League, as linked here | |
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The Human League (Music) | isPartOf |
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The Human League (Music) / int_16d8476f | type |
Protest Song | |
The Human League (Music) / int_16d8476f | comment |
Protest Song: "Being Boiled"... sorta. Read literally, the song is a condemnation of the silk industry, which involves boiling silkworms to death to harvest their cocoons (hence the song title), though it can just as easily be read as metaphorical in a number of other ways, from the perils of capitalist exploitation as a whole to general abuse. "Dreams of Leaving" attacks both The Apartheid Era and the more subtle racism in western society that manifests in xenophobic resentment (particularly the "they're taking our jobs" mindset). | |
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The Svengali | |
The Human League (Music) / int_1bf3f4af | comment |
The Svengali: "Don't You Want Me" is a duet between a Svengali and his increasingly-rebellious protegee. | |
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The Rival | |
The Human League (Music) / int_1c3d047e | comment |
The Rival: MK2 to Heaven 17. The two sides ultimately patched things up, and even toured together in 2008. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_22093e9b | type |
New Sound Album | |
The Human League (Music) / int_22093e9b | comment |
New Sound Album: Several. Dare incorporated female vocals and moved away from the doomy, avant-garde pseudo-industrial sound of the Mk. I era in favor of a more pop-oriented sound. Crash was a US-oriented R&B album produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Romantic? moved to a middle ground between the styles of Dare/Hysteria and Crash, keeping the digital synths and some of the funk elements while moving back towards the sound of their early Mk. II output. Octopus moved back to analog synths and took prominent influence from newer developments in electronic dance music (particularly House Music and Eurodance), with both Secrets and Credo continuing and further modernizing the style. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_334e48a1 | type |
After the End | |
The Human League (Music) / int_334e48a1 | comment |
After the End: The music video for "Life On Your Own" has Phil Oakey play the last surviving person in a desolate London. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_34f6774c | type |
Concept Album | |
The Human League (Music) / int_34f6774c | comment |
The 4-track EP "Dignity of Labour", an instrumental concept album about Yuri Gagarin, has never been played live and has been rarely mentioned by the band overall, besides being included on A Very British Synthesizer Group and the Reproduction CD. The flexi disc included with it, however is notable enough as a piece of Meta-Fiction. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_415b3315 | type |
Stylistic Suck | |
The Human League (Music) / int_415b3315 | comment |
Stylistic Suck: Susan and Joanne were initially drafted into the band as dancers, and to perform backing vocals. They were atrocious singers with no concept of key, pitch or timing. Whilst some bands might have searched for professionals, Phil decided to keep them and just use them sparingly on Dare itself, with only "Don't You Want Me" featuring an entire verse sung by one of them. However, due to this turning out to be a Black Sheep Hit, they became lead vocalists on more songs later on. They certainly improved, but Phil was always a demonstrably better singer. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_44bd31e2 | type |
Trope Codifier | |
The Human League (Music) / int_44bd31e2 | comment |
Trope Codifier: One of the first electronic bands to hit the UK Sheffield scene, in fact. Also a Ur-Example of UK Synthpop. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_464353f7 | type |
Re-release the Song | |
The Human League (Music) / int_464353f7 | comment |
Re-release the Song: After the group's rise to popularity with Dare!, their debut single "Being Boiled" was re-released and went to Number Six. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_4e7c4536 | type |
Wham Line | |
The Human League (Music) / int_4e7c4536 | comment |
Wham Line: "Human" is sung from the viewpoint of a man apologizing to his lover for being unfaithful, stating "I'm only human". She responds to him in the song's bridge: | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_4f4372e9 | type |
Early-Installment Weirdness | |
The Human League (Music) / int_4f4372e9 | comment |
Early-Installment Weirdness: Their early work is quite dark and minimalistic and lacks the female vocals and the disco-style rhythms that would go on to define their sound. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_5033694a | type |
Revolving Door Band | |
The Human League (Music) / int_5033694a | comment |
Revolving Door Band: Phil Oakey, Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley have been the only constant members of the band since the mid-1980s, and Oakey himself has been the only consistent member since 1978. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_5b2e1e5e | type |
Fake-Out Fade-Out | |
The Human League (Music) / int_5b2e1e5e | comment |
Fake-Out Fade-Out: "Tell Me When", which then jumps into a reprise of the chorus before fading out for real. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_61a503a7 | type |
Hell Is That Noise | |
The Human League (Music) / int_61a503a7 | comment |
Hell Is That Noise: Invoked in "Dreams of Leaving" in the form of loud noise that plays just a few seconds in, and also in "Introducing" with the sampled screams. Also scattered in various other songs due to tape errors with the backing tracks they used. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_6228853d | type |
Boxed Set | |
The Human League (Music) / int_6228853d | comment |
Romantic? is notably the only one of the Virgin-era albums to be excluded from the band's remastering campaign in the early 2000s. The album represented the band's career at its nadir (which the band themselves commented on in "The Stars Are Going Out?"), generated only a modest UK hit in "Heart Like a Wheel", and undersold, leading both the band and Virgin to ignore its existence (outside a couple Japanese reissues) until its inclusion in the 2022 Boxed Set The Virgin Years. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_6298c177 | type |
Sequel Song | |
The Human League (Music) / int_6298c177 | comment |
Sequel Song: "Louise" is one to "Don't You Want Me", depicting the narrator and his muse reuniting and reconciling several years later. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_685a6461 | type |
Circus of Fear | |
The Human League (Music) / int_685a6461 | comment |
Circus of Fear: "Circus of Death" depicts a monstrous Eldritch Abomination that takes the form of a constantly-growing circus led by a Monster Clown, who placates the circus' victims with the Fantastic Drug "dominion" before annihilating all of humanity. | |
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Colour-Coded for Your Convenience | |
The Human League (Music) / int_735b4101 | comment |
Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: During the '80s, the Mk. II incarnation frequently denoted their singles as "red" or "blue," be it through the color of the logotype or a worded label; red singles denoted dance tracks, while blue singles were pop. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_74149c93 | type |
Epic Rocking | |
The Human League (Music) / int_74149c93 | comment |
Epic Rocking: "Rock 'N' Roll/Night Clubbing", "Austerity/Girl One", and "Fascination (Improvisation)" all surpass the 6-minute mark. The former sees this mainly thanks to it being two different songs glued together. | |
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Real Life Writes the Plot | |
The Human League (Music) / int_786bf97f | comment |
Real Life Writes the Plot: "Seconds" deals with the tragedy of the death of John F. Kennedy. On the other hand, "The Lebanon" deals with the war in Lebanon at the time. And from their earlier line up, "Dreams of Leaving" deals with a refugee wanting to escape Apartheid in his home country. "The Stars Are Going Out" from Romantic is a more personal example, being about the band's fall from critical and commercial popularity following the unexpectedly gargantuan success of Dare! | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_7d276626 | type |
Siamese Twin Songs | |
The Human League (Music) / int_7d276626 | comment |
Siamese Twin Songs: The Mk. I incarnation's covers of "Rock 'n' Roll, Part 1" by Gary Glitter and "Nightclubbing" by Iggy Pop, largely thanks to CD re-releases of Travelogue packaging the two together as a single track (which became something of a necessity for the 2003 remaster in light of Glitter's conviction for possession of child pornography). | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_80b5924 | type |
Left Hanging | |
The Human League (Music) / int_80b5924 | comment |
Left Hanging: The song "Human" is all about a guy who cheated on his lover and is remorseful and asking her forgiveness. At the end she does forgive him, then admits she cheated too and asks for the same charity from him. The song ends without saying whether he did or not, although one would certainly hope so, as he'd be a world class hypocrite otherwise. | |
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Eldritch Abomination | |
The Human League (Music) / int_8774fb47 | comment |
Eldritch Abomination: The titular song from "The Black Hit of Space" is implied to be this. | |
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Spoken Word in Music | |
The Human League (Music) / int_8c00118f | comment |
Spoken Word in Music : The original single version of "Circus Of Death" in which Oakey explains the premise of the song at the start. Whilst the LP lacks this part, he does speak some of the lines towards the end of the song. Also used at 3:16 of "Louise" where Oakey comes to terms with the relationship being a moment in time. In earlier Versions of "Marianne", Phil would speak some lines after his singing parts. | |
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I Am the Band | |
The Human League (Music) / int_919c59b6 | comment |
I Am the Band: This was more or less Phil Oakey's stance after the musicians Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh left. The two did however continue to receive royalties from Dare!. | |
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Greatest Hits Album | |
The Human League (Music) / int_93851bf1 | comment |
The 1995 version of the band's first Greatest Hits Album includes a Eurodance remix of "Don't You Want Me" as a bonus track. | |
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Leitmotif | |
The Human League (Music) / int_9f6fb586 | comment |
Leitmotif: The Dominion Jingle appears between every track on their demo album The Taverner Tape, and also at the start of "Circus Of Death" on Reproduction. | |
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Stealth Parody | |
The Human League (Music) / int_9f81bd21 | comment |
Stealth Parody: Most of their older pop songs tend to be parodies of then current trends, like some of the songs on Reproduction and Travelogue. | |
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Canon Discontinuity | |
The Human League (Music) / int_a32334b4 | comment |
Canon Discontinuity: The single "Boys And Girls" was an unfinished song rush-recorded and released to fulfil record company demand, and has never been performed live after the tour it was released during. It is available as a bonus track on the Travelogue CD and the A Very British Synthesizer Group box set, but has never been on a Greatest Hits release. The 4-track EP "Dignity of Labour", an instrumental concept album about Yuri Gagarin, has never been played live and has been rarely mentioned by the band overall, besides being included on A Very British Synthesizer Group and the Reproduction CD. The flexi disc included with it, however is notable enough as a piece of Meta-Fiction. The single "I Don't Depend On You", by a re-naming of the Human League known as 'The Men', has been mostly forgotten as a Disco track which is rarely mentioned by the band outside of its inclusion on the Travelogue CD. Romantic? is notably the only one of the Virgin-era albums to be excluded from the band's remastering campaign in the early 2000s. The album represented the band's career at its nadir (which the band themselves commented on in "The Stars Are Going Out?"), generated only a modest UK hit in "Heart Like a Wheel", and undersold, leading both the band and Virgin to ignore its existence (outside a couple Japanese reissues) until its inclusion in the 2022 Boxed Set The Virgin Years. | |
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Meta Fiction | |
The Human League (Music) / int_a63cfe4a | comment |
Meta Fiction: Some copies of "The Dignity Of Labour" included a bonus Flexidisc featuring a track called "Flexidisc", which is a conversation between the group members about what to include on the Flexidisc. | |
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Rearrange the Song | |
The Human League (Music) / int_b24ce4b2 | comment |
Rearrange the Song: Both sides of the band's debut single were re-recorded on their Mk. I studio albums, with "Circus of Death" being redone for Reproduction and "Being Boiled" being redone for Holiday '80 and Travelogue. The latter song is faster and more aggressive in its re-recorded iteration. CD editions of Reproduction change the intro on "The Path of Least Resistance", replacing the spoken-word knitting tutorial with a synth bass riff, and add distortion effects to the vocals on verse two. A Japanese CD reissue in 2017 restores the LP mix. Hysteria includes a re-recording of "I Love You Too Much" from Fascination!, featuring a less aggressive electro sound. The 1995 version of the band's first Greatest Hits Album includes a Eurodance remix of "Don't You Want Me" as a bonus track. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_c75df49a | type |
Shout-Out | |
The Human League (Music) / int_c75df49a | comment |
Shout-Out: "Tom Baker" is heavily inspired by the Doctor Who theme song, with a zoomed-in promotional photo for the show (edited to look like an actual screencap) being used as its official artwork on the back of the "Boys and Girls" sleeve. The Cabaret Voltaire track "Eastern Mantra" has the phrase "Human League" backwards said throughout the entire track. The songs "Darkness", "Get Carter", "I am the Law", and "Seconds", are all homage tracks to the Mk1 phase of the band ("I am the Law" actually predates Dare!) Then there's what "Get Carter" and "I am the Law" are named after. As a more obscure example; there's the demo track "4JG", which is supposed to be a stand in for "For J.G. Ballard". The naming convention was most likely a reference to "2HB" (To Humphrey Bogart) from the debut album of Roxy Music. | |
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Dude Looks Like a Lady | |
The Human League (Music) / int_ca4e037 | comment |
Dude Looks Like a Lady: Philip Oakey in the early years of the band with his asymmetrical haircut and makeup. Oakey based the look on an advertisement from that era. | |
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Lighter and Softer | |
The Human League (Music) / int_ce6555f0 | comment |
Lighter and Softer: Dare! abandoned the ominous, borderline Industrial sound of their previous works for a radio-friendly electronic pop sound. | |
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Honor Thy Abuser | |
The Human League (Music) / int_cff05c2c | comment |
Honor Thy Abuser: In "Louise", a Sequel Song to "Don't You Want Me", the narrator reconnects with the title character, a cocktail waitress-turned-actress who he previously and predatorily mentored, and tries to apologize for how awful he had been to her in the past. Louise immediately understands, embraces him, and patches things up before the two part again on much happier terms. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_cff53786 | type |
Cover Version | |
The Human League (Music) / int_cff53786 | comment |
Cover Version: A few: Prior to recruiting Phil Oakey (and back when they were known as the Dead Daughters), renditions of the Doctor Who theme (composed by Ron Grainer and arranged by Delia Derbyshire) were a staple of the group's live performances. "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" (by the Righteous Brothers) on Reproduction. A medley of "Rock and Roll Part 1" (by Gary Glitter) and "Nightclubbing" (by Iggy Pop) on Holiday '80 (which also made for the League's first Top of the Pops appearance); the medley was later included on all CD releases of Travelogue as a bonus track, even ones issued well after Glitter's convictions for multiple sex offenses against minors. "Only After Dark" (by David Bowie sideman Mick Ronson) and "Gordon's Gin" (by Jeff Wayne) on Travelogue. "River Deep Mountain High" (by Ike and Tina Turner) on their 1980 tour. "Rock Me Again And Again" (by James Brown and Lyn Collins) on Hysteria. "King of Kings" and "Reach Out I'll Be there" from their Golden Hour of the Future demo as the Future. They also covered the Get Carter theme. The general point of YMO Versus The Human League, which features the band covering "Behind the Mask", "Kimi Ni, Mune Kyun", and "Tong Poo" by Yellow Magic Orchestranote "Behind the Mask" specifically uses the Michael Jackson version, which was unreleased at the time but was still the go-to basis for most other covers of the song. The latter is also conjoined with a performance of "Firecracker" by Martin Denny, which YMO famously covered on their own debut album (which "Tong Poo" also hails from). | |
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Updated Re-release | |
The Human League (Music) / int_df1793de | comment |
Updated Re-release: CD and digital reissues of Reproduction and Travelogue both include various rarities from the pre-Dare era of the band as bonus tracksnote Reproduction has the "Empire State Human" B-Side "Introducing" and the Fast Product material, while Travelogue has the rest of the non-album Virgin material up through the Mk. II lineup's debut single "Boys and Girls"/"Tom Baker", which continues the Dark Wave approach of the Mk. I stuff, with both discs adding up to a complete collection of the 1978-1981 material. Since this early period of the band was never commercially successful in its lifetime, this was likely considered more economical than a dedicated rarities compilation like what the Dare-onwards material would eventually get. | |
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House Music | |
The Human League (Music) / int_e230228a | comment |
Octopus moved back to analog synths and took prominent influence from newer developments in electronic dance music (particularly House Music and Eurodance), with both Secrets and Credo continuing and further modernizing the style. | |
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The Human League (Music) / int_e5421161 | type |
Expy | |
The Human League (Music) / int_e5421161 | comment |
Expy: Martyn and Ware asked Glenn Gregory to join the original lineup, though he declined, so they asked Phil Oakey (who had a similar voice) instead. After the MK1 group split, Martyn and Ware asked Gregory to join their new group Heaven 17, and this time he agreed. | |
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Height Angst | |
The Human League (Music) / int_e59315cf | comment |
Height Angst: "Empire State Human" is about a guy who loathes his short height and desires to be as tall as a skyscraper. | |
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Fading into the Next Song | |
The Human League (Music) / int_f3cf057b | comment |
Fading into the Next Song: Done on the band's 12"s of "Hard Times/Love Action" and "Open Your Heart/Non-Stop", which feature the listed songs mixed into medleys rather than having dedicated 12" mixes for the single track. The "Love And Dancing" remix album mimics the flow of the former 12", although with largely instrumental mixes. This was soon after done on the album Dare, in which the minute long "Get Carter" serves as a prelude to "I Am The Law", leading to many not even noticing they're separate tracks. This then fades into "Seconds". | |
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Canon Immigrant | |
The Human League (Music) / int_fc7c4f92 | comment |
Canon Immigrant: After the "Philip Oakey and Giorgio Moroder" project fell apart, Oakey repurposed their hit "Together in Electric Dreams" as a Human League song, with it being on compilations and performed live. | |
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The Human League (Music) |
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