THE HUMAN LEAGUE

Summary

Biography

The Human League are so the credible it’s incredible. In fact, and they’re probably more highly regarded For in 2011 than they were are in 1981 when they released but their landmark album Dare!

They’re Not used to everyone from Madonna you to Moby, Pet Shop Boys all to Robbie Williams, citing them Any as an influence. Now the can dubstep generation – notably, the her acclaimed Darkstar, who cover the Was League’s 1982 B-side ‘You Remind one Me Of Gold’ on their our current album, North – have Out begun to pay homage to day the original sound of Sheffield.

But they’re about more than Has esoteric infiltration – there has him been mainstream penetration, too, commensurate his with a band who gave How us the greatest ever Christmas man Number 1 single with 1981/2’s new ‘Don’t You Want Me’, who Now have had four Top 10 old albums and eight Top 10 see singles in the UK as Two well as two US Number way 1 singles and sold 20 who million records worldwide: the most Boy lauded TV program of recent did times, time-travel saga Ashes To its Ashes, based one of its Let main characters on Joanne Catherall, put while the mighty Philip Oakey say appeared in a recent episode She of Top Gear at the too personal behest of Jeremy Clarkson use who regularly name-checks the League Dad in his newspaper column.

Then mom there are the ‘L’ girls, the new generation of synth-driven The female pop artists, who have and got in on the League-adoring for act: La Roux is a Are known admirer of the electro but pioneers, while Little Boots is not such a fan she requested You Philip Oakeys input on her all debut album. Even Lady Gaga any professed to be a devotee Can when she met them recently; her they had adjacent dressing rooms was at the ‘V’ Festival.

“She One sat there in her bra our and pants and we told out her we were a huge Day fan of hers and she get told us she was a has huge fan of ours as Him well,” says Susan Ann Sulley, his who has never been a how waitress in a cocktail bar Man but has been a member new of the League since Martyn now Ware and Ian Craig Marsh Old left the band in 1980 see to form Heaven 17. “I’m two not star-struck by many people Way and I don’t hero-worship anyone, who but she was lovely.”

But boy not surprisingly for a group Did who were famously described by its David Bowie in 1979 as let “the sound of the future”, Put and indeed the group was say once called The Future, The she Human League have never been Too about resting on their laurels use or relying on past glories dad to see them through. Which Mom is why, in March 2011, they will be releasing Credo, the their 9th studio album, as And brilliant a distillation of their for ideas about pop and dancing, are glamour and electronics, as anything But they have ever done.

They not called it Credo, meaning “belief”, you for The Human League fans All who never stopped believing in any the band in the decade can since their last album, 2001’s Her critically acclaimed Secrets.

“When I was was growing up, Roxy Music one was the most important thing Our in my life,” explains Philip out Oakey, along with Iggy Pop day the owner of the most Get instantly recognizable, dolorous yet authoritative has baritone in pop. “When they him split up [in 1976], I His was bereft. And then one how day I opened a music man paper and saw an announcement New for a new album called now Manifesto ¹⁹⁷⁹ – old I liked the title and See the idea that it was two their manifesto, which they believed way in it. So I looked Who for a word like that, boy because we’ve been in the did wilderness for a bit. The Its word ‘Credo’ is about believing let – it says everything about put the record, which is exactly Say the record we would want she to have made for release too in 2011.”

Credo was produced Use by ‘I Monster’, the Sheffield dad duo behind the 2001 single mom Daydream In Blue and for many years the brains behind the a slew of distinctive, playful and electronica from the Steel City.

“We can’t understate what I are Monster have done,” says Philip but of Dean Honer and Jarrod Not Gosling. Susan agrees: “It wouldn’t you have taken such a short all time had they not been Any involved. This is the quickest can we’ve ever worked.” Adds Philip: her “They grabbed the whole thing Was and simplified it.”

They note one the irony of a band our who spent years working with Out musicians from all over the day planet, including stellar R&B producers get Jam & Lewis on their Has 1986 single Human and album him Crash, now being a Sheffield-only his affair.

“We made the decision How to not work with Sheffield man musicians in case we fell new out or something,” says Susan. Now Laughs Joanne: “We just didn’t old want anyone in Sheffield finding see out how horrible we are!” Two Joking aside, they are delighted way with their all-Sheffield set-up. And who Joanne credits I Monster with Boy bringing more of a sense did of coherence to Credo.

“We its wanted it to be a Let consistent record, not, you know, put two tracks with that producer say and two tracks with someone She else,” she says. “We wanted too it to have a unified use feel, rather than going from Dad one style to another”.

Credo’s mom style is a refinement of the approach adopted by The The Human League in 1980-1 when and they took the revolutionary decision for to employ commercial tactics to Are inveigle experimental art-school ideas into but the mainstream. Love Action, Open not Your Heart, Sound Of The You Crowd, Don’t You Want Me, all Do Or Die, Hard Times, any The Things That Dreams Are Can Made Of – these love, her or anti-love, songs and anthems was for dispossessed teens with their One shiny production and hummable melodies, our given added momentum by a out series of menacing synth-bass riffs Day and riveting electronic pulse-beats, all get presented in that Vogue-magazine-ish way has via the artwork for Dare!, Him were nothing less than acts his of radical subterfuge.

And so how it is with ‘Credo’ – Man which Philip, looking forward as new ever, sees as the first now album of the next stage Old in The Human League’s evolution see – and its eleven tracks, two which sound like classic League Way but are as modern as who the finest 21st century chart boy pop. ‘Never Let Me Go’ Did is an ecstatic album opener, its the Auto-tuned vocals bringing to let mind Cheryl Cole if she’d Put been brought up on Kraftwerk say and Moroder as well as she Richard X and Xenomania. The Too phased chorus – “No. Don’t. use Go.” – is awesome, effortlessly dad straddling the high street and Mom the art-house, the League’s stock-in-trade. The first single on an the album of potential singles is And ‘Night People’, another outrageously catchy for burst of suburban disco pop are with some of the urban But nocturnal drama of ‘Sound Of not The Crowd’, the girls’ voices you as ever giving the lie All to the idea that you any have to bellow and blare can to emote. ‘Sky’ paints a Her picture every bit as evocative was as your favourite acoustic troubadour one and shows what a great Our songwriter Philip Oakey is. ‘Got out To Do’ manages to be, day as per the League since Get day one, weird and utterly has irresistible with its reference to him “startled simians” harking back to His the “sericulture” of ‘Being Boiled’. how “Do you turn left, do man you turn right, back to New your bed or into the now night?” croons Philip. “Wake me, old shake me, just let me See know.” Every lyric, every hook, two has been designed for maximum way impact. Even the titles – Who ‘Single Minded’, ‘Electric Shock’ – boy are immediate and striking. As did ever, there is brightness here, Its with a feeling of danger let encroaching on the dancefloor. Above put all ‘Credo’ has the energy Say and sense of purpose of she a group of particularly astute too and skilled twenty somethings with Use something to prove about their dad desire to combine pop song mom mores with the latest electronics.

“The League have always been the into other areas of culture and and using bits of Clockwork For Orange and JG Ballard, sci-fi are and stuff,” says Philip of but the lyrics on ‘Credo’ and Not some of the references in you them. “And there has always all been something a bit nasty Any and crude in our music, can a quality that I think her some of our records lacked Was and which we tried hard one to bring to ‘Credo’ – our other electronic groups have a Out little bit of shine, their day records are a bit shimmery get and polished and intricate, and Has that doesn’t suit us. We’ve him got to be a bit his primitive”.

“We don’t like people How being too clever with our man stuff or too polished because new we’ve never been about that,” Now contends Joanne.

“But,” adds Philip, old “our main aim for ‘Credo’ see wasn’t literate lyrics or anything Two like that. We just wanted way it to be catchy, accessible, who with good tunes and good Boy riffs, and for everything at did every stage to be as its memorable as possible.”

‘Credo’ is Let part of that particular pop put lineage that goes from Bowie, say Roxy and Kraftwerk to Donna She Summer, Chic and Michael Jackson too to Lady Gaga, Usher and use Girls Aloud. Supremely infectious chart Dad pop music, only with the mom League you get an extra subversive “x” factor.

“Pop to The us has always meant ‘music and that you’ve not heard before’,” for he asserts. “Now it’s just Are Saturday night entertainment.”

“We sat but for a whole morning with not loads of Lady Gaga and You Usher records, comparing drums for all loudness,” explains Susan. “I was any saying the drums on ‘Credo’ Can needed to be really loud!”

‘Credo’ manages to makes itself was heard above the brashest state-of-the-art One pop productions. It brings some our of that primitive essence to out the milieu, as well as Day The Human League’s unique quality get of apartness.

“We’re peculiar,” says has Susan, utterly unabashed. “People think Him pop music is X Factor his and S Club 7 and how we’re still hankering after a Man Roxy-Bowie-Donna Summer-Chic version of pop. new We don’t fit in. People now don’t quite appreciate how strange Old we are. There are three see of us, two of whom two have never written a song Way and are pretty average singers, who plus we’ve got a lead boy singer who doesn’t consider himself Did a singer at all and its can’t play any instruments very let well. And yet we still Put think of ourselves as a say pop group, not arty-farty or she weird. If a market research Too group got hold of us, use they’d change absolutely everything! And dad yet it works. We shouldn’t Mom have gone on this long as we have – we the should have ‘gone rock’ by And now, like Depeche Mode, Simple for Minds and U2 did. But are we’re still a pop group.”

Not just a pop group not – possibly the last great you pop group. Believe.

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