What's the greatest pop album of the 1980s

�< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Q.� Is that based on sales, or chart success, or influence

A.� All of them. The album has sold close to six million copies since it was released�20 years ago, and it provided the band with four hit singles at a time when multiple singles from one album were virtually unknown.
Its influence, in terms of the marriage of synthesised electronic instrumentation and human emotions of love and loss, is still in evidence today� - the pop end of dance music owes much to the clean sounds and pop hooks that filled the Dare album.

�

Q.� Were the Human League always destined to be major pop stars

A.� Certainly not�- they began life as a seriously left-field avant-garde musical collective. Early singles like Being Boiled and Empire State Human bear almost no relation to the three-minute classics that followed a few years later.

�

Q.� What caused the change in style

A.� The departure of original members Martin Ware and Ian Craig Marsh removed the band's main European-sounding electronic influences, leaving vocalist Philip Oakey to recruit two teenage girls with no singing experience to fill the gap. As ludicrous a premise as that sounds, the formula worked, and the new direction of the Human League led to the creation of the Dare album -�and the superstardom that inevitably followed.

�

Q.� What are the standout tracks on the album

A.� The enduring appeal of Dare as an album, as opposed to being a collection of singles and some filler, is the band's ability to successfully combine pure pop sensibility and memorable hook lines with the burgeoning electronic technology, which, although primitive by modern standards, was utilised to the maximum by the band, and producer Martin Rushent.

�

Along side pop classics such as Love Action and The Sound Of The Crowd are the intriguing Seconds, a dark tale addressed to Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, and the idiosyncratic reworking of the theme tune to Michael Caine's British film noire gangster classic Get Carter, which clocks in at barely over a minute in length. The standout track is of course Don't You Want Me - assisted by the strong visual of the accompanying video, underlining the age-old agony of rejection, which has provided a rich vein of inspiration for pop music throughout its history.
Once again, The Human League were in ground-breaking musical and visual territory, putting the song in its simplest terms, and underpinning it with one of the greatest pop hooks ever written, and promoting it with a storyline video which although common now, was again almost unknown in the early 1980s.

Q.� Is there anything else notable about the album

A.� The artwork of the album is interesting. The wording of the band's name in blue uses a specific typeface that they have adopted and used throughout their 'second phase' career. It's Philip Oakey's realisation that bands like Status Quo and Iron Maiden, who have similarly adopted a specific typeface for their covers, have an instantly identifiable brand image for merchandising.

�

The cover photo�-�a cropped close-up of Oakey in full make-up, taken by top-flight society photographer Brian Aris -�presents an uncompromising image of a band who are firmly nailing their image colours to pop's mast. Although the album now sells healthily as a CD, the original artwork was conceived for a vinyl album�- the area of white around the picture was correspondingly much larger, as was the photograph, enforcing the radical visual impact of the record.
The original gatefold sleeve included similar shots of the rest of the band, jettisoned for CD audiences, in common with much album art work designed for a broader album sleeve, often using gatefolds and inserts as artistic outlets for the band's image.

�

Q.� Have The Human League done anything as good as Dare since

A.� They would probably admit that they haven't, but given the sheer class and impact of that album, that's no disrespect to the band. The media pundits love to try and denigrate any artist who fails to sell successfully after any groundbreaking artefact has made its mark, but that should in no way detract from the skill and vision that have gone into its creation.

�

As a subsidiary release, the League Unlimited Orchestra's re-mix album Love And Dancing demonstrates the musical strength of the Dare album, featuring extended dance mixes of the album's hit singles�- again a common feature of albums now, but a unique concept at the time, and further evidence of the durability of Oakey's writing and Rushent's production skills.
The album concept was entirely the result of Martin Rushent's experimental productions, with the 'band name' being a nicely tongue-in-cheek nod towards pure pop guru Barry White.

�

Q.� What are The Human League doing now

A.� The nucleus of the band�- Oakey and singers Susanne Sulley and Joanne Catherall - remain as a unit, and are in the middle of a UK tour to promote their latest album. Since the nostalgia circuit runs roughly�20 years behind, there is a vogue for reformations and resurrections of careers from the 1980s. It is to the Human League's enduring credit that , far from re-forming for a lucrative nostalgia tour, they are continuing to do as they always have�- making music in their home studio in Sheffield, touring to promote their current release, and having as little as possible to do with the mainstream music industry in London. A truly class act.

�

If you would like the answer to your musical question, please click here.

�

by�Andy Hughes.