Don’T You Want Me – Human League - 1981 - Disco Dance 80s

Don’T You Want Me – Human League - 1981

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 Human League: Biografia | Biography

Fonte: Wikipedia

The Human League sono un gruppo musicale nato a Sheffield, Gran Bretagna, nel 1977. Pionieri della musica creata esclusivamente con strumenti elettronici alla fine degli anni settanta e poi del synth pop all'inizio degli anni ottanta, in cui hanno goduto di grande popolarità, sono stati oggetto di un tentativo di ritorno verso la metà degli anni novanta.

Il nome deriva dal gioco da tavolo Starforce: Alpha Centauri, allora uno dei primi wargame di fantascienza, in cui esiste una comunità sorta nel 2415 d.C., appunto la "Human League" ("Lega umana") che cerca l'indipendenza dalla Terra.

Martyn Ware e Ian Craig Marsh erano due programmatori di computer uniti dall'amore per due stili musicali abbastanza diversi tra loro, la musica pop, come il glam rock e la Motown, e la musica elettronica d'avanguardia. Comprarono un sintetizzatore e cominciarono a 

produrre musica nel loro studio, formando poi un gruppo con Adi Newton (The Future), che lasciò dopo qualche tempo la compagine. Glenn Gregory (successivamente leader di un'altra loro band, gli Heaven 17), prima scelta, non era in quel momento disponibile e 

dovettero quindi ripiegare su Philip Oakey, appunto, un ex compagno di scuola. Al gruppo si aggiunge successivamente Philip Adrian Wright in veste di scenografo e addetto alle proiezioni durante gli spettacoli live. I primi due lavori pubblicati da questa formazione 

originale furono tiepidi successi, Reproduction nel 1979 e Travelogue l'anno seguente, che pur entrarono nei primi 40 posti della classifica inglese degli album: il pubblico li percepì come una band Post-punk, mentre il cantante vedeva il proprio lavoro come un moderno pop commerciale.

Dopo l'uscita di Travelogue il gruppo si divide, Ware e Marsh recuperano Glen Gregory e danno vita agli Heaven 17 e alla British Electric Foundation (B.E.F.), mentre Oakey e Wright (diventato nel frattempo tastierista) proseguono col nome Human League. Per soddisfare 

le esigenze dell'imminente tour europeo assumono Ian Burden al basso e allargano la line up del gruppo con due cantanti diciassettenni, Susanne Ann Sulley e Joanne Catherall, incontrate in un club della loro città.

Nel 1981, sotto l'egida della Virgin, registrarono il loro album più di successo, dal titolo Dare, trascinato nelle vendite anche da alcuni singoli amati dal grande pubblico, il più famoso dei 

quali resta Don't You Want Me, numero uno nella classifica britannica nel periodo natalizio e uno dei singoli che hanno più venduto in quello stesso anno, raggiungendo anche la prima posizione anche negli Stati Uniti durante l'estate successiva.

In questa fase della loro carriera, gli Human League venivano associati a un movimento musicale ancora diverso, il neoromanticismo. Dopo aver speso mesi cercando di replicare un album di successo come Dare, e dopo che il produttore aveva abbandonato il progetto, 

finalmente nel maggio 1984 pubblicarono un singolo carico di significati politici, The Lebanon, che raggiunse l'undicesima posizione in Gran Bretagna. Era un brano che si distanziava molto dal materiale precedente, un singolo pieno di chitarre e di sonorità rock. 

L'album, che seguì di lì a poco, Hysteria, per il difficile e teso processo di registrazione, divise critica e pubblico proprio per questa sua nuova direzione musicale e non ebbe il successo che ci si sarebbe potuti attendere.

In quello stesso anno, gli Human League vissero di fama riflessa per un album che vide il loro cantante collaborare con Giorgio Moroder con un brano parte della colonna sonora di Electric Dreams.

Nel 1986, in un periodo di stagnazione creativa, la Virgin mise al loro fianco una coppia di produttori americani, famosi nel R&B, che avevano appena lavorato al grande successo internazionale di Janet Jackson: tutto ciò produsse il mega-hit americano dal titolo Human, singolo che riscosse anche in patria un ottimo posizionamento nelle classifiche di vendita.

Source: humanleague.dk

The Human League are a British New Wave band. They first formed in 1977 and, after a change in line up, achieved huge popularity in the 1980s. They have continued recording and performing with moderate commercial success in the 1990s and 2000s.

Originally a synthesizer-based group from Sheffield, the only constant band member since the Human League formed in 1977 is vocalist and songwriter Philip Oakey. Today, the Human League still are recording and performing. The group now is presented as a trio of Oakey and long-serving female vocalists Joanne Catherall and Susan Anne Sulley.

Over the years, the Human League has been sampled and covered by various artists including George Michael and Robbie Williams. The band has been a huge influence for many electro-pop acts including early Depeche Mode, Madonna, Moby, and other bands.

Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh were both working as computer operators in 1977, and combined a love of pop music (such as glam rock and Tamla Motown) with avant garde electronic music. They acquired a Roland System 100 synthesizer and began to create 

music in their own rehearsal facility. Initially they formed a group called The Future with Adi Newton. Newton left to form the outfit Clock DVA. Ware and Marsh searched for a vocalist, but their first choice, Glenn Gregory (who would be the lead singer of their later band 

Heaven 17), was unavailable. Ware instead decided to invite Philip Oakey, an old school friend, and a hospital porter at the time to join the band, "apparently by leaving a note stuck to his door". Oakey accepted the invitation, despite never having been in a band before. 

Shortly after, they decided to call themselves "The Human League." A collection of demos from this period was released on CD in 2002, titled The Golden Hour of The Future, compiled by Richard X.

The name "Human League" derived from the game Starforce: Alpha Centauri, which was the second professionally published science fiction wargame, by SPI. In the game, the Human League arose in 2415 A.D., and were a frontier-oriented society that desired more independence from Earth and the terraforming of systems not naturally habitable.

In addition to Ware, Marsh and Oakey, the band recruited photographer Philip Adrian Wright to run slide shows and films onstage, and was credited as a full band member on record sleeves despite his contributions being non-musical.

The band released their debut single "Being Boiled" in 1978 on Edinburgh's Fast Product label.

The original line-up released two LPs that were mildly successful: Reproduction in 1979 and Travelogue in 1980. Both reached the Top 40 of the UK Album Charts (though Reproduction did not achieve this until two years after its release).

After the release of Travelogue, disillusionment with the band's limited success, particularly after contemporary Gary Numan's "Cars" single became a smash hit, led to the breakup of 

the band's original lineup in late 1980, with Ware and Marsh eventually forming Heaven 17 with vocalist Glenn Gregory and Oakey retaining legal rights to the Human League name, in exchange for royalties paid to Ware and Marsh for future band revenues.

Following the split of the original line-up, Wright and Oakey released another fringe single, "Boys and Girls". In order to fulfil their European tour commitments, they recruited bass 

player Ian Burden, and fronted the band with two singers, Susanne Sulley and Joanne Catherall, schoolgirls whom they had met in Sheffield's Crazy Daisy Nightclub, and managed to complete the tour.

In 1981, Virgin records paired them with former Stranglers producer Martin Rushent, and the first result was the single "The Sound of the Crowd", which saw them at last achieve success in the singles chart. Guitarist Jo Callis (formerly of The Rezillos) was now recruited 

to the band, and with Rushent at the helm, The Human League recorded their most successful album to date, Dare!. It achieved huge success, fuelled by its further hit singles, "Open Your Heart", "Love Action"/"Hard Times" and most famously "Don't You Want Me", 

which reached number one in the UK charts during the Christmas of 1981 and was one of the biggest selling singles of that year, and it also charted at number one in the US during the summer of 1982. These three releases were accompanied by striking promo videos ("Love Action" based on the movie The Graduate).

In the summer of 1982, a remix album of Dare entitled Love and Dancing was released under the group name League Unlimited Orchestra, reaching number three on the UK album chart. During their Dare phase, the Human League were often associated with New Romantic movement.

In November 1982, the Motown influenced electro pop single "Mirror Man" reached number two in the UK chart. The follow-up single released during April 1983, "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" similarly peaked at number two. The following months proved to be difficult 

ones for the band as they struggled to record a follow up to Dare. A six song EP called Fascination! compiled the singles "Mirror Man" and "Fascination" together with the new 

track "I Love You Too Much" from the original recording sessions for their new album, later to be named Hysteria. The EP was released in America as a stop-gap and also became a strong seller as an import in the UK.

The band spent many expensive months agonizing over each and every sound recorded as the band tried to follow up Dare, and as things became ever more stressful the producer Martin Rushent left the project, at which point the band ditched much of the material 

recorded so far and started over again with new producers Hugh Padgham and Chris Thomas (though some of Rushent's contributions to certain tracks from the earlier sessions were included on the released album). Finally in May 1984 the band released the politically 

charged single "The Lebanon". Its rock guitar-driven harder edge was a considerable and surprising departure from their previous material, and the single peaked at number eleven in the UK. This was followed shortly after by the album Hysteria, so called because of the 

difficult and tense recording process, it entered the UK charts at number three however it climbed no further and critics and fans were divided by the new direction the band had taken. The second single was the rather downbeat "Life On Your Own", with its opening 

line of "winter is approaching, there is snow upon the ground" making it a strange choice of single to be released in the middle of summer. Again the single missed the UK top ten reaching number sixteen, and with the parent album Hysteria failing to live up to expected sales thoughts of a third single were put on hold.

However, later that year, Oakey enjoyed huge success outside of the Human League with the hit single "Together in Electric Dreams", a collaboration with one of his idols, synth pioneer Giorgio Moroder. The track was taken from the film soundtrack to Electric Dreams 

and became a massive hit around the world. The pair then recorded an album for Virgin, Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder, which met with less success, with the two subsequent 

singles failing to make the UK Top 40. However, the success of the first Oakey and Moroder track encouraged the Human League's record label to release one final single from Hysteria in November 1984: the ballad "Louise" (UK number 13).

In 1986, the group found themselves in creative stagnation, struggling to record material to follow up on their previous success. Key songwriter Jo Callis departed, replaced by drummer Jim Russell, and Virgin paired the Human League up with cutting-edge American 

R&B producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis who had just scored a huge worldwide hit earlier that year with Janet Jackson's Control. The result was the Crash album. The album featured much material written by Jam and Lewis' team, and showcased their distinctive 

DX7-led sound, making it quite a departure from previous Human League material. It did provide an American number-one single, "Human", but other singles made smaller chart impact.

In November 1988, a greatest hits compilation album was released which reached number 3 in UK.