Human League - Synthetic Mutations

“Since I was very young I’ve realised,

I never wanted to be human size”

Let's try to feel, for a moment, lifted from the mega-pixel present and curl ourselves up to go back to the origins of a story that opens on an artificial but still humanised pulse, almost caught in conflict between past and future.

Towards the mid-1970s Kraftwerk cracked open the canon of rock, showing just how progressively equal the relationship between man and machine could become, tearing down the old hierarchy of one over the other, even overturning it. But an awareness of the present was bound to offer up different keys to interpretation, each generating a particular and unrepeatable view of the world: at times graver and more resigned, at times outraged and fierce, and in some cases deliberately transgressive to the point of apparent trash.

If the range of possibilities was so wide, there was certainly no shortage of room for a cerebral modus cogitandi et operandi, tempered by a healthy dose of style, plainly visible in look and appearance. One might be tempted to think of a shrewd opportunism parasitic on the critique of the socio-cultural system, a climbing of the mirrored walls of new wave to win an aura of immortality equal to that of the greats, if one only looked at the surface of the Human League story. But the reality underlying every event is three-dimensional, and the story being told here wants to show its more hidden surface too.

Sheffield, 1977: in a climate inflamed by the punk horde and cross-contaminated by multi-handed experiments in the field of electronics, with the synth as protagonist — an instrument marking the divide between reality and artifice — the two programmers Martin Ware and Ian Craig Marsh step away, for a moment, from the control room to devote themselves to a project that could reconcile work and passion.

Having emerged, as it were, from the lands of glam-rock and smitten with the avant-garde potential of artificial sound, they decide to buy a Roland synthesizer that would clearly define their music. The embryo is called The Future, with Adi Newton on board, soon to migrate towards the Clock Dva experience. The choice then falls on Phil Oakey, a charming, ethereal hospital porter. The new entry marks, besides the decisive turn towards show business, also a new name: The Future becomes The Human League, taking its name from a video game simulating guerrilla warfare between humans and androids for independence from Earth. The earliest demos from the fledgling line-up would later be collected on The Golden Hour Of The Future, put together by Richard X. Anticipating the leap into major-label delirium and success came the single “Being Boiled/Circus of Death” and the EP The Dignity of Labour, released in 1979 on the newborn Fast Product label. That material would later be included as a bonus on the reissue of Reproduction. The single is filled with laser blasts clearing a path through petrified crowds (“Being Boiled”) and with martial marches through the dark, terrifying void of faces whose features have almost been erased (“Circus of Death”).

The move is a shrewd one and earns them, within the independent circuit, an attention that — enriched by the new addition, within the ranks, of visual artist Adrian Wright — would lead, in 1979, to a contract with Virgin.

Without making any counterproductive leaps into the void, almost as if testing the impact on a more varied audience, under the pseudonym “The Men” they record the single “I Don't Depend You”, which winks at a certain glam-descended disco sound, immediately followed by the EP The Dignity Of Labour, a four-part ride of humanoids: after every equilibrium is shattered in “The Dignity Of The Labour Pt 1”, there follows an astonished landing on the Moon, then explored in slow motion in “Pt 2”, and the enchantment of a sidereal echo in “Pt 3”, right through to the unsettling dreamlike languor of “Pt 4”.

The arc seems to grow exponentially with Reproduction, an album that, beating Soft Cell and Depeche Mode to the punch, builds the backbone of synth-pop artifice.

However fleeting and fragile the embryo might seem, the reality is a record of refined and perverse beauty, almost a faithful mirror of the man interpreting its lyrics. The sonic architecture is assembled with a care that borders on perfection, the images evoked are lunar and anxiously anguished, Oakey's voice is neurotic and theatrical, the beat almost piercing (“Almost Medieval”). The gaze turned towards a sinuous, electric dance finds its natural home in the triad of “The Path of Least Resistance”, “Blind Youth” and the hugely successful single “Empire State Human”, with its robotic flourishes and its electrifying, contagious refrain — the right key to the charts.

The sumptuousness of the ballad, from its most mechanical form (“The World Before Last”) to a caressing, stellar sweetness directly traceable to the new romantic code (“Morale… You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'”), characterises, as a sort of flip side of the coin, the rest of the album, which, in its original version, closes with a burst of acceleration towards the intoxicated infinity of “Zero As a Limit”.

On the currently available reissue, the aforementioned singles and EP appear as bonus tracks.

The twin birth of 1980 produces three heterozygotic siblings: “Non Stop Erotic Cabaret” by Soft Cell, the self-titled “OMD” and Travelogue. The womb is the same: a sound forged by the synthesizer and by vocals that shade into Almond's obscene languor, passing through McCluskey's flamboyant experimentation, all the way to Oakey's taut stylishness. Indeed, the distinguishing trait remains identical, although Travelogue shows clear differences from the first record, warding off any danger of being seen as a mere copy: where Reproduction, behind an appearance of instinctive accessibility, concealed an at-times “esoteric” spleen, Travelogue, expanding into more open movements often comparable precisely to the self-titled OMD record (“Touchables”, “Dreams Of Leaving”), dilutes the viscosity of the debut into a more agile instrumental flow (“Toyota City” and “Gordon's Gin”). The martial tread leaves its mark here too (“Black Hit Of Space”), with a futuristic keyboard and gleaming lunar pallor that then becomes charged with anticipation as the record proceeds (“Only After Dark”), while the anxious bassline foreshadows the imminent debut of Depeche Mode (“Life Kills”). Hints of a little Almond-esque strutting, favouring the path of narcissism over that of ambiguity, open “Marianne”, a little gem of synth-dance capable of upstaging Duran Duran's “Girls On Film”, unexpectedly followed by the chanting delirium of “Rock'n Roll Night Clubbing”, with its fake psycho-billy opening, punctuated by handclaps. The genius who, at the right moment, sheds his stage clothes to emerge in his dramatic magniloquence, like an unconsciously Wagnerian input, reveals himself at the close in “Tom Baker” and in an instrumental “Cruel” that follows in the wake left by the comet of Berlin-era Bowie.

It's 1981, “plastic-osis” advances inexorably, the aesthetic of excess heads towards its peak, and showing oneself off becomes an ever more pleasurable game. The Human League, split over which future direction to follow, after a reshuffle that leads Ware and Marsh towards the Heaven 17 experience, convince Wright to split his time between lights and synths and bring into the new line-up Ian Burden on bass, alongside two eighteen-year-old backing singers, Susanne Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall. The band thus turns towards an airy, dreamlike lightness that leads directly to Give (1981), further enriched by a new guitar, that of Jo Collis. The album, true to the times, with the new entry of the two striking vocalists, gives back an image of the group far removed from the austerity of its Teutonic source of inspiration.

The dancefloor intent is immediately clear: "The Things That Dreams Are Made Of" is an acidic, rubbery keyboard intro, immediately followed by the sprinkling of stardust sugar that "Open Your Heart" lets fall. Delightful new romantic swooning laps at the synthetic, sinuous pulse of "Darkness", continuing into a Gahan-esque sing-song, revised and lit by a few extra shafts of light ("I Am The Law"). Returning to a Bowie-esque suggestion toward the close, we move into territory of smoky, decadent dandyism ("Seconds"), which becomes even more mannered on "Love Action (I Believe in Love)", while the closer is a delicious, irresistible wink at the business side of things, with the dance hit "Don't You Want Me?", further embellished by the female backing chorus.

The gap separating Give from the recording of a new LP is the stage for a gradual loss of the band's original spleen: they record Fascination, an EP that, draining the substance from what came before, shines mainly thanks to the two hits "Mirror Man" and "Fascination", a glossy little electro-pop trinket.

The next step, in fact, slides into a commercial morphology, made of a milkier, flatter sonic material. Hysteria, from 1984, opens with a synthetic breakdance, its keyboard almost weighed down by excess, tipping into blandness ("I'm Coming Back"). The other dance-floor whip-crack, "Rock Me Again And Again And Again", even opens with a funk strut and an almost-black chorus, followed by the sleepy good-naturedness of "Louise", closed out by a spoken section halfway between Bowie's nerve and the savoir faire of Bryan Ferry. There's a moment to breathe with "Lebanon", the album's hit, which seems to set things right again, returning to the star-bound uplift of the early days and fitting perfectly into the canons of the sleekest new wave. Toward the end, there's a decent synthetic dance number, though once again glossy in the chorus ("Life on Your Own"), before closing on another exercise in narcissism with a candied little chorus, fading into a Cure-like bassline and seasoned with dynamic keyboards ("Don't You Know I Want You").

In 1985, amid yuppies and Italy's paninari crowd, Oakey got to fulfil one of his dreams: collaborating with the hero of his youthful ambitions, synth-guru Giorgio Moroder, with whom he made the single "Together In Electric Dreams", the soundtrack to the film of the same name. The partnership lasted just long enough for one album, Philip Oakey And Giorgio Moroder, destined to remain gathering dust in the shadows of the record racks.

1986 marks almost the point of no return for the band. With Callis gone and drummer Jim Russell brought into the lineup, the shift toward an easy-listen, easy-consume sound follows the coordinates laid down by the new producers Virgin decided to pair them with: Jam and Lewis. The almost unwanted offspring is Crash. The atmospheres, while still marked by the keyboard-driven DNA, grow ever more immediate, leaning toward a carefree, no-frills funk ("Swang"). Brightened by a single hit that recaptures the new romantic spirit, close to certain Scritti Politti material ("Human"), Crash gradually loses its edge, taking on the guise of a soundtrack for American teen dramas starring pseudo-worldly college kids ("I Need Your Loving"), complete with a happily syncopated theme tune set against a backdrop of an electric, electrifying party ("Love On The Run").

Glucose syrup soaks the ending, almost entirely left to the dazed cooing of the backing singers ("Love Is All That Matters"), before a more acidic, elaborate closer, built on austere male vocals echoed by subtle female reverberations, close to the rawest-nerved Gang Of Four.

The '80s close with yet another lineup shuffle, which by now seems to have become the band's other defining trait, and with Virgin's refusal to renew the contract, following the resounding - and hardly baffling - flop of Romantic?.

The album, having lost veterans Adrian Wright and Ian Burden along the way, replaced by Neil Sutton and Russell Dennett, suffers noticeably from the change of course, arguably reaching the peak of tedium and déjà vu. The opener, "The Stars Are Going Out", promises nothing new: a sound that chews uselessly on itself, paired with an aseptic chorus, immediately followed by pathetic, obsolete keyboards ("Heart Like A Wheel"), or forcedly frothy ones ("Mister Moon And Mister Sun"). The saga continues, like a cartoon theme tune, on "Let's Get Together Again". Toward the end, there's a real risk of tumbling into the most commercial kind of dance music, with backing choruses that become almost unbearable ("Soundtrack To A Generation"), and sadly it's the closer too, with Oakey all but exiled to backing vocals ("A Doorway").

The '90s open with the move to EastWest, for whom they recorded, in 1994, Octopus, launched into orbit by the easy-listening "Tell Me When". Although the album enjoys a kind of sonic facelift thanks to new technology that, for a moment, manages to wrest it away from nostalgia for the good old days, there's still a leaning toward overly brazen immediacy ("One Man In My Heart"), tempered however by a timid nod to the old cerebral streak ("Words"), which turns into glossy electronic backing fit for a fashionable club, recovering an austere, baritone vocal ("Housefull Of Nothing"). The urge to reinvent leads to the catchiest, most danceable electro-pop, built in the lab specifically for the dancefloor ("John Cleese; Is He Funny?"), closing with a track energised by the band's beloved laser effects ("Cruel Young Lover").

A silence of over five years might suggest the mutant creature had disbanded, but in 2001, almost as a way of marking its presence in the new millennium, Secrets came out on Papillon, a Chrysalis subsidiary - an album that, continuing down the path laid by Octopus, keeps enjoying a new lease of life.

The production is careful and up to date, and Oakey's voice remains unchanged, once again backed by the two female singers who had seemed to have irreversibly dragged the band into the vortex of an overly fashionable aesthetic. This time, though, Oakey seems to rediscover his own lost core, and once again commands the scene with confidence ("All I Ever Wanted"), lending everything a languidly dramatic backbone ("Shameless"). There's even room for the most syncopated, acidic, otherworldly tunz-tunz, recovering the robotic mood of the early days ("The Snake"), followed by a genuine little gem suspended halfway between a trip-hop journey and the most refined electro ("Ringinglow"). A cascade of effects wraps around the bass and keyboards, into which Oakey then enters with masterful grace, showing no embarrassment whatsoever in the face of new technology and new company by the name of Ladytron ("Reflections"), before moving on to a reference that even brushes up against Jean-Michel Jarre ("Brute"). Immediately preceded by an instrumental play of keyboard and effects ("Release"), the closer arrives, a sunny electro-pop track, instantly enjoyable even on the most superficial listen.

And in 2002, out comes a compilation that, by digging up the boxes shut away in the attic, brings the memory of the past 25 years back into sharp focus. The Golden Hour Of The Future gathers the earliest singles recorded by the Human League and by their embryonic form, The Future. Naturally, the atmosphere is extremely tense and altered, the interplay of keyboards acting as a sonic carpet for a haughty, dramatic voice ("Dance Like A Star"), at times so apocalyptic as to recall the delirium - sometimes menacing ("Looking For The Black Haired Girl"), sometimes dreamlike ("Blank Clocks") - of Alan Vega. The turning point toward the second half of this precious collection opens with an ensemble of enchanted sounds, almost like a lunar forest, in tribute to surrealism ("Dada Dada Duchamp"), before reproducing a Kraftwerk-like stammer to the point of obsession ("Daz").

From a post-atomic dancefloor ("Disaster Dance"), we're catapulted into a sort of paradoxical western set on Mars ("Reach Out - I'll Be There"), reaching the end of the line after an anguished run of keyboards unfurled over a single-note guitar ("New Pink Floyd").

Like many other bands of their era, the Human League have also been the subject of more or less authorised anthology projects. The first official collection, Greatest Hits, came out in 1988, ten years after the release of the single "Being Boiled": the gestation of the follow-up to "Crash" was long, and Virgin therefore decided to buy some time. The tracklist is packed with hits but leaves no room for unreleased material - the single chosen to promote the compilation was "Love Is All That Matters" (a track already included on "Crash" but suitably re-edited here), accompanied by a video that tries to sum up, through a collage of archival footage, a decade of honourable service. There would also be an updated version of the anthology in 1995, shortly after the Human League's temporary move to East West: the reissue of Greatest Hits excludes (hardly a surprise) the two 7-inches from "Romantic?" but does feature some interesting additions to the tracklist, such as "Tell Me When" and a new single, "Stay With Me Tonight", which also dates back to the "Octopus" sessions. The new remix of "Don't You Want Me", courtesy of famous German dance act Snap, unfortunately doesn't hold up against the original and today sounds hopelessly dated.

The only genuine hits on Soundtrack To A Generation, a rather contradictory compilation from Disky Communications, are "Human" and the Oakey/Giorgio Moroder collaboration ("Together In Electric Dreams"). For the rest, it's possible to trace a fairly random selection of album tracks drawn from "Hysteria", "Crash" and "Romantic?". A subsequent "best of" compiled by the same Dutch label without the band's involvement instead mixed major hits (though pointedly excluding "Don't You Want Me"), rare b-sides, and quite a few fan favourites.

In 2003 the third official hits compilation, The Very Best Of The Human League, is released. This time Virgin does things properly: besides featuring seventeen songs ranging from "Being Boiled" to "All I Ever Wanted", digitally remastered by Adam Nunn at Abbey Road Studios in London, the new retrospective comes with a bonus disc (only in the limited edition) featuring new electro-clash remixes commissioned by the band for the occasion, and is available, for the first time, on Dvd as well. The eponymous collection of video clips and live performances is even more comprehensive than the audio release - it also includes "I Need Your Loving", "Love Is All That Matters", "Soundtrack To A Generation" and a fine live recording of "The Stars Are Going Out" captured during a Jools Holland TV show. To appease fans disappointed by the new remixes, Virgin would then release, directly at mid-price, Original Remixes & Rarities, a collection of 12" versions and b-sides such as "Non Stop" (from the "Open Your Heart" single), "Hard Times" (the flip side of "Love Action"), "You Remind Me Of Gold" (b-side of "Mirror Man") and "Total Panic", a track that first appeared on digital format in 1988 on the "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" CD single. The first Human League live album, Live At The Dome, comes out in 2005.

Squaring the circle seems to close with geometric precision, the eternal return of the same brings everything back to its original matrix, and all that's left for the imitators is the neurosis of being a faithful copy of the original. The temptation to crystallize an image that the mirror reflects back so attractively is part of the essence of any human being endowed with a certain aesthetic calling. But vanity is not a cardinal sin when it's unwitting, and a certain amount can be forgiven to stubborn devotion to one's own style. The race toward the shiniest veneer, in the new decade, becomes frenzied, and few escape it: some imitate naively, some fish more carefully, some cosy up to the young indie star of the moment to win over a callow audience - and some even reshuffle the cards of what once was.

Philip Oakey has lost his hair and looks more rugged these days. His backing vocalists are no longer alluring young girls, but dignified ladies. So what? How reprehensible can the urge to still say something be? As with any argument, the new Credo has its peaks and its wretched lows - but they're still the Human League, and we can't dismiss the effort simply on account of their age.

Produced by I Monster (Dean Honer and Jarrod Gosling), the album is a synthesis of everything the Human League have recorded over more than three decades: "Never Let Me Go" blends Martin Rushent's production style with that of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, "Breaking The Chains" harks back to the days of "Hysteria", "Single Minded" sounds like an outtake from "Give!". "Electric Shock" plays like a tribute to Giorgio Moroder, worthy of a spot on any self-respecting stylish fashion club playlist. A certain overreach surfaces on "Privilege", which seems intent on reminding posterity of the band's early gems by clumsily twisting them into a mood close to Italians Do It Better's output - in a paradoxical twist where the masters, short on ideas, end up aping their most brilliant pupils.

Contributions by Alessandro Liccardo ("Greatest Hits", "The Very Best Of The Human League", "Credo").

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google