DARE
THE HUMAN LEAGUE
DRIVEN BY BREAK-UPS AND WROUGHT IN FIERCE COMPETITION, DARE SAVED VIRGIN RECORDS, SPAWNED A SINGLE THAT KICKSTARTED MTV, DROVE THE MUSICIANS’ UNION MAD – AND DREW UP THE BLUEPRINT FOR SYNTH-POP
ANDY JONES
Until 1980, The Human League had forged a reputation as bleak and sombre synth pioneers – they were at the forefront of electronic music, without doubt, but not at the front of any charts. After a couple of years on Virgin Records they – and, indeed, their label – were desperate for success, but the arrival of Tubeway Army’s Are ‘Friends’Electric? was the last straw.
Gary Numan had the first synth-pop hit, seemingly coming out of nowhere, and the 21-year old Londoner stole the League’s electronic thunder.
The Human League’s manager Bob Last had to act. There were huge tensions in the band, with lead singer Phil Oakey wanting a more ‘commercial’ sound, while Martyn Ware wanted to retain the electronics. Bob Last could see the band falling apart; he was sure there were hits in there somewhere, but not within the line-up of Oakey, Ware, Ian Craig Marsh and Adrian Wright. He admits he used the troubles in the band to his advantage. “Everybody was frustrated, so I was proactively encouraging them to split,” he told louderthanwar.com.
The resulting break-up was painful but it worked out well for Last as he ended up managing both the resulting bands: Oakey and Wright’s The Human League and the brand new outfit, Heaven 17, with Ware and Marsh. It also worked out well for the listening public, as both bands would go on to record their most successful works.
Heaven 17 quickly employed Glenn Gregory as their lead singer. Phil and Adrian’s task was more daunting, as neither of them had previously handled any of the playing duties, and there was a tour on the cards; if they did not complete it, they would be sued. Rather than immediately hiring merely competent musicians to get the job done, Oakey spotted Joanne Catherall and Susan Sulley in the Sheffield nightclub Crazy Daisy and asked them to join the band for the tour. It must be one of pop’s greatest rags-to-riches moments.
With hits proving elusive, it would take a band break-up to clear the commercial logjam
Martin O’Neill/Redferns
THE SONGS
1 THE THINGS THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF
Let’s be honest, it’s a little bit of a plodding start to Dare, with quite basic beats and bass – but we do get some memorably dry lyrics, plus a travel commentary a la Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express. According to Adrian Wright, it’s a metaphor for what the band wanted at the time. Phil concentrates on travel, ice cream and Norman Wisdom, while the girls pipe up at the end “everybody needs love and affection”.
2 OPEN YOUR HEART
This is possibly the most complex track on the album in terms of arrangement, with layers of synths and effects ladled onto the beats – the complete opposite, in fact, to the simplicity of the preceding track. It’s an uplifting, melodic tune with downbeat lyrics about a relationship breakup, so maybe it’s a metaphor for The League’s original split where everything worked out so well in the end…? Okay, maybe not.
3 THE SOUND OF THE CROWD
This could be seen in some ways as a ‘bridging’ track between the Mk.1 and Mk.2 Human Leagues, with an arrangement that could have been taken straight off the second album, Travelogue, and the girls singing properly on a League track for the first time. It was Dare’s first hit, reaching No.12, and it was the track that proved Martin Rushent’s studio credentials.
4 DARKNESS
Once again Darkness offsets a fairly positive melody against fairly negative thoughts, in this case scary night terrors. These days it would have been written with uneasy chords and progressions, but not The League – they’ll tackle any subject, backing it with some of the catchiest synth-pop going. Check out their 1984 hit The Lebanon for proof.
5 DO OR DIE
Do Or Die is another belter of a track, with more catchy parts than an Australian cricket team.
Allegedly written about a poltergeist inhabiting a girlfriend (although probably not) it was the ideal closing to the first half of Dare. But if you thought Side One of the album was good…
6 GET CARTER
The theme to Get Carter… played on a Casio. This was not the first time The Human League had brought film and TV references into their work.
There was Tom Baker, the B-side to the single Boys & Girls, plus we have to mention the Hawaii Five-0 ‘sample’ in Circus Of Death. A nice side opener, and a gentle intro to Dare’s finest moment.
7 SECONDS
Seconds is the best track on Dare, it’s as simple as that. The way it comes in, the screaming synth opener, the driving beat, Oakey’s deadpan lyrics – it’s The Human League at their best, and that includes either version. Again, it’s about one of the most sombre subjects possible, the assassination of John F Kennedy, but this time there’s no cheese, just synth drama. Could it be the best Human League track ever?
8 LOVE ACTION (I BELIEVE IN LOVE)
Next, from chalk to vintage cheese. Love Action is very possibly the Human League’s finest pure pop moment. You have the synth cat opener, those unforgettable riffs linking sections, and that quite random “hard times” backing vocal at the start. Quite simply, this is the only piece of music that makes weddings worth going to… although watching drunk middle-aged dads trying to do the Oakey ‘rap’ is unseemly at best.
9 DON’T YOU WANT ME
All of us know why it was a hit, but many of us are with Phil and the girls on this: Don’t You Want Me might have shifted gazillions but either we’ve heard it too many times or the rest of Dare just puts it in the shade. Still, it made the band, and it’s probably the reason they are still with us.