The problem with The Human League‘s ‘Don’t You Want Me‘ is that having long ago been appropriated by hen nights and fun pubs across the country, its been shorn of all its original context.
That Phil Oakey and co. were one of the first acts to spot the financial opportunity of the reformation tour market has done little to rescue it from sub-novelty status, but sitting within the confines of ‘Dare‘, it’s possible to see how much the diaphanous escapism of the song’s now heavily pastiched video contrasts sharply with the role reversed female empowerment of its lyrics.
You can argue that many of the nation’s co-opted party records have done little to deserve being blared out whilst people shop round under neon seeking casual sex, but like the album from which it came, ‘Don’t You Want Me’ manages to remain simultaneously dignified, timeless and populist.
The back story is fairly well known; without a band after sacking former Leaguers Martyn Ware and Craig Marsh, Oakey met Joanne Catherall and Susanne Sulley in a Sheffield nightclub and, along with fellow newcomer Ian Burden, went to work on ‘Dare’ with former Buzzcocks producer turned synth pop auteur Martin Rushent. Having spent the previous three or four years failing to locate much enthusiasm amongst the record buying public, the smart money was on a messy, self indulgent implosion; what came instead was a sea change in British pop.
Oakey’s main problem was that Ware and Marsh were the League’s instrumentalists; having just invested in a ton of state of the art equipment, Rushent stepped into the breach, performing a similar role to that performed by tech wonk Trevor Horn on ABC‘s similarly brilliant ‘The Lexicon of Love‘.
What both virtuoso turns proved was that even with performers at times being reduced to the role of bystander, where the base material was stuffed full of quality, all the microprocessors in the world could only add a sense of gloss. Undeniably, ‘Dare’ was then and still is thirty years later all about its songs.
Britain in 1981 was about as grimmer place to live as almost anywhere else in Europe, East or West, and Yorkshire, with its manufacturing, coal mining and steel mills already in commercial retreat, was treated to some of the harshest lessons in Thatchernomics. What the people needed was escapism, to dress up and lose themselves in Saturday nights, and a soundtrack to go with it. Oakey and Burden captured this desire perfectly on ‘Sound of The Crowd‘, an oddity that had the hallmarks of Bowie on a budget, a call to arms that could also be sung with gusto on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and all the 24 hour periods of boredom and bleakness that formed the countdown to the next weekend.
The man who had once sung “Listen To The Voice of Bhudda/Saying stop your sericulture” was now attempting to communicate more directly with what was suddenly a very receptive audience. ‘Love Action‘, with its pre-rave siren intro tones, inescapably funky bass and cat-like backing vocals from Sulley and Catherall was their glorious, South Yorkshire Chic moment. The following release, ‘Open Your Heart‘, saw them take on the might of ABBA and come out with a creditable draw.
Both took the band into the upper reaches of the charts, but ‘Dare’ was more than just a small clutch of highly memorable apexes. Opener ‘Things That Dreams Are Made Of‘ spelled out the next generation’s emerging ambivalence to socialism with a small ‘S’, cataloguing sins both of the flesh and of disposable incomes.
‘Seconds‘ attempted to get inside the mind of Lee Harvey Oswald, whilst ‘I Am The Law‘ found a self righteous Judge Dredd character seeing himself dispensing justice as a means of protecting us from ourselves.
The 1980’s was, of course, the most successful period of the twelve inch single, the (usually) amorphous marketing gimmick that featured a junior studio engineer dicking around on a Sunday afternoon, the by-product of which punters were expected to shell out a further two quid for. As part of the ‘Repackaging’ here a number of said versions accompany the first disc, each seemingly more superfluous and dated than the last.
Mysteriously encouraged, the compilers have added a second, mostly salvaged from the stop gap 1983 EP ‘Fascination!‘, which contained then as now the inferior single of the title ‘Mirror Man‘, and a further batch of remixed/mastered journeys to utter pointlessness. All you can be thankful for is that Virgin have stepped back from the temptation to throw in the turgid twilight career moments ‘Human‘, ‘Louise‘ or god forbid the abhorrent ‘Life On Your Own‘.
In the end the contrast between the authenticity of that and ‘Dare’, ‘Don’t You Want Me’ and all reveals itself. Like all watersheds, its hedonistic simplicity still appeals, even if the noise itself is dated. If you needed a reminder of its existence, then this new release should be it. But there’s no need to distract yourself with all the marketing department’s dead ends.
Simply download the ten original tracks and listen in sequence, just as vinyl nature intended, and teleport yourself to an era of pure pleasure, way back in time.
This article originally appeared on the Leeds-based music reviews site Arctic Reviews, which features both new and classic album releases from the last 30 years.