— David Hepworth
"The important thing is that "Empire State Human" is probably the catchiest item in their rich repertoire, tailored almost along the lines of a crazed rugby song."
— David Hepworth
As you can see, David Hepworth twice reviewed the same single by The Human League for Smash Hits. The first from 1979 is included above in full and it quite clearly isn't his favourite offering. Regular readers of this blog will have noted that his "pick" single that fortnight was The Undertones with "You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It)" while other favourites include Nils Lofgren with "No Mercy", The Specials and their superb double-A "A Message to You Rudi" and "Nite Club" (probably the rightful SOTF with all due respect to Derry's finest) and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark with "Electricity" (for someone who isn't "convinced" by synths, Heps sure is okay with at least two rising electro-pop groups). "Empire State Human" probably isn't a top flight offering but his nibs can certainly see the value in it.
Jump ahead eight months and ver League and their reissued single of old seem to have grown on him. While he also enthuses about "Wednesday Week", yet another record from The Undertones ("not so much a change of tack as an example of the advantages of growing confidence"), I detect slightly more of a pop fan's appreciation for "Empire State Human" ("an insanely jolly chorus") even though he orders the pop kids reading the Hits to go out and buy them both forthwith. The selection of singles is fine though not as strong as the previous October. It seems The Human League have spent the past few months endearing themselves to at least one top pop critic (I don't think he considered their repertoire to be as rich a year earlier), something they would slowly do to music hacks and the British public over the next several months ahead.
A year on from this issue of Smash Hits and The Human League would be well on their way to being one of the biggest groups in the world. Yet, you'd never know it at this point. "Empire State Human" had already been their third single but such was the state of their commercial potential that their record label had more faith in it that any of the material on their recent album Travelogue. The Holiday '80 EP had been a near-miss (the song "Marianne" is one of their finest hits that never was) but their latest album had done well entering the charts in the Top 20. A group on the rise, or so you'd assume. Surely any of "Life Kills", "Dreams of Leaving" or "The Touchables" off of Travelogue deserved to be pressed into a 7" disc.
Nevertheless, "Empire State Human" was a good enough single to merit a second chance. From debut "Being Boiled" on, Human League records were first rate recordings and it's remarkable how poorly they did. Their industrial/experimental sound would always be there while founding members Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh were part of the group but they were seldom overly radical at the expense of melody and pure pop jubilation (the leftist agitprop EP The Dignity of Labour and the "Empire..." b-side "Introducing" being the only real exceptions). Anyone who thinks they only became a pop group with the 1981 breakthrough Dare need only listen to this tune's catchy chorus (it's so catchy that Hepworth felt the need to bring it up in both of his reviews). While we may assume that leader Philip Oakey was wishing to be taller, there's the subtext of yearning for his band to be bigger as well.
Opening with a bouncy synth, Oakey delivers his most commanding vocal to date. Ware and Marsh back the singer with layers of sparkly keyboards but the track gradually takes on darker tones with more of an avant-garde VCS 3 synth thrown in and Ware doing some Residents-esque chanting in the background. It could have soundtracked a sad late-seventies remake of Metropolis and, indeed, it's a wonder film technician Adrian Wright didn't choose to use stills of the 1927 classic in the single's promo. Yet, it's funny and few others could get away with repeating the word 'tall' as much as Oakey does in the song's three minutes.
I stand 195 cm (I don't do feet and inches anymore so look it up if you're metrically-challenged) and I have always been tall (I was ill as a newborn and was crammed into an incubator, doubtless an odd sight alongside a bunch of tiny infants) and I will say that it's fantastic for the most part. My height makes me seem more handsome than I actually am (or it did when I was in my twenties) and strangers think I'm special just to by looking at me. Sure, I bump my head a lot, it's difficult to buy clothes and people sometimes call me 'Stretch' but I love being tall. It's nice to be envied for something I had no control over. Everyone wants to be "tall, tall, tall" and who can blame them?
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Ultravox: "Sleepwalk"
From bubble gum to punk to classic rock, Midge Ure's next logical step was synth-pop. His background in disparate genres makes him far too good of a vocalist for his latest project and his attempts to pull off a Bowie/Numan robotic style fail to convince. It's almost as if he assumed he was laying down the vocal for a power pop number only for the electronic keyboards to wipe out the three chords and the truth. Synth music was not without its bandwagon jumpers but its a credit to Ure for getting on early. Musically, the single is pretty good, if a little anonymous. Ironically, it's Ure's rockism that makes them stand out; it probably isn't the best idea for your weakness to be what makes you unique but there you go. A bit of a breakthrough hit, "Sleepwalk" lays the groundwork for their biggest hit "Vienna" when Ultravox almost seemed like legit synth-pop contenders. Chancers gonna chance.
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