The Human League: "Love Action (I Believe in Love)"

6 August 1981

"Soul music made in Sheffield."

— David Hepworth

They spent a long time try to have a hit. Then they had one. Now it was only a matter of having several hundred more.

Needless to say, The Human League are remembered for "Don't You Want Me". It was a song they didn't think much of and objected to record label Virgin issuing it as a single at the end of 1981. Three hits from their Dare album was sufficient (if only they knew what Michael Jackson was about to do a year later as he went about reinventing the concept of scraping the bottom of the barrel). Such a mediocre work had no business coming out as a 7" in its own right — one that was bound to undermine all that they had accomplished during their extraordinary first big year.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened. Everyone beyond the six members of ver League loved "Don't You Want Me". It became the highest selling single in the UK that year and it did similarly healthy business in Europe and, a few months' later, in North America. As I already said above, it is their legacy. Eighties retro nights wouldn't exist without it. Going from 'ironic love of the eighties' to 'genuine love of the eighties' begins here.

And yet, none of this would have happened had everything worked out as it did. 1980 ended with the first iteration of The Human League in a shambles. Founding members and "serious" musicians Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware departed and the prospects of the depleted duo of singer Philip Oakey (recruited because he was a well-known Sheffield scenester, even though he had next to no musical experience) and 'director of visuals' Adrian Wright (there's a reason not many film makers join bands) were understandably low. Under these conditions, the League's unlucky Top 40-less streak didn't seem to have much of a chance of ending. If they were going to somehow score a fluke hit it would've been bound to be with a mainstream pop sellout.

But that didn't happen either. As I have previously written in this space, comeback single "The Sound of the Crowd" was a work that could've been recorded by their earlier lineup. The Top 20 placing was impressive enough but Oakey and Wright managed to pull it off with a brilliant single that didn't bow to pop trends. And as if out to prove that they didn't just have luck on their side, they promptly went to work on arguably their finest single.

It may not be as well-remembered now but "Love Action" is an absolute delight from start to finish. And everyone knew it at the time. David Hepworth praises its "splendidly loping chorus and staccato synth fill" as well as Oakey's "distinctive baritone". (Sterling stuff indeed, Heps) Meanwhile, Record Mirror's Sunie named its 12" mashup of it and b-side "Hard Times" as that week's Megahit, describing the ten minute reworking as "tasteful, tuneful, witty and danceable, and you can't ask for much more than that from a single". The NME even named it the year's fifth best single.

The great tune and Oakey's outstanding performance could easily be enough but there are plenty of nods to their avant-garde past. The synths are as experimental as ever with new recruit Jo Callis using his guitar to create an electronic sound that is unique and extraordinary. Oakey tries his hand at something close to a rap ("I believe, I believe...") that I cannot manage to keep up with as I try to sing along. He even makes very subtle references to both Iggy Pop (the unforgettable "But this is Phil talking" line is nicked from the former Stooge) and, cryptically, Lou Reed (I'll take his word for it that the 'old man' from "I believe what the old man said..." is meant to be the godfather of punk). You don't do all this in a throwaway pop song.

Thus, The Human League were stronger than ever. "Love Action" became their first of several Top 10 hits in the UK. Joanne Catherall and Susan Sulley contributed but the whole was much more than the sum of its parts. The sly experiments carried over to follow-up single "Open Your Heart" which was another big hit. It was only with the unloved, unwanted "Don't You Want Me" that they capitulated to pure pop — and look what that did for them. But it was all a culmination. Had their now-classic smash come out first, it might not have connected in the same way. They started off 1981 with a cult following, the critics gradually came on board and the pop kids were beginning to pay attention. It was only for everyone else to discover them.

~~~~~

Also Released This Fortnight

The Belle Stars: "Slick Trick"

A melange of Pigbag's "Papa's Got a Brand New Pigbag", Blondie's "Rapture", Madness' "The Return of the Los Palamos 7" and the stuttering sound of Talking Heads in general, The Belle Stars' second single may be low on originality but they have energy to burn and it's clear they were a tight septet. "Slick Trick" is impressive but not quite likable enough for me to ever want to hear it again so Hepworth is right to keep it at arm's length. Their hardcore followers doubtless won't agree but they needed to shake the remnants of predecessor punk group The Bodysnatchers from their sound. Good thing they eventually would.

(Click here to see my original review)

Prince: "1999"

20 January 1983

"This is beaty, bouncy and seemingly about cramming in as much partying as possible because Judgement Day (ie The Bomb) approacheth. In a word: fab."

— Dave Rimmer

I turned six in the spring of '83 so I'm probably not the best judge but I can't believe that people were giving much thought to the millennium back then. I recall first hearing about the return of the Hong Kong colony to China a few years later — I was a news buff at a fairly young age — and thinking that 1997 was so way off in the future that it hardly merited consideration.The fact that the year 2000 and the millennium was approaching didn't occur to me until the mid-nineties when everyone began talking about Y2K and, in my pedantic family at least, how 2001 was the year everyone should be recognizing since "there wasn't a year zero". (It never occurred to us that there really had never been a year one either) But to adults it was fast approaching — assuming humanity was going to survive long enough to see it.

The Bomb was something everyone heard about back in the day but it wasn't something I was particularly afraid of. (I was far more scared of volcanoes, giant Pacific Northwest slugs and the hole in the Ozone layer) We never did nuclear war readiness drills in school and Communism may not have seemed quite so threatening at a time when the world of Reagan and Thatcher was so bleak. To the older generation, however, the threat of nuclear war was still very much in the air. While some went out and protested, others were getting down and enjoying those few precious days that they had left. People like Prince.

"1999" is the beginning of Prince's ascendancy to pop's aristocracy. The fun-sized genius had his moments prior to this (as Dave Rimmer mentions, "I Wanna Be Your Lover" is a prime example) but this is where he kicks off the work that he'll always be remembered for. I've long had mixed feelings towards him myself. I admire his willingness to do his thing without thought for anyone else, his immense talent and the fact that he was always so balls out prolific in an era when more and more of his contemporaries were going three or four or five years between albums. As for his music, his songs have never thrilled me quite as much as I feel they ought to (the closest was probably when I first heard either "When Does Cry" or "Purple Rain" and even then I was too young and weirded out by his image) and I've never been too crazy about his weedy voice. Is it too much of a backhanded compliment to suggest that he might be the ultimate artist just to have a nice, all-bases-covered greatest hits package?

Appearing on every good Prince compilation, "1999" is one of those ones I can happily give a listen to, even if I hadn't actually done so prior to this past week for well over a decade. Taking the same snappy melody that he would put to good use on "Manic Monday" a couple years later (I must say I'd never noticed the similarity until the other day but clearly others have picked up on it for some time), he and his soon-to-be-christened band The Revolution pump out a saucy funk rhythm that really provides the blueprints for the emerging new jack swing movement — Janet Jackson's still awesome Rhythm Nation being something repeated plays of this really put me in the mood for. Fantastic and something that Prince may have never bettered.

The end of the Cold War is now nearing its thirtieth anniversary but "1999" is still relevant due to the imminent threat of climate change. It's looking more and more as if the damage is irreversible and it's only going to get worse. Maybe it'll soon be time for humanity to accept that its days are numbered. Partying like it's 2999 might be all we have left.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Belle Stars: "Sign of the Times"

Between "1999" and Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy" and Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue" and U2's "New Year's Day" there may not have been a more quintessentially eighties singles review page in ver Hits than this fortnight's — even if they're offset by a reissue of The Beatles' "Please Please Me" and something called "Vintage English Rock & Roll" by That Hideous Strength, whoever they are. Missing out on the eighties retro nights, however, is The Belle Stars and their almost-a-future-Prince-song-title "Sign of the Times". The Belles had been a on cover version kick with their three previous singles and their penchant for studying the classics paid off grandly on this wonderfully catchy number. Rimmer is guardedly impressed, saying it's a "cover in disguise" and isn't especially into the spoken word bits but to these ears its an easy runner-up SOTF. The sound of The Belle Stars getting it right, even if only the once.