The Human League – Greatest Hits

The Human League – Greatest Hits

Albun Notes
Human League Greatest Hits is a compilation album released by British synthpop band The Human League. It was released by Virgin Records in 1988 and contained 13 singles released by the band, spanning from their debut single (1978’s “Being Boiled”) to their most recent album at the time (Crash, 1986) plus Philip Oakey’s collaboration with Giorgio Moroder “Together In Electric Dreams“. The album reached no.3 in the UK.

In November 1995, to cash in on the band’s renewed success at that time, Virgin repackaged the hits collection with a new cover and added newer tracks: “Tell Me When” (from the Octopus album) and a new remix of the band’s biggest hit “Don’t You Want Me” by German-American electronic music group Snap!. In addition to this, a brand new track, “Stay with Me Tonight“, was included which the band had recorded under their new recording contract with EastWest Records. This would later be released as a single.

“Don’t You Want Me” released as a single from the album Dare in November 1981. It is the band’s best known and most commercially successful recording to date and has sold over 1,400,000 copies, making it the 25th most successful single of all time in the UK. The song has been covered multiple times, most notably by Alcazar.

The lyrics were originally inspired after lead singer Philip Oakey read a story in a “trashy tabloid”. Originally conceived as a male solo, Oakey was inspired by the film A Star Is Born and decided to turn the song into a conflicting duet with one of the band’s two teenage female vocalists. Susan Ann Sulley was asked to take on the role. Up until then, she and the other female vocalist Joanne Catherall had only been assigned backing vocals; Sulley says she was chosen only through luck of the draw. There are two more realistic explanations: that Sulley was the better singer and/or that Catherall, more introverted, shied away from the role. Musicians Jo Callis and Philip Adrian Wright created a synthesizer score to accompany the lyrics which was much harsher than the version that was actually released. Initial versions of the song were recorded but Virgin Records-appointed producer Martin Rushent was unhappy with them. He and Callis remixed the track, giving it a softer, and in Oakey’s opinion, “poppy” sound. Oakey hated the new version and thought it the weakest track on Dare, resulting in one of his infamous rows with Rushent. Oakey disliked it so much that it was relegated to the last track on the album. Before the release of Dare, two of its tracks—”The Sound of the Crowd” and “Love Action (I Believe in Love)”—had already been issued as successful singles. To promote the new album, Virgin released “Open Your Heart” in October 1981, which hit #6 in the UK Singles Chart. With a hit album and three hit singles in a row, Virgin’s Simon Draper decided to issue one more single from the album before the end of 1981. His choice, “Don’t You Want Me”, instantly caused a row with Oakey who did not want another single released because he was convinced that “the public were now sick of hearing The Human League” and the choice of the “poor quality filler track” would almost certainly be a disaster, wrecking the group’s new found popularity. Virgin were adamant that a fourth single would be released and Oakey finally agreed on the condition that a large colour poster accompany the 7″ single, because he felt fans would “feel ripped off” by the ‘substandard’ single alone.

“Don’t You Want Me” was released in the UK on 27 November 1981. To the amazement of the band (and especially Oakey), it shot to number one on the UK charts. This success was repeated six months later in the U.S., with “Don’t You Want Me” hitting #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks. Billboard magazine ranked it as the sixth-biggest hit of 1982.

The Human League often added cryptic references to their productions and the record sleeve of “Don’t You Want Me” featured the suffix of “100”. This was a reference to a restaurant/bar in Sheffield.

Today, the song is widely considered a classic of its era. Oakey still describes it as overrated but acknowledges his initial dismissal was misguided and claims pride in the track. Susan Sulley is often irritated that she constantly has to refute the mistaken assumption that the song is a reference to her and Catherall. At only 17 years old when the song was recorded, she was legally too young by UK law to have been a cocktail waitress and was, in fact, still at school. Oakey is also at pains to point out another misconception that it is not a love song but “a nasty song about sexual power politics”.
The song was remixed and re-released in 1995, peaking at #16 on the UK chart.

“Together in Electric Dreams” is a song by the British singer and composer Philip Oakey and producer Giorgio Moroder. It was written by Oakey and Moroder and recorded for the original soundtrack of the 1984 film Electric Dreams.
It later formed part of the joint album Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder, released in 1985. Released as a single in the UK in September 1984 it proved a major commercial success, actually eclipsing the original film it was intended to promote. It reached Number three in the UK Singles Chart, staying in the charts for 13 weeks. It would prove to be the only hit of the brief Oakey/Moroder partnership. It was finally released as a single in the United States in 1988.

Review by JT Griffith
Fans of the Human League’s American hits “Don’t You Want Me” and “Human” will find this (and any of the band’s many similarly titled compilations) a little perplexing. The bulk of the set are U.K. hits, which are somewhat of an acquired taste, and different from the group’s fun, pop new wave stylings. “Open Your Heart,” “Love Is All That Matters,” and “The Sound of the Crowd” are early efforts that sound much more dated than their biggest hits. Overall, it is an essential purchase if you want to revisit or discover the Human League, but some of the lesser known songs, like “The Lebanon,” will be surprisingly different. — allmusic.com

EC1086	The Human League – Greatest Hits
Label:	Virgin Records
Catalog#:	CDV 2792 | 7243 8 40946 2 1
Format:	CD [Compilation]
Made in:	Holland
Released:	1995
Barcode:	7 24384 09462 1
Style:	New Wave, SynthPop,

 
============================================================================ The Human League – Greatest Hits
============================================================================
01. Don’t You Want Me (original version)
02. Love Action (I Believe In Love)
03. Mirror Man
04. Tell Me When
05. Stay With Me Tonight
06. Open Your Heart
07. (Keep Feeling) Fascination
08. The Sound Of The Crowd
09. Being Boiled
10. The Lebanon
11. Love Is All That Matters
12. Louise
13. Life On Your Own
14. Together In Electric Dreams (Giorgio Moroder & Philip Oakey)
15. Human
16. Don’t You Want Me (Snap 7′ remix) Total Time: 01:04:16

Companies, etc. ▼
Phonographic Copyright (p) – Virgin Records Ltd.
Copyright (c) – Virgin Records Ltd.

Credits ▼
Liner Notes – Paul Morley
Photography By [Cover Photographs] – Simon Fowler

Notes ▼
This Compilation ℗ 1995 Virgin Records Ltd, © 1995 Virgin Records Ltd.
Made in Holland (on cd)
Printed in Holland (on back cover)

Barcode and Other Identifiers ▼
Barcode: 7 24384 09462 1
Matrix / Runout: (ims logo)www.imsgroup.it 8409462
Rights Society: BEL / BIEM
Label Code: LC 3098
Mastering SID Code: IFPI LV03
Mould SID Code: IFPI 2537
Distribution Code: F: PM 527
Distribution Code: UK: CDV 2792