The Human League is a British musical group active from around 1977 to the present. The group is notable for its general policy of producing music using electronic instruments only and as such has become to be regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic pop music, also known as synth-pop or more recently as 'electronica',
The group has undergone many personnel changes over its forty year history, most notably when founding members Martyn Ware, Ian Craig Marsh, Philip Oakey and Adrian Wright split into two factions in September 1980 leaving Oakey and Wright with the group name, while Ware and Marsh went on to form the B.E.F. and new group Heaven 17. The Human League subsequently included two new musicians and songwriters Ian Burden and Jo Callis as well as the two teenagers Susanne Sulley and Joanne Catherall as vocalists, famously recruited by Oakey after seeing them dancing in a Sheffield disco.
After initial success in the early part of the eighties the group has since undergone mixed fortunes and further changes in the line-up. Their recording contract with Virgin was terminated after 1990 although the group enjoyed a successful comeback in 1993. Their latest album Credo was issued in 2011. In 2016 the group issued a career-spanning anthology entitled A Very British Synthesizer Group.
A series of live dates to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Dare were performed in late 2021.
This page details principally the history of The Human League. See separate pages for The Human League discography - The Human League scrapbook - The Human League (TV & radio).
Early years[]
The Human League, Mk.1 - l-r: Marsh, Ware, Oakey, Wright
Friends Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware began writing and recording experimental electronic music as The Future in their native Sheffield 1977, together with third member Ade Newton, later of Clock DVA. Marsh and Ware later took Philip Oakey on board as vocalist, and who had also written some interesting lyrics to their first single Being Boiled. Art student and photographer Adrian Wright was also recruited as slide projectionist for their live shows. The group issued a 'manifesto' of using electronic instruments such as synthesisers and drum machines only which they saw as the ultimate rebellion against traditional rock music. With musical influences such as Kraftwerk, David Bowie and Donna Summer's I Feel Love, produced by Giorgio Moroder, the group started to record their own compositions as well as specialising in quirky cover versions of songs such as You've Lost That Loving Feeling, Perfect Day and Reach Out (I’ll Be There). Their first single, Being Boiled b/w Circus of Death, was issued on Fast Product in 1978 and quickly became something of a cult success, while the group's idiosyncratic live performances gained critical acclaim. In August 1978 The Human League recorded their only session for John Peel and in early 1979 released an instrumental EP The Dignity of Labour, again on Fast Product, before being signed to Virgin.
Mark 1: 1979-1980[]
The Human League live, 1980
Such was the group's dedication to their purely electronic manifesto that when pressured by new label Virgin to release a single using 'conventional' instruments, the group released a disco style single entitled I Don't Depend On You (in 7" and 12" formats) featuring drums and bass guitar, under the pseudonym of The Men, rather than as The Human League. The recording also featured two female backing vocalists.
Their first recorded output with Virgin records as The Human League came in October 1979 in the shape of the single Empire State Human b/w Introducing and parent album Reproduction with its controversial sleeve design. Despite the band's strong live following, the album reviews, and sales, were generally disappointing and the even the radio-friendly single failed to break the charts, just as other Virgin contemporaries such as The Skids and XTC were beginning to have their first hits. As a result, all but two dates of a scheduled tour were cancelled as was a support slot to Talking Heads, allegedly also as a result of The Human League's unorthodox approach to live performance.
The Human League, 1980, shortly before the split.
In early 1980 the group started working with a new producer, John Leckie, with whom they would issue a new EP Holiday '80, released in April 1980. The EP's lead track was a cover version of the glam-rock song Rock 'n' Roll (adapted from Gary Glitter's Rock 'n' Roll Pts. 1&2). A brand new recording of Being Boiled also featured on the EP as well as a version of the Iggy Pop/David Bowie song Nightclubbing. Although Holiday '80 was still in the lower reaches of the UK charts (no.72) the group were invited to perform Rock n Roll on Top of the Pops for the 08 May 1980 edition. The song proved a rousing show opener yet failed to make any impact on the record buying public and subsequently dropped down the charts again. The new album Travelogue, produced with Richard Manwaring, was quick to follow and at last gained the band some deserved, if short lived, commercial success entering the UK album charts at no.16 but remaining in the Top 40 for just two weeks. Virgin re-released early single Empire State Human once more (boosted with a free 7" with Travelogue tracks Only After Dark b/w Toyota City) as the group seemed to be finally breaking through to the mainstream (see major features in Smash Hits 10 July 1980, NME 12 July 1980, The Face August 1980) although again only a modest no.62 position was achieved. Early single Being Boiled was also re-released in September almost as a last-ditch attempt to get a hit single. Writing in Smash Hits 18 September 1980 issue reviewer Mark Ellen described the single as, "...a slab of ice that's only two steps ahead of a dirge. A re-issue, too."
Shortly afterwards, it was announced in the music press that The Human League had split into two, allegedly due to musical differences leading to arguments, especially between Oakey and Ware (Oakey would later claim that the split was 'engineered' by Bob Last, in the common interest of all members). A short feature in the NME during the first week of November 1980 confirmed the split, also reporting that the group were recording a new single, with sessions for the new album, plus live dates and a European tour all scheduled before Christmas. And while Oakey and Wright continued "undaunted" to make plans for a new line-up and live show, Ware and Marsh had already formed a new production and writing company called the British Electric Foundation.
Mark 1 legacy[]
Despite their lack of commercial success the first 'version' of The Human League now stands as one of the most innovative groups in early electronica and electronic music recording and performance. Their live shows featuring just electronic instruments, backing tapes and a lead vocalist (and crucially no guitars and drums), boosted with visual projections of Adrian Wright's slides, can be considered a primitive blueprint of a format many pop acts would eventually adopt towards the end of the twentieth century and beyond. Unsurprisingly it was David Bowie who after seeing them pay live in early 1979 remarked that he had seen the future of pop music and that "one day all pop music would be made this way".
The group's musical output has also been critically and commercially re-considered as ground-breaking in the genre. As early as January 1982, that first single Being Boiled, originally recorded and released in 1978, became a top 10 hit. In 2021 Martyn Ware's post-Human League group Heaven 17 performed both the Reproduction and Travelogue albums live in their entirety for the first time.[1]
'Classic' Human League line-up in mid-1981.
Mark 2: 1980-1990[]
After the initial line-up split during the autumn of 1980, The Human League continued as a group lead by Philip Oakey and Adrian Wright, who gradually built a new line-up. Oakey and Wright famously recruited two teenage girls, Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall, as backing singers for a European tour at the end of 1980, also taking on Ian Burden for live performances. A much anticipated new single Boys and Girls (presenting the group at least visually as a four-piece) again failed to break into the charts, but it was another new single The Sound of the Crowd, co-written by Burden and Oakey, which gave them their breakthrough. The group were now working with producer Martin Rushent, a studio veteran but who was also embracing the arrival of new technology in music making and recording. Less than a year after a debut appearance, The Human League were back on Top of the Pops, albeit in a very different line-up, and this time storming up the UK charts. The line-up was completed by a fifth member Jo Callis, formerly of The Revillos, a guitar player by profession, but who was quick to adapt to the "synthesisers only" ethic, while at the same time bringing his song writing skills to the table. More chart success followed with follow-up singles Love Action (I Believe in Love), Open Your Heart and finally the album Dare,the group's third although by all accounts a 'debut' album in the new incarnation of The Human League. A fourth and final single, the album's closing track, entitled Don't You Want Me, was released almost begrudgingly by the band just before Christmas in 1981. It went on to become the Christmas no.1 in the UK, and later also the US, and remains the group's best known song and best selling/streamed track. The 'Dare' period would establish the Human League as a 'household name' and pioneers of electronic pop music.
Fortunes waned somewhat after 1981 although The Human League maintained their pop culture success with songs like Mirror Man, (Keep Feeling) Fascination, the Hysteria album (1984) and, after some line-up changes, the single Human, their second US no.1, in 1986. The group's first Greatest Hits album was released in 1988, by which time Wright, Burden and Callis had left the group.
Romantic era League, 1989-1990
With another new line-up, retaining only Oakey, Catherall and Sulley plus three new members, the 1990 album Romantic? spawned a Top 30 single Heart Like a Wheel although the album would be their last for Virgin before being dropped by the label in 1992.
1993-2003[]
After a period of inactivity (now reduced to core members Oakey, Sulley, Catherall) the band recorded and released an EP with Japanese group Yellow Magic Orchestra entitled YMO Versus The Human League, including a new version of Behind the Mask and a new track Kimi Ni Mune Kyun, partly penned by Oakey. In 1994 EastWest Records took an interest in demos of new Human League songs, which would go on to form the Octopus album, released in January 1995 shortly after the single Tell Me When, the group's first top 10 hit since 1986. The album also reached the Top 10 in the UK and put The Human League back on the musical map in the mid-90s. A new Greatest Hits compilation was released in 1996, featuring a remix of the classic Don't You Want Me and new track Stay With Me Tonight, the group's final Top 40 hit.
Secrets album photo shoot
The Human League were dropped by EastWest towards the end of the 90s, and in 2000 signed to Papillon (a Chrysalis subsidiary label) releasing a brand new album Secrets the following year. Despite containing some strong material, and receiving positive reviews, both album and lead single All I Ever Wanted failed to make any commercial impact, not helped by the fact that Papillon records folded shortly afterwards. A live tour followed the release of the album, and a final single Love Me Madly?, taken from Secrets, was released independently in 2003.
2004-present[]
Since Secrets, The Human League have released only one new studio album, Credo, released in 2011. The group has continued to play live and occasionally release compilation albums of hits, assorted album tracks and remixes, mostly dating back to their eighties material, including re-issues of the Dare album in various formats. In 2016 an extensive anthology entitled A Very British Synthesizer Group was released, covering the whole of the band's career, both in audio and video.[2] Enhanced 'deluxe' versions of Octopus and Secrets have also been released, with bonus material. A three-disc Essential collection, released in 2020, also gave an extensive overview of the band's career, including a substantial amount of pre-Dare material.[3]
Line-ups[]
- 1980: (initial line-up for live work) Phil Oakey, Adrian Wright, Joanne Catherall, Susanne Sulley, Ian Burden, ....
- 1981 (1): Phil Oakey, Adrian Wright, Joanne Catherall, Susanne Sulley
- 1981 (2) - 1984 (2): as above + Ian Burden, then later Jo Callis
- 1985-86 (Crash album): Phil Oakey, Adrian Wright, Joanne Catherall, Susanne Sulley, Ian Burden, Jim Russell.
- 1989-90 (Romantic? album): Phil Oakey, Joanne Catherall, Susanne Sulley, Russell Dennett, Neil Sutton.
- 1993-2001 (Octopus/Secrets): Phil Oakey, Joanne Catherall, Susanne Sulley. (Sutton, Dennett, Callis, Ian Stanley - contribute writing on Octopus; Sutton co-writing and live performance for Secrets)
- 2010-2011 (Credo): Phil Oakey, Joanne Catherall, Susanne Sulley (with Robert Barton, David Beevers, Nic Burke, Neil Sutton and Simon Watson)
The Human League, live line-up in July 2022: l-r Ben Smith, Susan Ann Sulley, Nick Banks, Joanne Catherall, Phil Oakey, Ben Smith