Human League's Human "Extended A&I Mix" (C) DJVlooX & IBN Productions 2007.Review.- Review.- The Human League are an English synthpop/New Wave band formed in 1977, who, after a change in line up, achieved great popularity in the 1980s and have continued recording and performing with moderate commercial success in the 1990s and 2000s.Originally a synthesizer-based group from Sheffield, England, the only constant band member since the Human League formed in 1977 is vocalist and songwriter Philip Oakey. Today The Human League are still recording and performing. The group is now presented as a trio of Oakey together with long serving female vocalists Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Gayle.In 1981, Virgin records paired them with former Stranglers producer Martin Rushent, and the first result was the single "The Sound of the Crowd", which saw them at last achieve success in the singles chart. Guitarist Jo Callis (formerly of The Rezillos) was now recruited to the band, and with Rushent at the helm, The Human League recorded their most successful album to date, Dare. It achieved huge success, fuelled by its further hit singles, "Open Your Heart", "Love Action"/"Hard Times" and most famously "Don't You Want Me", which reached number one in the UK charts during the Christmas of 1981 and was one of the biggest selling singles of that year, and it also charted at number one in the US during the summer of 1982. These three releases were accompanied by striking promo videos ("Love Action" based on the movie The Graduate). In the summer of 1982, a remix album of Dare entitled Love and Dancing was released under the group name League Unlimited Orchestra, reaching number three on the UK album chart. During their Dare phase, the Human League were often associated with New Romantic movement.In November 1982, the Motown influenced electro pop single "Mirror Man" reached number two in the UK chart. The follow-up single released during April 1983, "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" similarly peaked at number two. The following months proved to be difficult ones for the band as they struggled to record a follow up to Dare. A six song EP called Fascination! compiled the singles "Mirror Man" and "Fascination" together with the new track "I Love You Too Much" from the original recording sessions for their new album, later to be named Hysteria. The EP was released in America as a stop-gap and also became a strong seller as an import in the UK.Finally in May 1984 the band released the politically charged single "The Lebanon". Its rock guitar-driven harder edge was a considerable and surprising departure from their previous material, and the single peaked at number eleven in the UK. This was followed shortly after by the album Hysteria, so called because of the difficult and tense recording process, it entered the UK charts at number three however it climbed no further and critics and fans were divided by the new direction the band had taken. The second single was the rather downbeat "Life on Your Own", with its opening line of "winter is approaching, there is snow upon the ground" making it a strange choice of single to be released in the middle of summer. Again the single missed the UK top ten reaching number sixteen, and with the parent album Hysteria failing to live up to expected sales thoughts of a third single were put on hold.However, later that year, success outside of the Human League came for Oakey in the shape of the huge hit single "Together in Electric Dreams", a collaboration with one of his idols, synth pioneer Giorgio Moroder. The track was taken from the film soundtrack to Electric Dreams and was to prove a massive hit. The pair then recorded an album for Virgin, Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder, but this met with rather less success and the following two singles failed to make the UK Top 40. However the success of the Oakey and Moroder track encouraged the Human League's record label to release one final single from Hysteria in November 1984, the ballad "Louise" (UK number 13).In 1986, the group found themselves in creative stagnation, struggling to record material to follow up on their previous success. Key songwriter Jo Callis departed, replaced by drummer Jim Russell, and Virgin paired the Human League up with cutting-edge American R&B producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis who had just scored a huge worldwide hit earlier that year with Janet Jackson's Control. The result was the Crash album. It did provide an American number-one single, "Human", but other singles made smaller chart impact.

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