I guess it's just what I must do

Continuing my trip back through the 1981 album charts.

20/12/81 : Dare - The Human League

Our first visit with The Human League and this is considered by many to be a seminal album of the 80s electro-pop era, which is an era I'm pretty familar with - and so, I've obviously never listened to it. I wouldn't say I've actively avoided it, but "Don't You Want Me" was somewhat ubiquitous for far longer than strictly necessary and, whilst I didn't mind it, I didn't love it and I just never felt the need to check out any more of the album than the other singles I heard. You'd still think I should have caught it at some point in the intervening 45 years though...

Yeah, I didn't mind this at all - it's of its time, but it also hasn't really dated. It's interesting to remember that THL came out of Heaven 17 because you can hear those roots in there, but Phil Oakey et al have just popped things up a bit and they've done it pretty well. Everyone obviously knows "Don't You Want Me" (which is curiously the last track on the album) - I also remembered "Love Action (I Believe In Love)" but I'd forgotten about "Open Your Heart" (which I particularly liked, but quite possibly assumed was by OMD) and "The Sound Of The Crowd", so it was all a bit more familiar than expected. The rest of of it was unknown to me, but sounded decent enough on first listen and there's a reasonable amount of variety (within limits, obviously) across the album. All in all, pretty enjoyable - and we've started the year with two albums with obvious female input.

We're at #3 in the charts this week on their ninth week of an impressive 69 week run, with it peaking at #1 in its second and eleventh to thirteenth weeks - it also popped back for a week in '25, which was due to a picture re-release as part of Virgin's 40th anniversary. The rest of the top five were ABBA, Queen, Chart Hits '91 and Adam & The Ants (exactly the same as last week) and the highest new entry was Hits Hits Hits (#19), which was a compilation album where both sides amusingly start with tracks and artists you know but things soon change. 

Wikipedia tells us this is their third album, but the first with the classic line-up who are mostly still floating about doing various retro and anniversary appearances. Martin Rushent produced it and the first thing he did was move the band away from the Sheffield recording studios there were sharing with Heaven 17 (the atmosphere was "unhealthy") to rural Berkshire to get away from it all. Which seems like a good idea except that Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley were still doing their A levels in Sheffield, so that involved more logistics than were expected. There's actually not loads more there, but it does tell us that Phil Oakey was dead set against "Don't You Want Me" being a single but the record label overruled him and it went on to sell millions, being the Christmas #1 here in '81 and also reaching #1 in the US (as well as many other places). 

Critically, the album was very well received with Melody Maker, NME, Smash Hits and Rolling Stone all saying very nice things about it - who could we possibly rely on be mean about it? Ah yes, our old mate Robert Christgau who says "Philip Oakey comes on like three kinds of pompous jerk" - THREE kinds seems weirdly specific. It does give us a fascinating bit of pop trivia though - apparently Lester Bangs died of an accidental overdose whilst listening to this very album! Retrospectively, the views are even nicer - there's a strong agreement that this is a VERY IMPORTANT ALBUM and no-one in their right mind should be waiting until 2026 to listen to it for the first time (oops - sorry guys). Commercially, it did OK I guess, being the third best selling album of the year here (despite only coming out in October) and it got to #3 in Australia and the US and #1 in Canada, New Zealand and Sweden.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a copy of this for three quid, but if you want the original limited edition picture disc, it's going to set you back £500, making this an early contender for the most expensive album of the year. I won't be going that mad, but I very much enjoyed this with it taking me right back to those times, despite me never having heard it before - if you've also avoided it, then maybe you should go and check it out now.

27/12/81 - An interesting album