Human League
A lead singer with pierced nipples and half a head of hair, and
two bits of Sheffield totty, discovered dancing in a disco! The
band was initially formed as a synthesizer duo called The Dead
Daughters in 1977 by computer operators and synthesizer players
Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh .
A few months later Phil Oakey and Adrian Wright joined the band
and they became The Human League (named after characters in a
sci-fi board game).
Oakey was 21, a porter in a Sheffield hospital and
"completely without ambition" when he was talked into
singing by his friend, Ware. Having invested in a Stylophone
because playing guitar made his fingers sore, Ware and Marsh
wanted to break electronic music into pop's mainstream.
After touring the UK supporting Siouxsie
and the Banshees, the Human League were signed by Virgin
Records. Their pioneering style of twin lead harmony vocals,
syncopated bass line rhythm sections and singing flat really
caught on. It wasn't long before the idea was taken to its extreme
by Soft Cell.
By the time Don't You Want Me had topped the UK chart,
Marsh and Ware had left to form Heaven 17
- the name taken from Anthony Burgess' book A Clockwork Orange.
Oakey bought off his old friends for 1% of the group's future
earnings and got in new musicians including two teenage girls -
Susanne Sulley and Joanne Catherall (his girlfriend) who he had
seen dancing in Sheffield's Crazy Daisy disco.
By 1984 The Human League were faltering. When The Lebanon's
U2 inspired guitars and political lyrics
misfired, Oakey turned to big name producers. With disco-king
Giorgio Moroder he cut the beautiful Together In Electric
Dreams (with a guitar solo by Peter
Frampton) and with R&B major-domos Jam & Lewis, they
scored a second US Number One with Human.
Increasingly name-checked by the likes of Moby and Armand Van
Helden, Sheffield's synth-pop doyens continued to camp it up on
the wedding/office party/bar mitzvah circuit into the new
millennium. Their 2001 album, Secrets, was a shiny
collection (arguably their best since Dare) which made it
clear that The Human League still knew their way blindfolded to a
thumping pop song.
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