"Filling Up with Heaven" is a song by English

synth-pop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...

band

the Human League The Human League are an English synth-pop band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Initially an experimental electronic outfit, the group signed to Virgin Records in 1979 and later attained widespread commercial success with their third album ''Dare' ...

, released as the third and final single from their seventh full-length studio album, ''

Octopus An octopus ( : octopuses or octopodes, see below for variants) is a soft-bodied, eight- limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttle ...

'' (1995). It was jointly written by lead singer

Philip Oakey Philip Oakey (born 2 October 1955) is a British singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the lead singer, songwriter, and cofounder of British synth-pop band the Human League. Aside from the Human League, Oakey has enjoyed an e ...

and producer

Ian Stanley Ian Christopher Stanley (born 28 February 1957) is a British musician, songwriter and record producer. He was previously a member of the English band Tears for Fears for most of the 1980s, and played a key role in the making of their multi-plat ...

(formerly of

Tears for Fears Tears for Fears are an English pop rock band formed in Bath, England, in 1981 by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. Founded after the dissolution of their first band, the mod-influenced Graduate, Tears for Fears were associated with the new wav ...

). The song was released on 5 June 1995 by

East West Records East West Records (stylized as east''west'') is a record label formed in 1955, distributed and owned by Warner Music Group, headquartered in London, England. History Upon its creation in 1955 by Atlantic Records, the label had one hit with th ...

in a variety of vinyl and CD single formats. These included various third-party remixes of "Filling Up with Heaven" and "

John Cleese John Marwood Cleese ( ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and ...

; Is He Funny?", including mixes by

Hardfloor Hardfloor is a German electronic music duo, consisting of Oliver Bondzio and Ramon Zenker. Their most famous track is "Acperience 1" (often titled more simply as "Acperience" on many compilation albums) and chosen by Feargal Sharkey as one of h ...

. After the success of the previous two singles it was expected to equal the chart position of "

Tell Me When "Tell Me When" is a song by British synthpop group the Human League, released as the first single from their seventh album, ''Octopus'' (1995). Written jointly by lead singer Philip Oakey and Paul C. Beckett, it was recorded at 'Human League St ...

" and "

One Man in My Heart "One Man in My Heart" is a song by British synth-pop band the Human League, written by Neil Sutton and Philip Oakey. It was released as the second single from the band's seventh album, '' Octopus'' (1995), on 6 March 1995. A ballad, the song d ...

". But unlike the two previous singles it was not play listed by

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

and received minimal national airplay, affecting sales. The single eventually peaked at number 36 in the UK singles chart, spending a total of two weeks in the charts.

Critical reception

In his weekly UK chart commentary,

James Masterton James Masterton (born 2 September 1973) is a music writer and columnist, his work focusing on the UK Singles Chart having been an online fixture on various sites since the 1990s. Masterton is also a producer for talkSPORT, and has worked on air ...

wrote, "The latest single from ''

'' sounds almost as if it could have come from their early 80s heyday, a loosely structured song, playing on the juxtaposition of Phil Oakey's voice with those of

Joanne Catherall Joanne Catherall (born 18 September 1962) is an English singer who is one of two female vocalists in the English synth-pop band The Human League. In 1980, Catherall was a 17-year-old school girl when she and her best friend Susan Ann Sulley w ...

and Suzanne Sulley. Very

new romantic The New Romantic movement was an underground subculture movement that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The movement emerged from the nightclub scene in London and Birmingham at venues such as Billy's and The Blitz. The New ...

and so somehow a bit dated, hence possibly this rather lowly chart entry." Jennifer Nine from ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...

'' described the song as "shiny", with "the girls' ''no baby no'' like silvery icing on Oakey's lines, crowbarred, as always, into awkward scansion. (Until he gives up and just goes ''hey hey hey'', thrillingly.)" Pan-European magazine ''

Music & Media ''Music & Media'' was a pan-European magazine for radio, music and entertainment. It was published for the first time in 1984 as ''Eurotipsheet'', but in 1986 it changed name to ''Music & Media''. It was originally based in Amsterdam, but later ...

'' commented, "Oakey and the girls seem to be on a trip through outer space. Bombarded with more bleeps than in ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

'', in our control room on planet earth we can see that they're still into melodies." A reviewer from ''

Music Week ''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future. History Founded in 1959 as '' Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music W ...

'' gave the song three out of five, describing it as a "strong" third single from the album, "if not a break from the successful formula".

Music video

The accompanying music video for "Filling Up with Heaven" was filmed on a low budget and in a minimalist studio (London's Limehouse Studios), unlike the other music videos for ''Octopus'' which were higher end. With rich saturated background colours. It features a series of sweeping

steadicam Steadicam is a brand of camera stabilizer mounts for Movie camera, motion picture cameras invented by Garrett Brown and introduced in 1975 by Cinema Products Corporation. It was designed to isolate the camera from the camera operator's movement ...

shots of Philip Oakey, with a mainly seated Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall. It is the only one of the Human League's music videos which Sulley has a long blonde pony tail hairstyle, for the previous two she has short hair, suggesting that she had hair extensions for the video. For the instrumental sections a continual sweeping loop of Neil Sutton playing keyboards is featured. Post production the video was intentionally stylized by deeply enriching the colours and reducing the pixel resolution, giving a digital smudge effect (as illustrated). A licensing fee dispute between East West and Virgin Records would prevent the video from being featured on the 2003 '' Very Best of The Human League''

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

. However, in 2016, a remastered version of the video was featured on a DVD included with the deluxe version of the box set ''A Very British Synthesizer Group''.

Track listings

* CD 1 1995, East West (YZ944CD1) # "Filling Up with Heaven" # "Filling Up with Heaven" (Neil Mclellan vocal mix) # "John Cleese; Is He Funny?" (ULA remix) # "John Cleese; Is He Funny?" (Self Preservation Society house mix) * CD 2 1995, East West (YZ944CD2) # "Filling Up with Heaven" (

vocal remix) # "Filling Dub with Heaven" (Hardfloor remix) # "Filling Up with Heaven" (Neil Mclellan club mix) # "Filling Up with Heaven" (ULA remix)

Charts

References

{{Authority control The Human League songs 1995 singles 1995 songs Song recordings produced by Ian Stanley Songs written by Ian Stanley Songs written by Philip Oakey