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The Human League
The Human League are an English synth-pop band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Initially an experimental electronic music, electronic outfit, the group signed to Virgin Records in 1979 and later attained widespread commercial success with their third album ''Dare (album), Dare'' in 1981 after restructuring their lineup. The album contained four hit singles, including the UK/US number one hit "Don't You Want Me". The band received the Brit Award for Best British Breakthrough Act in 1982. Further hits followed throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, including "Mirror Man (The Human League song), Mirror Man", "(Keep Feeling) Fascination", "The Lebanon (song), The Lebanon", "Human (The Human League song), Human" (a second US No. 1) and "Tell Me When". The only constant band member since 1977 has been lead singer and songwriter Philip Oakey. Keyboard players Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh both left the band in 1980 to form Heaven 17, leaving Oakey and Philip Adrian WAdrian Wrigh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its southern suburbs were transferred from Derbyshire to the city council. It is the largest settlement in South Yorkshire and the third largest of Northern England. The city is in the North Midlands, in the eastern foothills of the Pennines and the valleys of the River Don with its four tributaries: the Loxley, the Porter Brook, the Rivelin and the Sheaf. Sixty-one per cent of Sheffield's entire area is green space and a third of the city lies within the Peak District national park and is the fifth-largest city in England. There are more than 250 parks, woodlands and gardens in the city, which is estimated to contain around 4.5 million trees. Sheffield played a crucial role in the Industrial Revolution, developing many signifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Craig Marsh
Ian Craig Marsh (born 11 November 1956) is an English musician and composer. He was a founding member of the electronic band the Human League, writing and playing on their first two albums and several singles, until leaving in 1980 to form the British Electric Foundation and later Heaven 17. Musical career Marsh began in music at Sheffield's council-sponsored community theatre group Meatwhistle. There he met Mark Civico; they formed a performance art band called Musical Vomit, taking the name from a music paper's hostile review of the band Suicide.Blind Youth: The early work of the Human League Ex-rental.com, (archived) Musical Vomit specialised in |
Human (The Human League Song)
"Human" is a song by English synth-pop band the Human League, released as the lead single from their fifth studio album, '' Crash'' (1986). The track, which deals with the subject of infidelity, was written and produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The song topped the charts of the United States, becoming the band's second single to top the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 after their 1981 single "Don't You Want Me". It also went to number one in Canada while reaching number five in Germany and number eight in the band's native United Kingdom. Background and composition In 1985, recording for the Human League's fifth album was not going well. The band did not like the results, which caused internal conflict. Virgin Records executives, worried by the lack of progress from their at-the-time most profitable signing, suggested the band accept an offer to work with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who had material to work with and had expressed an interest in the band from their U.S. rele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Lebanon (song)
"The Lebanon" is a song by English synth-pop band the Human League, released as a single in April 1984. Written jointly by lead singer Philip Oakey and keyboard player and guitarist Jo Callis, it was the first single from the band's fourth album ''Hysteria''. It was recorded at AIR Studios during 1983–1984. Background The song was conceived, written and recorded at a time when the band were under considerable pressure to provide Virgin Records with a follow-up album to equal the enormous international success of '' Dare''. The band was recording in the £1,000-per-day AIR Studios, where they remained for a full year, frequently arguing with each other.Human League Biography - www.League-online.com/Bio The lyrics were a statement on the Lebanese civil war. In a television interview, band member Philip Adrian Wright commented that Oakey's lyrics were written specifically about the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Singer Susan Ann Sulley said that the band "wanted to speak up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
(Keep Feeling) Fascination
"(Keep Feeling) Fascination" is a song by English synth-pop band the Human League. It was composed by Jo Callis and Philip Oakey, and produced by Martin Rushent (which would be the last song he produced for the band for seven years). The song features vocals from four of the band members, including lead singer Philip Oakey, female co-vocalists Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall, and a rare vocal role from keyboardist and guitarist Jo Callis. The single was designated 'Red' on the Human League's short-lived, self-imposed labelling system of 'Blue' for pop songs and 'Red' for dance tracks. Chart performance and certifications The single was released in the UK on 15 April 1983 as a non-album single (music), single, and went to number 2 in the UK Singles Chart. It was incorporated into the band's Extended play, EP ''Fascination!''. Released in the US a month after the UK release, the single reached number 1 on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart (their first single to do s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mirror Man (The Human League Song)
"Mirror Man" is a 1982 song by the British synth-pop group The Human League. It was released as a single in the UK on 12 November 1982 and peaked at number two in the UK Singles Chart. It was written jointly by lead singer Philip Oakey with keyboard players Jo Callis and Ian Burden, and produced by Martin Rushent. Background "Mirror Man" (originally titled "Can't Get To Sleep At Night") was the first track written and recorded by the Human League after they returned from their World Tour, conducted in the wake of the enormous international success of their album ''Dare''. "Mirror Man" was conceived and written as a celebration of Oakey and Philip Adrian Wright's love of Motown records. It has been described as electronic northern soul, with Oakey's main verses delivered in deliberate sentences with emphasis on the last word of each sentence. Vocalists Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall feature prominently throughout the song but have no lyrics, providing backing vocals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don't You Want Me
"Don't You Want Me" is a song by British synth-pop group the Human League (credited on the cover as the Human League 100). It was released on 27 November 1981 as the fourth single from their third studio album, '' Dare'' (1981). The band's best known and most commercially successful song, it was the best selling UK single of 1981, that year's Christmas number one, and has since sold over 1,560,000 copies in the UK, making it the 23rd-most successful single in UK Singles Chart history. It topped the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in the US on 3 July 1982, where it stayed for three weeks. In November 1983, ''Rolling Stone'' named it the "breakthrough song" of the Second British Invasion of the US. In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's seventh-favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV. And in 2022, ''Rolling Stone'' ranked it as one of the "200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time". Background The lyrics were inspired after the Human League lead singer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dare (album)
''Dare'' (also released as ''Dare!'' in certain countries) is the third studio album by English synth-pop band The Human League, first released in the United Kingdom in October 1981 and then subsequently in the US in mid-1982. The album was produced by Martin Rushent and recorded between March and September 1981, following the departure of founding members Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, and saw the band shift direction from their previous avant-garde electronic style toward a more pop-friendly, commercial sound led by frontman Philip Oakey. ''Dare'' became critically acclaimed and proved to be a genre-defining album, whose influence can be felt in many areas of pop music. The album and its four singles were very successful, particularly "Don't You Want Me", which both ''Rolling Stone'' and ''The Village Voice'' credited with kickstarting the Second British Invasion. The album reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and has been certified triple platinum by the British Ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Musical ensemble, bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All-Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar, and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as compact discs (CDs) replaced LP record, LPs and cassette (format), cassettes as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it, he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synth-pop
Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic music, electronic, art rock, disco, and particularly the Krautrock of bands like Kraftwerk. It arose as a distinct genre in Japan and the United Kingdom in the post-punk era as part of the New wave music, new wave movement of the late 1970s. Electronic musical synthesizers that could be used practically in a recording studio became available in the mid-1960s, and the mid-1970s saw the rise of electronic art musicians. After the breakthrough of Gary Numan in the UK Singles Chart in 1979, large numbers of artists began to enjoy success with a synthesizer-based sound in the early 1980s. In Japan, Yellow Magic Orchestra introduced the TR-808 rhythm machine to popular music, and the band ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jo Callis
John William "Jo" Callis (born 2 May 1951) is a British musician and songwriter who played guitar with the Edinburgh based punk rock band the Rezillos (under the name Luke Warm) and post-punk band Boots for Dancing, before joining the Human League.Strong, Martin C. (2003) ''The Great Indie Discography'', Canongate, , pp. 130–1, 240 Biography Callis was educated at the Edinburgh College of Art. He was a member of the Knutsford Dominators before forming the Rezillos in 1976. The band played many gigs in Edinburgh and Glasgow, during which Callis wore space suits and other hi-tech costumes. He wrote the Rezillos' 1978 hit "Top of the Pops". In late 1978, after the release of the band's only album, the Rezillos split, with Callis forming Shake along with Simon Templar and Angel Paterson. Shake released two singles before splitting. In 1981, Callis released a solo single, "Woah Yeah!", on the pop:Aural label.Gimarc, George (2005) ''Punk Diary: The Ultimate Trainspotter's Guide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
