Sheffield in the late-1970s was isolated from what was happening in London in the same way that Liverpool had been in 1963. A unique generation of electro-experimental groupings evolved in the former Steel City around Cabaret Voltaire and The Future. The Future split into two factions, Clock DVA and The Human League. Then The Human League split into two further factions, Heaven 17, and The Human League as we now know them, fronted by Philip Oakey with Joanne Catherall and Susan Sulley. Dare became one of the most iconic albums of the eighties; the album by which Human League are most instantly recognised. It is a musically ambitious album, both driven and voracious album, with giddy grenades of shared inventiveness. A triumph of content over considerable style, at once phenomenally commercial and gleefully avant-garde. The American success of ‘Don’t You Want Me’, accelerated by the high-gloss movie-quality video, exploiting the band’s extreme visual appeal, heralded what was soon termed the Second British Invasion. It was the first of two Human League singles to top the American charts. This book tells the full story, from the band’s origins in Sheffield, through the full arc of Human League and the very early Heaven 17 hits, and the albums
track-by-track, into the twenty-first century… AUTHOR: Andrew Darlington watched the very first episode of ‘Dr Who’, he also watched the most recent episode. Whatever academic potential he may once have possessed was wrecked by an addiction to loud rock ‘n’ roll and cheap science fiction, which remain the twin poles of what he laughingly refers to as his writing career. He is most proud of his parallel universe collection A Saucerful Of Secrets. His latest book is a biography of the Beatles spin-doctor Derek Taylor: For Your Radioactive Children (Sonicbond, 2020).