Forty-five years ago, on 16 October 1981, Sheffield’s The Human League released Dare on Virgin Records — the album that turned a band on the edge of collapse into the sound of synthpop’s golden era.
A year earlier the group had split down the middle. Founders Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh left in October 1980 to form Heaven 17, leaving Philip Oakey and visual director Philip Adrian Wright with the name and the debts. Oakey rebuilt around two teenagers he had seen dancing at Sheffield’s Crazy Daisy nightclub, Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley, then added synth player Ian Burden and former Rezillos guitarist Jo Callis.
Producer Martin Rushent recorded the new line-up at his Genetic Sound studio in Berkshire between March and September 1981. The result traded the band’s earlier avant-garde electronics for bright, hook-first pop: The Things That Dreams Are Made Of, Open Your Heart, The Sound of the Crowd, Darkness, Do or Die, Get Carter, I Am the Law, Seconds, Love Action (I Believe in Love) and Don’t You Want Me.
Dare reached number one on the UK Albums Chart in its second week and has since been certified triple platinum by the BPI. Don’t You Want Me became the UK Christmas number one of 1981 and in 1982 topped the Billboard Hot 100, where Rolling Stone and The Village Voice credited it with kickstarting the Second British Invasion. Rushent’s continuous-mix companion Love and Dancing, credited to the League Unlimited Orchestra, followed in 1982.
Even the sleeve became part of the legend: Ken Ansell and Philip Adrian Wright styled it after a Vogue cover, with photography by Brian Aris. Forty-five years on, Oakey, Catherall and Sulley remain the band’s constant line-up. The video above is the official Don’t You Want Me clip.
Dare on Apple Music – https://music.apple.com/us/album/dare/724437555
Dare on Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/album/3ls7tE9D2SIvjTmRuEtsQY
Official video on YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPudE8nDog0
Side-Line – https://www.side-line.com/the-human-league-dare-45th-anniversary/
The Human League – https://www.thehumanleague.co.uk/
About Author
