Human League, classic or dud?

>>Like that's making the rounds. It's by V/Vm.

Is it really?
http://www.vice.com/read/the-guy-who-remixed-human-leagues-dont-you-want-me-is-working-on-a-remix-to-aquas-barbie-girl-0804

A shimmering, ardent review from Brad - everything I live for in music writing.
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-human-league-dare/

That's a great piece! Putting it on again now.

thanks y'all! sort of a miracle i ever finished it, thank you for reading

Yeah, really enjoyed this piece. Haven't listened to the albums since Astralwerks reissued them almost 15 years ago, but your version tracks with my memories.

Yeah, great stuff, Brad, thanks.

Yep, props, Brad!

that really is an exemplary piece, kudos

Rushent would listen to the rough mixes of Dare songs when he returned home from the studio and couldn’t figure out whether the album they were making was brilliant or terrible.

Remember having the same thought when they first performed 'The Sound of the Crowd' on Top of the Pops. 'Genetic Engineering' by OMD would also produce the same baffled reaction from my friends at school, before we finally decided on 'brilliant' for both tracks.

Would love to see it expanded into a 33 1/3 book. Just such an extraordinary story; loses the key talent in the band, recruits two schoolgirls and a couple of refugees from post-punk bands and ends the year with a decade defining commercial and critical success.

Yeah it's an incredible story, looking forward to reading this. I always wondered if it was true that the sleeves were painted white, twice over so the cover stood out next to the other records. Certainly sounds good.

Wow, Brad. Superb.

I think I first learned the extent of Rushent's involvement in Reynolds' Rip It Up and Start Again.

As I said above, I think that "Don't You Want Me" is the perfect example of the difference that a great producer can make to a band's fortunes. I'd been thinking about the subject again recently after happening across a fascinating interview with Jo Callis. Although he was an accomplished guitarist, he recalled that he knew so little about keyboards on his arrival in Sheffield, that Martyn Ware took pity on him and brought him to a music store to buy a "piano chords illustrated" book. (Incidentally, I think it says much for Ware's good nature that he helped out a newcomer who was aligned with the "opposing" camp.)
This is not to deny the originality or creativity of the band members, but none of them had the anything like the technical ability to have refined DYWM into the world-beater it became. Such is Oakey's vocal charisma that it wasn't until I heard the song in an instrumental form (via the Love and Dancing remix), that its musical complexity jumped out at me. It's a mosaic of interlocking parts which must have been a true labour of love to sequence together with the technology of the era. In a time before DAWs and synthesiser presets, when every sound had to be set up from scratch, somebody needed to be able to imagine the song's entire structure in their head in order to bring it into existence. My guess is that the visionary was Martin Rushent!

Jo Callis was brought in for his pop songwriting track record rather than as a musician presumably. He wrote almost all the Rezillos songs including their big hit, and co-wrote about half of Dare including Don't You Want Me.

he was indeed hired for songwriting and just kind ended up joining the band

i had that detail in my piece but it got lost between drafts