I played this to a friend from Sheffield and made the comment that “they took themselves very seriously”. “Well”, he exclaimed indignantly “they ‘ad to, they were from Sheffield.
I played this to a friend from Sheffield and made the comment that “they took themselves very seriously”. “Well”, he exclaimed indignantly “they ‘ad to, they were from Sheffield.
The Human League – Reproduction (1979)
Once upon a time, in a city called Sheffield, all was not well.
The steel industry, once the backbone of the city, was broken. The former employer of over half the population had caught a dose of recession and collapsed. Meanwhile, modern urban planning schemes had failed to provide nirvana in the high-rise housing estates after the slum clearance of the 50’s & 60’s. The city was impoverished and marginalized, caught on the cusp of a broken past and an uncertain future and to cap it all, the land had just fallen into the iron grip of an evil queen.
Against this backdrop 2 young men formed a band called The Human League.
Do you know The Human League? Surely you know 1981’s international smash, Dare? A synthpop sensation yielding a Christmas no. 1 in the UK with Don’t You Want Me Baby and 3 other top 20 singles (Sound of the Crowd, Love Action, Open Your Heart). How about 1984’s album, Hysteria (featuring The Lebanon); or Crash in 1986, with the US chart topping single, Human? Well, forget all that shit. Yes, Dare was a great album but it was the last one they made. I want to take you back to when it all started. The Human League in 1979 was a completely different band.
Ian Craig Marsh and Martin Ware were both dedicated Kraftwerk fans. They eschewed the use of conventional instruments, making their own synthesizers, until in 1977 they bought their first Korg. Following a brief fling as The Future (also featuring Adi Newton who later left to form ClockDVA), in 1978 they enlisted the help of friend Philip Oakey to front the band because "he was tall" and they thought he would look good at the front. A single, Being Boiled, was released that year to underground, but significant, acclaim; leading to a support slot for The Rezillos and a tour with Siouxsie and the Banshees.
The following year the trio, who had been joined by Adrian Wright as Director of Visuals prior to the Rezillo’s gig, released an EP, The Dignity Of Labour Parts 1-4. This bombed, but major record companies were now expressing interest and The Human League ended up signing to Virgin Records and touring Europe with Iggy Pop.
Then, in July 1979, the group came together at the Workshop studio in Sheffield. Over a 3-week period they recorded an album called Reproduction that, at the risk of sounding grandiose, was to change the landscape of British music and bring the German new wave to our shores.
Like all great new things it shocked from the outset. Even the sleeve, in those sensitive days, was deemed frightening and distasteful. It featured babies (one of whom was allegedly the son of Slade’s front man Noddy Holder!) being crushed underfoot by an aloof and uncaring elite. As good a metaphor for the geographical, industrial and political landscape of Britain at that time as any. A requiem for innocence. Dystopia.
And this sentiment is amplified by the music. Which is hard to describe. To say The Human League were influenced by Kraftwerk is to state the obvious. The Human League was a band that had almost no contemporaries on the British music scene – Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, Brian Eno …? Theirs was an amalgam of these, the spirit of Punk and an adoption of Kraftwerk’s utopian dream which they examined and found faulty. There was no bright glorious future, just a dark uncertain path towards failure, disillusion, isolation and death.
And this theme runs throughout Reproduction, which at worst is bleak and full of stumbling despair and at best draws a wry, pain-wrought smile, clambers to its feet, throws back it’s shoulders and resolves to go on. Except when it doesn’t. Except when it aggressively jumps up and cries: "Fuck You, we’re gonna make it!" And along the way there’s beauty, melancholy, originality and indecipherability…
The album opens with Almost Medieval, which is tight, punchy and aggressive and has a throbbing electronic bark reminiscent of The Normal’s Warm Leatherette, the b-side to Mute record’s first release in 1978. This is followed by Circus Of Death, which was on the flipside of the first single Being Boiled. Re-recorded for inclusion on Reproduction, it’s serious and unselfconscious, with its chilling tale of an evil clown and his drug crazed followers; backed by a simple, chugging baseline, warbling theremin-like noise and descending glissando sequences.
The Path Of Least Resistance pre-empts the same electronic beats and handclap rhythms used by Depeche Mode on Speak and Spell in 1981. A tight, bleak song the lyrics speak of apathy, asceticism and an early grave. In contrast to this, hope shines out on Blind Youth. With it’s aggressive bounce it embraces the high-rises and the city and promises that things will work out in the end. Fitting then that in its original demo incarnation the track was called Optimistic Anthem.
The same emotional pairing is found with The Word Before Last and Empire State Human. I’m listening to this album on a grey, windy Monday morning and The Word Before Last makes a perfect soundtrack. It’d also be great for kiddies parties. Sample lyric: "the eternal moment laid bare / no time to heal / continual pain / continual pain". But before you lose the will to live the joyful Empire State Human kicks in. Uplifting and infectious with sci-fi sound effects from a BBC Radiophonic Workshop loved up on E and bizarre lyrics about a driving desire to be tall, this was the only single off Reproduction and it undeservedly sank without a trace (although a reissue in 1980 saw it ascend to the heady position of no. 62 in the UK charts).
Morale… sounds more like Phillip Glass than anything else. Yet it’s chiming melody holds no hope. This is as dark and grim as it could get in Sheffield in 1979 but still Oakey’s voice holds a power and a poignancy that elevates the spirit and holds back the knife, before the music sweeps you into the Spector penned, Righteous Brothers classic, You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling. Here Marsh and Ware’s textured electronic discordance make a perfect backing rhythm to this song and the bass synth has never sounded better as it threatens the integrity of your internal organs. Against this Oakey’s occasionally monotone voice shines like a mirror on black velvet.
With Austerity/Girl One (medley), hope again springs eternal. The music lifts and bucks, straining against the dark yoke of the lyrics, and then the reverse is true as the song switches and the music takes an emotional dive. Then we find Philip Oakey’s vocals to be the key to escape, as they are in so many Human League songs. From a monotone, half spoken delivery that can drive you to depression he suddenly lifts and hits a note like sunshine inside.
The original album closes with Zero As A Limit which is a slowly accelerating machine. Gaining velocity with every move forward, both lyrically and musically it reaches a full head of steam before, pistons pounding, the track derails and the album literally comes crashing to a halt.
Fittingly enough, Introducing, the first of the extra tracks and originally the b-side to Empire State Human, picks up where the album and Zero As A Limit left off. Sifting through the wreckage to the wail of sirens, pulling aside the tortured lumps of steel, we find a beautiful harmony of metal on metal – a rhythm that Depeche Mode finally achieved circa 1984 with Something To Do (metal mix). This is Metal Music from Steel Town.
The EP, The Dignity Of Labour Parts 1-4, follows. As Kraftwerk as a Dorset pottery shop featuring handmade candles and small woodland creatures made from forest debris, this EP proceeds to deliver an uplifting, repetitive and slightly atonal instrumental as if the utopian dream was still intact. Part 2 degrades into an abstract mix of beats and bleeps that 1988’s LFO and any other acid house progenitors would have been proud of. Part 3 continues with a collection of throbbing metal beats that predict the arrival of bands like Skinny Puppy, KMFDM and Frontline Assembly before suddenly throwing on the handbrake and performing a rotating U-turn that sends it heading for the clouds and a krautrock crystal landscape. Very Tangerine Dream. Then Part 4 comes on like a lesson in "How To Play Your Yamaha Home Organ – Krautrock Style" (or maybe it’s your Stylophone); meets the Eraserhead Soundtrack.
Flexi Disc, a give-away with The Dignity Of Labour, is a tenebrous discussion on the merits of releasing a flexi disc and the function that flexi disc, as art form, should fulfil. Oh, and an interesting anecdote about Yuri Gagarin and a cup of tea.
The last two tracks on this reissue are the original version of songs released on the League’s first record label, Fast Product. The bass on Being Boiled trembles your earballs, big style. Rougher and readier than the version that appeared on their second album Travelogue, this is lo-fi pop at its best and most influential. Disappointed to find that Buddhism wasn’t the religion he thought it was (he was after something on Hinduism and bought the wrong book), Philip Oakey penned this vitriolic attack on a religion that condoned the boiling of live grubs for the silk trade.
The original version of Circus Of Death differs from the album version both in terms of treatment (like Being Boiled the track was "glossed up" for inclusion on an album) and in the opening verbal introduction. The album version is introduced by a TV presenter announcing another episode of Hawaii 5-0. The single version opens with the following lines:
"This is a song called the Circus Of Death.
It tells the true story of a circus we met.
The first two verses concern the actual arrival at Heathrow Airport of Commissioner Steve McGarrett.
The third emotionally describes a map showing the range of the circus.
The fourth and fifth were extracted from an article in the Guardian of March the 19th, 1962.
The last is a short wave radio message from the last man on Earth".
I played this to a friend from Sheffield and made the comment that "they took themselves very seriously". "Well", he exclaimed indignantly "they ‘ad to, they were from Sheffield".
And he’s probably right. They did take themselves seriously because they believed in themselves and what they were doing. The Human League came from a difficult time and place and they had the faith and the courage to make New Music. New Influential Music.