The Human League - Dare
#509
By Brian Kushnir
October 16 1981
The Human League
Dare
Genre: Synth-pop
Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Brian’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Highlights:
The Things That Dreams Are Made Of
Open Your Heart
The Sound Of The Crowd
Darkness
Seconds
Love Action (I Believe In Love)
Don’t You Want Me
All We Wanted To Be Were The Ramones
I could spill all the ink in this review on the one Human League song. You know the one, with the guy and the girl who called each other baby, who may or may not have wanted each other?
The backstories alone about the hit song, the original incarnation of the band, or how these four men and two women got together in the studio to make Dare is worth the price of admission and the subject of a whole nother story, which we don’t have time for today. Maybe in episodes two and three of the podcast.
This isn’t about the backstory. This is about the dare.
Specifically, what was the dare that the Human League was getting on about?
Surely it was a dare for the Human League to be British in 1981 and make a record with only synths and drum machines. Specifically noted with understated bravado in the credits, they used a Roland MC8, System 700, JP4, Korg 770, Delta, Casio VLT 1, M10, Linn LM1, Yamaha CS15, and Roland Microcomposer and Linn Drum Computer. That’s it!
Was the dare about putting “Don’t You Want Me” - what would become the biggest track in this band’s history, the one Human League song that would become a definitive iconic 1980s marker of a synth-pop point-in-time, so infused with memories and meaning that 40 years later it still resonates and transports you back to this moment, even if you weren’t there in the first place - at the very end of the record?
Or was the dare to just give in and indulge all their sensual urges, tensions, hopes, dreams, fears and inspirations, and create a new kind of punk-pop band. Because they clearly wanted all of this - to be punks like the Ramones and pump out catchy tunes for the pogoing clubbers, and to be boundary-pushing edgy auteurs like Kraftwerk and YMO and paint cinematic crypto-romantic electro-symphonies.
“All we wanted to be were The Ramones.” I believe this is what principal lyricst and frontman Phil Oakey would have said if I asked him what they were getting on about. They wanted to be Johnny, Joey, and Dee Dee but instead they were Joanne, Jo, Susanne, Ian, and two guys named Philip. And let’s not forget producer/programmer Martin Rushent. And being eccentric stylish intellectual Brits from the land of the Queen rather than snot nosed blue jeans rockers from Queens, The Human League did the Ramones their way, creating something unique and moving, at once of the times and timeless.
The music on Dare works on multiple levels, like 5D chess. Do they have multiple symphonic sing-along synth anthems to kick the album off in a rousing hey ho let’s go fashion? Why yes, yes they do, with fanfares and flourishes in the opening threesome “The Things That Dreams Are Made Of,” “Open Your Heart,” and “The Sound Of The Crowd” to push and push and empower your pleasure buttons. Even the slinky island groove in “Do Or Die,” which may go on a little too long to close side one, still serves its purpose as a palate cleanse with a melody that could have surely been played on steel drum if not for the ‘electronics only here’ rule.
Rewarding a close listen there are production subtleties throughout like dubbed out electronic drum fills, a heart beat rhythm to drive “Open Your Heart,” and even a bridge with a clever “Flight of the Bumblebees” homage.
And “Darkness” has a full round of la la la’s in place of what would typically be the first verse of lyrics, which is an interesting Eno kind of move, as if they drew an Oblique Strategies card that cryptically said “la la your way through.’
Are the lyrics often sparse, poetic, and open to multiple interpretations? You be the judge.
(from Open Your Heart)
“And so you stand here
With the years ahead
Potentially calling
With open heart”
(from Do Or Die)
“I’d like to leave so would you kindly look the other way”
(from I Am The Law)
“My life
I’m a fool for you
You who take no advice
You who think evil doesn’t exist
Just because you deny it is true”
Let’s face it, the Human League are demanding. This is a band that knows how they want to look, where they want to go, and will tell you where you should stand when you are in their frame. Take time to see! Dream! Take a cruise to China! Get around town! Get in line now! Run all day! Run all night!
There’s plenty of vulnerability on display with themes including love, dreams, fear of the dark, death, violence, power, the pursuit of both good times and bad.
A stylish mini-suite on side two draws inspiration from a 1971 British gangster-noir film, starting with your Requisite 90’s Cover(™): “Get Carter,” a one minute high and lonesome synthesizer take on Roy Budd’s mournful theme song from the film starring Michael Kaine and Britt Ekland among others. Maybe a wink from the band or a nod to their thematic influences, the potential connection between this album and the sordid tale in the film helps explain some of the lyrical content here. Again, a question to be explored in more detail in the podcast where we will attempt to track down those concerned.
At this point, which feels like the deep end of the album, the Human League are in an especially dark place, like Kyle McLaughlin goofing along a white picket fence and suddenly getting stuck in a Lynchian reality. Now it’s dark, and we’re suddenly confronted with a murder and the law.
We suddenly come up for air back at the disco and in high-style outfits, first with the single minded and danceable “Love Action,” and then finally, at the very end, the chart topping duet “Don’t You Want Me,” which is basically “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” but with the guy in the role of a schmuck, and a badass, ahead of her time empowered girl.
Confession time, I thought that Dare was complete and utter shite when it came out, and we were talking about it then with an attitude of dismissive disbelief. I love it now but it was definitely above my head in 1981 - I was 14, played the drums and guitar, and these pretentious Brits had the unmitigated audacity to create an entire record with nothing but synths and drum machines.
I’m here with humility to say that I was wrong back then.
Maybe the Human League’s Dare was to be different, to search for something new, something scary, and explore how to find meaning in the world. In the end, as they say on the record, everybody needs love and adventure, cash to spend, and 2 or 3 friends.
In the end they couldn't possibly have been the Ramones, but it still seems that their dare paid off.
https://open.spotify.com/album/3ls7tE9D2SIvjTmRuEtsQY?si=7Rl7tT3pQGSYRvpzmss6Jw
