So I am going to play every 45 in my collection.......(Part 3!!)

Dare came out in New Zealand months before it came out here. CBS were so poor at distribution I bought a UK copy in a local record shop.

Funny thing is that CBS were excellent in promoting Culture Club and had no trouble getting their records into the shops.

 

The Human League- Human/Instrumental
Written and produced by hitmakers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, this pop ballad Hit #1 in the USA and #8 in the UK in 1986. The Human League always used their male/female dynamic well within their lyrics and videos and this is no exception. Both sides of a romantic couple get to share the news that they both were unfaithful. Heavy stuff delivered with a simple but clever lyric. The percussion really stands out on the 45. A very fine vocal from Oakey serves the subject matter well. He really maximizes his less than natural singing voice here.

 

The 12" mix is great! I think there are a few extended mixes out there. The girls I liked at 13 were very into Def Leppard, Poison, etc... I still remember playing Hysteria while sharing half of the headphones of my Walkman with Stacy as we rode the bus into NYC on a field trip. Good times!

 

Strange how that works (or doesn't work). I feel like every kid in my class had a copy of Dare.

 

Not to mention that they added an exclamation point to the title of Dare for the US release. I have it in my iTunes as Dare! since that is my memory of it, with corresponding hi-res artwork pulled from albumartexchange.com. Also, the Fascination! EP was a US/Canada release. Have you heard the version of "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" on that one? I like the single mix better, but this version is great, too - it's extended, with a longer intro. So if I want to listen to the song as part of my 1983 playlist, I'll play the single version, but if I want to reminisce about those 1983 road trips, I'll play the EP version.

Wow, Joanne looks really cute on that sleeve! Love her in the "Fascination" video...

 

Definitely a great look for her!

 

Yes, I have that extended mix and the improvisation mix on two different 12". I love both those mixes too!

 

I was 18, a senior in HS and had a Trans Am when Hysteria came out. Lots of sweet innocent girls were no longer sweet nor innocent after a romp in my T/A with "Pour Some Sugar On Me" blasting thru the t-tops. Good times. Good times.

 

Countdown was the big rock show in Australia in the 70s and 80s. The host Ian 'Molly' Meldrum said that Dare was a classic album as good as Dark Side of the Moon or Sgt Pepper's. All CBS had to do was get copies to the shops and it would have sold like hotcakes but they couldn't even do that.

 

That sure sounds like a good time!!! Amazing how Def Leppard straddled both a male and female audience.

 

You guys got all the girls! Funny that the great looking ones weren't into the guys that listened to ABBA and the Bee Gees! You would think we would have learned to fake it though!

 

When Jam & Lewis started working with the band, they were alarmed by how long it took for them to record anything because they were such perfectionists. I mean, they took two friggin' days just to get a drum sound right.

 

What always interested me is how producer Martin Rushant loved to hit the compressors hard on everything. His productions are like a sonic assault.

It was a crazy time. Oakley was the main artist and brainchild that put the Human league together. He is perfectly straight but played the androgyny to the hilt.

 

And every cut-out bin

 

Lol...I bet it's a lot cooler to like Abba now than back in the day! Luckily I'm married now so I can, and do, play Abba and the Bee Gees loud and proud! My wife LOVES them....although the Sgt. Pepper and Mamma Mia movies are loathsome to her!

 

That is quite some high praise!! Did CBS only have an issue with this particular release? Perhaps they were caught off guard by its global popularity?

 

And a "fake" drum sound at that! I love that story! I believe Nick Hayward made a comment about it at the time and took a shot at the band. Very similar to The Cars stories involving Mutt Lange.

 

Two good points there Grant.

Rushent's production definitely shaped their sound and was a major factor in their success for sure. No Human League without his efforts.

Phil's image was very well conceived and played. "Straight" in the videos where he often fought romantically with the girls and ? With his style of dress and use of makeup and his "look" overall. Mass appeal. The fact that he selected Joanne and Susan Ann for the group based on seeing them dancing at a club one night proves just how important he gauged the visual aspect of the band to be. Great timing with the arrival of MTV and very shrewd business sense.

 

I saw Sgt. Pepper's in the theater when it came out. I was 10.

 

I have the DVD! No shame

 

I'm guessing Human League was on another label that was distributed by CBS. I remember Casablanca leaving Warners for the same reason. The Warners groups came first and it was killing Casablanca. Warners must have been kicking themselves around 1975. There are just so many resources to go around. Human League seemed to b promoted fine in the US though. If memory serves they were on Arista but I don't know for sure. With Clive Davis at the helm, their artists seemed well promoted.

 

I was a senior in 1979 and I loved my records more than anything else! You could be met by a nice bunch of football guys after school for liking the acts I liked then! It's very interesting that some of the acts I liked best then turned out, as you said, to be recognized as iconic now that some years have gone by, while many of the acts the "cool" guys liked are all but forgotten now. Of course, disco was huge then and all of them are forgotten now.

 

Don't have my 45's in front of me but I am picturing an A&M label.

 

Cool doesn't always equal good! I was always very diverse in what I listened to. Luckily my friends were too. We may have worn the hard rock t-shirts around school and We loved that music; but we also had no qualms in knocking back a beer to my stack of disco 45's or the latest Debbie Gibson single lol!

 

The androgonyous image probably made one of the females parents feel better because he was considerably older.