The Human League - Dare

I really love this album. This was the first CD I ever bought, even before I had a player to play it on! I bought the vinyl copy as a picture disc in December 1981 and played it several times and just thought it was a great pop album. It contains four hit singles, The Sound Of The Crowd, Love Action, Open Your Heart and the worldwide smash Don't You Want Me. It was released in October 1981 and later in 1982 in America and couldn't be any different than the previous two albums by the band.

The original line up of The Human League, split up in late 1980 (the other 2 members went to form Heaven 17) and with Phil Oakey guiding the band wanted to be more of a pop band than the electronic group the old band was. Virgin wanted hits from the band so they recruited Suzanne Sully & Joanne Catherall to salvage a European tour. Virgin put them with producer Martin Rushent and the result was Sound Of The Crowd which was a decent hit reaching 12 in the UK charts, Virgin were happy and making the album went ahead.

Love Action was released in the summer of 1981 and climbed to number 3, Open Your Heart reached number 6 and was used to market the albums following release. Dare went straight to number 1 in the album charts and at the end of 1981 Don't You Want Me was released. This song ended up being the biggest selling single in the UK in 1981 and also the Christmas number one of that year too! Not bad for a song that Phil Oakey didn't think was a hit, they even put it at the end of the album as they didn't think of it that much, it ended up being a worldwide smash!

The Human League rode the success of the album well, but came the day they had to follow it up. Not many bands can follow such a successful album and they realised that. I remember watching an interview with Martin Rushent and he said it was an album of the time, one that just came together. When it came to record the follow up they struggled as they didn't know how they came up with Dare, it just happened! Martin Rushent was working on remastering Dare and rumours of extra unreleased tracks that were recorded for the album were getting sorted, but Martin died before the project was sorted and I read that his son was concidering taking on the project, fingers crossed he does! Here is the classic album sleeve, an idea taken from Vogue magazine!

George Michael - Older

George's third album was released in May 1996 and hit the number 1 position straight away. It spawned 6 singles that all reached the top 3 in the UK in 1996 - 1997. It was such an adult album for him, gone are the pop songs from the past and in came more serious pop tunes, with more of a darker and sad feel to the songs. Also I have always thought, it was George's coming out album, with references to one night stands in Fastlove, affairs and Russian roulette in Spinning The Wheel, also the way he began to dress was pushing towards the gay scene. Strings were brought in to contribute to he new sound as well as a jazz feel to some of the tracks. Released on Virgin records it became the labels fastest selling album ever and to date has sold just under 2 million copies in in Britain.

The first single to be released off the album was Jesus To A Child, which if I am honest I didn't like when it was a single but I grew to love as an album track. It was the next single and the great video for Fastlove that I really liked. It's a track I never get tired of listening to, a real feel good number! The next single was Spinning The Wheel which got to number 2 as girl power was just starting up here and the Spice Girls stopped it getting to number 1. Older was released in early 1997 with new tracks added and one of my fave tracks was I Can't Make You Love Me which I thought should have been a single on it's own. It was recorded live and the audience was dubbed off the track that was on the Older single and went to number 3. Star People 97 had a remix to push it to number 2 and the final single was You Have Been Loved which came with The Sweetest Thing 97, another remixed track which also got to number 2.

I've listened to the album myself when I've been really down, listened to it in the dark with just the music for company and I just love it. It's the only George Michael album I really like, I bought the follow up but it wasn't a patch on this although there was a couple of good tracks on it. If you get a chance to have a listen to it, I recommend it as it is such a good listen, if you already have the album, dig it out and give it another listen, you'll enjoy it!

Sparks - The Number One Song In Heaven

Here's the comeback single from the Mael brothers which got them back into the UK charts after several years out of the charts and back home in America. They were influenced by the electronic sounds that Giorgio Moroder was coming up with producing Donna Summer and they wanted to try other areas of music and so they teamed up with Moroder to produce the album Number One In Heaven for Virgin Records.

The single was released in the UK in April 1979 and reached number 14, which was their biggest hit since 1974. To help the single along, it was released in limited edition green vinyl 7'' and red vinyl 12'' which are highly collectable. The band found a new audience but the bands original fans accused them of selling out to the more commercial disco sound that was in the charts, they just wanted to try a different sound.

Here's the single sleeve and the green vinyl single. The first time I heard the single on Top Of The Pops I just had to buy it and if I remember rightly, it cost me the sum of 90p, a bargin in those days!

John Foxx - Underpass

This was the debut single from John Foxx, who originally had been the lead singer with Ultravox. Ultravox were formed from Tiger Lilly in 1976 and signed to Island records where they released 3 albums. They had a good following but no success in the charts, after the third album Systems Of Romance, Foxx left the band to go solo, Midge Ure would later join the band and take them in a different direction.

In 1980 John released this first single, Underpass on his own label through Virgin called Metal Beat. The single only reached number 31 in the UK charts but it summed up the early electronic songs of the early eighties, cold, stark, drama laden but still a classic track. It also came off his first album, Metamatic which reached number 18 in the charts and influenced many of the up and coming electronic bands, Gary Numan was a fan too!

He had several more hits in the early eighties before dissapearing for a few years before making a return to recording in the 1990's and he is still recording and touring today!

The Human League - Rock N Roll

This was the bands 4th single and a cover of Gary Glitter's Rock N Roll (Part 1). It was released in May 1980 and climbed to number 56 in the UK chart after an appearance on Top Of The Pops. Originally it was released as a double single called Holiday 80 E.P, with the song being a joined up effort with Iggy Pop's Nightclubbing and at that time the band had started to tour to promote the single and the release of the album Travelogue. The single originally was left off the vinyl release of the album, only to be included on the CD version of the album. The 7'' single was just Rock N Roll as the A Side track.

This single brings great memories back as I was really getting into electronic music at that time, 1980 seemed to be the year for synth tracks. Me and my sister saw the guys on TOTP and she bought us tickets to see them at Hull City Hall the same week they were on the show. I played and played this single and it is pretty worn now, they were one of the first bands I saw live and when I saw them live it was awesome, Phil at the front with the guys on keyboards with Adrian's slide show to fit each track. Who would have thought barely a year later and the band would be so successful!

Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen

There's quite a story behind this single, released in 1977 which was the Queen's silver Jubilee year too. After the problems with the last single Anarchy In The UK, EMI had dropped the band and they signed to A&M who quickly dropped them after a few copies of this single were pressed. God Save The Queen on A&M can earn you a lot of money if you have an original although Ebay is full of fakes. Virgin took the band on and gave the single a full release.

Rumour has it that the single actually reached number 1 during the Jubilee week, knocking Rod Stewart off the top spot but the powers at the BBC (and who knows where else) made sure the single stayed at number 2 in all the charts of that period including Top Of The Pops chart run down. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the single, there was a call for everyone to buy the reissued single and get it to number 1, but I don't think it even got in the charts. The same happed this year as a Facebook campaign to get it to the top again, but even Johnny Rotten didn't want anything to do with it either!

I remember hearing and readiing all the fuss about the trouble with the band and Punk rock which was just exploding on the scene and my Mother saying to me "if you ever buy a Sex Pistols record I'll smash it up" well it just makes you want to buy it doesn't it! This scan is actually the limited edition 30th anniversay copy of the single, an exact copy on heavyweight vinyl.