Human League
Dare!

THE REVIEW

I want to talk about an album that always puts me in a good mood, an album I never tire of listening to, a spontaneous and simple album, an album that inspires me to dare. "Dare!" by Human League is a great album, a symbol of the English new romantic, of the ripe times for mass electronic music, it clearly stated that disco was dead and that Kraftwerk's sound was no longer the exclusive property of an elite. You could say a lot about this album, the band's most successful, led by Philip Oakey, and philosophize as much as you'd like. Instead, I want to capture its spirit and write a simple review.

How did it come into my hands? That cover... yes, the one with that smooth, perfect, made-up face... it had something that somehow was telling me: "listen to me". I somewhat knew who Human League were (since I know Ultravox, Bowie quite well, and I like Roxy Music) but I had never listened to them. So, I got the CD reissue for €10 (the original dates back to 1981) and fed it to my home Hi-Fi. What happens? Simple, it starts right away. "The Things That Dreams Are Made Of" today I can consider a kind of personal manifesto. "Take a cruise to China, or a train to Spain, go around the world again and again", "Do all the things you've never dared". A very easy and simpleton text, but at the same time so engaging and cheerful. All accompanied by elementary yet sometimes, in their simplicity, brilliant melodies and rhythms, all strictly electronic. THIS was what my hunger for music was loudly demanding to be satisfied. And satisfied I was.

After the lively intro, it moves on to "Open Your Heart", with that synth riff in the chorus that will become the album's trademark. The backing singers Joanne and Susanne (the dark-haired and the blonde for the more attentive ones in the videos) make themselves noticeably more known here. Another 4 minutes of carefree flying by. If appetite comes with eating, here comes one of the emblems of the Sheffield band, a single that was a hit on dance floors previously occupied only by disco music. "The Sound Of The Crowd" is essential and minimal to the bone, any beginner could play it without problems (you can see here how close new wave is to punk's attitude) but it's not in the complexity of arrangements that the sound of Human League (as it was for Kraftwerk) finds itself, but rather in the right stylistic choices and in the combinations (a tailor's job, so to speak).
So we arrive at the dark, thick, and sinister atmospheres of "Darkness" (sung by an intense and icy Oakey), the true new romantic passage of the album that adds an additional tone to the work, which so far appears already well-seasoned. Wanting to exploit a bit more the hardware in their possession, the band, with the help of the (then) extremely innovative Linn drum (the first drum machine that used digital samples for the component sounds and not analog synthesis), recreates in the studio the sunny, exotic rhythms of "Do Or Die", a symbol that cold electronics can also be warm and lively like a gospel choir or a soul voice.

At this point, we enter the B-side of the LP with the instrumental interlude of "Get Carter" (a melancholic melody performed with a synth) and then with the interesting "I'm The Law", which somewhat recalls the sound already heard in "Darkness". It quickly moves to the "Bowie-esque" "Seconds" (in my opinion among the most beautiful on the album) before encountering, just when you think the album is coming to an end, the pulsating "heart" of the entire Dare potpourri, two number 1 singles. First, "Love Action (I Believe In Love)", which I would place among my absolute favorites of the group's entire discography, with a text as obvious and carefree as it is actually rewarding and functional. The last song is the famous "Don't You Want Me", for which I won't waste words in commentary, as the epochal shift on dancefloors (from the 70s to the 80s) for which it was responsible speaks for itself.

After the reproduction ends, you remember the album, its notes resonate in your mind and make you want to hear it again. It's not a work you hear and then throw away, it truly manages to get into your head! Subsequently, Human League would have other great successes and release albums of nevertheless more than good quality (singles like "The Lebanon" and "Human" above all), but they would never reach the peaks of "Dare!" again. If someone wants to discover Human League in their experimental version (as before their "pop" turn with "Dare!"), they can enjoy them in reissues of "Reproduction" (1978) and "Travelogue" (1979). The best "pop version" of Human League can instead be found in the EP "Fascination" (1982), and in the albums "Hysteria" (1984) and "Crash" (1986, in a more R&B version). Special for collectors and lovers of goodies: Virgin also reissued the remix album of "Dare!" that Human League released as "Love and Dancing" in 1982 under the fake name "The League unlimited orchestra" (a paraphrase of Barry White's "Love unlimited orchestra"). For those who don't want to miss anything at all.