Human League
Reproduction

THE REVIEW

The EP “The dignity of labour” included as bonus tracks along with the historic single “Being boiled” would be enough to justify purchasing the recent CD reissue of “Reproduction”.

In that mini-LP, we indeed discover a completely different side of the Human League compared to the more well-known one: it consists of instrumental electronic experimentation tracks that were astonishing for their time and so ahead of their era that they sometimes seem to have been made in '89 rather than '79.

The album itself, however, is not inferior; the coordinates within which the compositions range are clearly derived from Kraftwerk but nonetheless far from mere imitation, with a taste for austere, cold but also dark melodies and the use of drum machines so impactful they injure the eardrums.
And then Phil Oakey, who sang with his splendid warm and baritone voice melodies that, in contrast, were icy (too bad his voice wasn't always well-highlighted by the repertoire).
The best examples of this formula are the anthems “Almost medieval”, “Circus of death”, “The path of least resistance”, “The world before last”.
In “Blind youth” and “Austerity/Girl one”, the style remains the same but the melodies are this time more pronounced.
Only in the track “Empire state human” can one truly speak of blatantly melodic and “easy” pop: despite the malicious who may see it as a “Claudio Cecchetto ante litteram” piece, the tune nonetheless represents an enjoyable and pleasant variant of their otherwise always austere style.
By contrast, Phil Spector's cover “Morale…you’ve lost that loving feeling” with an Oakey who improvises as a soul singer and an ending with plenty of backing vocals seems rather embarrassing; all this, however, does not spoil what will remain by far the best album of the Sheffield group.