Norman Wisdom Meets The Ramones

Occasionally, just very occasionally one comes across an LP that has an opening track that is just so brilliant that it is almost impossible to get past. The Human League Dare has one of those and it probably isn’t the cut you’re thinking of.

‘The Things That Dreams Are Made Of’ is just an all-out exuberant banger. The fact that it mentions Norman Wisdom and three of the Ramones by name* makes it even better; the fact that the synth growl at one point emulates record scratching makes it even better again; the fact that the line ‘Everybody needs 2 or 3 friends‘ is totes genius, makes it even even better; the fact that … well you probably get the picture, daddio. It’s fun.

The music, as on the rest of Dare, is really simple, stripped back to almost a single line of melody and that this fact is masked by Oakey’s dominating voice is interesting. It points to the fact that this was an LP built upon the wreckage and remodelling of a band whose main musicians left**. As it turned out this was definitely the thing that dreams were made of.

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Potted history of Dare: odd semi-industrial synth band from Sheffield made a couple of interesting but downbeat LPs then fractured into two camps. The Human League, essentially the Phils (Oakey and Wright) added touring keys player Ian Burden and Rezillos guitarist Jo Callis on keys. Then after spotting them at a ‘futurist’ club night popped schoolgirl Human League fans Susan Sulley and Joanne Catherall into the mix as vocalists. Add in producer Martin Rushent and a very unique form of alchemy occurred, amidst the chaos.

Somehow, the sound of 80’s futurism coalesced around the nexus of the influence of Kraftwerk and Moroder on Sheffield, without anyone seemingly planning it too much. The Human League looked and sounded the part in spades, oddly coiffured singer aside, they could have been any of us; or that was the illusion at least.

Dare saved Virgin Records from bankruptcy and went on to become utterly ubiquitous for decades. You didn’t need to own it to know swathes of it off by heart, it was in the air – hell you could tell just by looking at the cover^ what it sounded like.

So what does it sound like?

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Opener track aside, Dare starts strong and mostly stays the pace. ‘Open Your Heart’ begins with a Kraftwerkian pulse, but then Oakey swoops in at such a melodramatic pitch, above a two-note melody that you find yourself transported far away, almost oblivious to some very odd melodies in the mix.

‘The Sound Of The Crowd’ manages to be maximalist and minimalist all at the same time, whilst wrapped around a funky and slightly punky tune. It’s all a bit bewildering if you look too hard beyond the considerable surface sheen here. It is an absolute belter of a tune.

We are served the warmth of ‘Darkness’ which sounds like a torch song transposed into modern times and ‘Do Or Die’, the longest and least memorable track on Dare, upbeat and unremarkable although it does seed the ground for all manner of later dance pop.

Opening Side 2 with a cover of the ‘Get Carter’ theme tune is a decidedly odd thing to do, but the Human League did it. Their version is spare and chilling, to say the least. Their Anthrax cover-via-time-machine, ‘I Am The Law’ is next up, maintaining a glacial chill over proceedings. It menaces to the extent it seems like a fissure back into the feeling of the band’s previous two albums.

A darkness bark
So evil calls
Both in the wild
And within these walls

Time to jolly things up with a song about JFK’s assassination then? ‘Seconds’ has a wonderful slightly-screwed rhythm to it and keys that could have been played whilst wearing boxing gloves; instrumental virtuosity has no place here – Dare is decidedly punk in that respect. These three moody tracks all flow into each other, all the better to tee up a big POP finish.

My excuse for not knowing ‘Love Action (I Believe In Love)’ before the Utah Saints sampled it*^ is that we didn’t really do the 80’s massively in Carmarthen, it was still the 70’s for large tracts of the next decade. I love how this tune goes from slow stroll into faster chorus/pre-chorus, from stately into fevered. Again the music is so simple and it works to minimise distraction/maximise clarity, everything serves the glossy exterior.

I adore ‘Don’t You Want Me’ utterly, totally and unreservedly, it is a work of pure pop genius and as such received the ultimate accolade – that I could remember the words whilst trying to get a two-week old baby asleep at 4am on a work night. It boasts an alluringly bouncy tune, a perfect 4 minute length and great vocals.

I love the way you get both sides of the story, ingratitude or rejection of a wannabe Svengali figure (I err to the latter). What strikes me is how there is no resolution of the viewpoints later in the song, no commonality, just voices broadcasting their versions of themselves into the night. How prescient.

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A lot of the impact of Dare is down to the production, jointly by the band and Martin Rushent. They set up that wonderful confluence of humanity and technology, where something absolutely synthetic can have an emotional affect. Smart stuff.

It really isn’t an original thought but the Human League never quite got to march on in the vanguard of the decade(nt) sound they did so much to crystallize. For various reasons they never quite maintained their momentum, making some very good records but never quite excelling on this scale again.

Maybe that was for the best so Dare can remain a perfect time capsule and inspiration for so much that was to follow, of variable quality to be sure.

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My copy of Dare is definitely one that has knocked around a bit, been taken to all the right parties in the 80’s and has the cover scars to prove it. I did have a fancier gatefold copy but gave it to my son for reasons that escape me right now; don’t think I haven’t thought about stealing it.

It is a UK first press that I bought in a charity shop, the sound is pretty good for 1980’s vinyl, good but not brilliant. However this is music that was meant to be heard on a radio, or a bar, not my middle-aged audio perverts fiddling with their dBs in the dark.

1329 Down.

PS: because I love you, dearly:

*why no Marky or Tommy?

**wonder what ever happened to them?

^based on an edition of Vogue, as fashionistas like me know.

*^to genius affect on