The Human League

This week I’ve been mostly listening to the Human League, specifically their digitally remastered versions of Reproduction, their first album, and Travelogue, their second. At the same time, I’m also listening to two newly acquired Yellow Magic Orchestra albums, Technodelic, and BGM. How I managed to avoid getting the YMO albums I don’t know…. I remember their material being hard to find back in the 80’s, though bizarrely, I recall getting a copy of their x00 Multiples album from Winsford Library back in the 80’s - lord knows how it ended up there but somebody obviously had great taste. Some of their 45’s were easy enough to track down, Rydeen was used on the TV during the testcard IIRC, and the ‘theme from the invaders’ certainly got a bit of airplay.  I bought the album ‘Solid State survivor’ around release time, and really love that to this day. Brings back memories of me playing on my Sinclair ZX Spectrum while it blares out in the background. The neighbours must have loved me. I can remember in particular playing a diving game where you had to swim down to the bottom of the sea and get pearls from big clams, and avoid sharks etc. I was quite groundbreaking at the time as it offered a lot of free movement around a pretty large area… I’ll have to try and remember what it was called and download an emulator as it was really good.

Solid State survivor was probably YMO’s 3rd or so album, though I suspect I have one or two missing albums still. I’ve got

Yellow Magic Orchestra

x00 Multiples

Solid State Survivor

Technodelic

BGM

 - I’m sure these aren’t in the right order. I’m still listening closely to Technodelic and BGM and haven’t got round to recording them to CD so I can rip them onto my PSP for leisurely listening but will report back in due course. It’s interesting to compare the sort of sound on the Human League albums to the YMO ones as they are both in very similar territory. I’d love to know if they were aware of each other at the time, or if they were both acting independently on a post-Kraftwerk trip…..

 Back to the Human League albums - these are essential listening for any Human League fan, especially those who just remember their massive hit ‘Don’t you want me’ and perhaps ‘Dare’ and beyond.