The only constant band member since 1977 is vocalist and songwriter Philip Oakey. Originally an avant-garde all-male synthesizer-based group, The Human League evolved into a commercially successful synthpop band under Oakey's leadership, yielding the group's biggest-selling album, Dare (1981).
Since 1987, the band has essentially been a trio of Oakey and long-serving female vocalists Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley (who joined the ensemble in 1980), with various sidemen. The Human League has influenced many electro-pop, other synthpop, and mainstream performers including Madonna, La Roux, Moby, Pet Shop Boys and Little Boots. They have been sampled and covered by various artists including Tony Christie, Utah Saints, Ministry of Sound, Craig David, George Michael, KMFDM, and Robbie Williams.
Since 1978, The Human League have released nine studio albums, four EPs and twenty-nine singles. They have had four albums and eight singles in the UK Top Ten, one of which was #1 (two in the US) and they have played over 350 live concerts. The band has sold more than 20 million records worldwide.
"Don't You Want Me" was released from their third album: Dare on 27 November 1981. It is the band's best known and most commercially successful recording to date, and was the Christmas number one in the UK where it sold over 1,400,000 copies, making it the 25th most successful single in UK Singles Chart history.It later topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the US on July 3, 1982 where it stayed for three weeks.
The lyrics were originally inspired after lead singer Philip Oakey read a story in a "trashy US tabloid". Originally conceived and recorded in the studio as a male solo, Oakey was inspired by the film A Star Is Born and decided to turn the song into a conflicting duet with one of the band’s two teenage female vocalists. Susan Ann Sulley was then asked to take on the role. Up until then, she and the other female vocalist Joanne Catherall had only been assigned backing vocals; Sulley says she was chosen only through "luck of the draw".
Before the release of Dare, two of its tracks—"The Sound of the Crowd" and "Love Action (I Believe in Love)"—had already been released as successful singles. To promote the new album, Virgin released "Open Your Heart" in October 1981, which hit #6 in the UK Singles Chart. With a hit album and three hit singles in a row, Virgin's Chief Exectutive Simon Draper decided to release one more single from the album before the end of 1981.
His choice, "Don't You Want Me", instantly caused a row with Oakey who did not want another single to be released because he was convinced that "the public were now sick of hearing The Human League" and the choice of the "poor quality filler track" would almost certainly be a disaster, wrecking the group's new found popularity. Virgin were adamant that a fourth single would be released and Oakey finally agreed on the condition that a large colour poster accompany the 7" single, because he felt fans would "feel ripped off" by the 'substandard' single alone.
To the amazement of the band (and especially Oakey), it shot to number one on the UK charts. Billboard magazine ranked it as the sixth-biggest hit of 1982.
Today, the song is widely considered a classic of its era. Oakey still describes it as overrated, but acknowledges his initial dismissal was misguided and claims pride in the track.The "B" side of the single,"Seconds" concerns the assasination of John F.Kennedy,the lyrics stating that it took seconds of your time to take his life.
In 1981 record company Virgin were becoming aware that promotional music video was evolving into an important marketing tool, with MTV being launched that year. Because it was agreed that the video for Open Your Heart had looked "cheap and nasty", Virgin commissioned a much more elaborate and expensive promotional video for "Don't You Want Me".
The video for the song was filmed in Slough during November 1981 and has the theme of the filming and editing of a murder-mystery film, featuring the band members as characters and production staff. Due to it being a "making of" video, both crew and camera apparatus appear throughout. It was conceived and directed by filmmaker Steve Barron, and has at its core the interaction between a successful actress (also a 2nd negative cutter) played by Susan Ann Sulley walking out on 'film director' Philip Oakey on a film set. It is loosely based on the film A Star Is Born. Near the end of the video, Wright, who also plays a film editor, has an expression on his face, while the camera pulls back to reveal that the negative room where Oakey, Wright, and Sulley were working in is another set (the camera can be seen in the mirror's reflection).
The video was released in December 1981, just as the music video culture was becoming a standard in music, and it was a major contribution to the song's commercial success.
" The above text is a mashup from Wikipedia."
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