9. The Human LeagueTravelogue
Why this over Dare? I think… it’s not that Dare is a hackneyed reference, but I think Travelogue is just an amazing record. Their career kind of went in the reverse to what we’ve done, in that they started out quite dark and electronic and then moved into that very bright pop world. So I think Dare is an incredible record, but it doesn’t ultimately tell you much about them as a band, whereas Travelogue does: the fact they’ve got the Mick Ronson cover on there [‘Only After Dark’] is incredible. He’s obviously an amazing artist in his own right and very talented, but David Bowie’s shadow is hard to get out of. And yet here he is being discovered and championed by, presumably, a super-hip electronic band for a whole new audience and that’s brilliant.
Just sonically, it’s amazing, too. It has that industrial feel. It was a revelation hearing it for the first time. When you talk about a band, you often try and contextualise them by grouping them with the other bands that came along at the same time, so people would always talk about The Human League in association with the New Romantic movement. But I didn’t realise just how close they were to things like Bauhaus, or even early Cure. It showed me that there was more to them than just big pop songs, and they weren’t always this super shiny pop band.
