{"id":2986,"date":"2010-09-30T21:51:38","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T01:51:38","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-10-10T18:10:26","modified_gmt":"2010-10-10T22:10:26","slug":"mystery-date-revealed-human-league-or-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/mystery-date-revealed-human-league-or-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery Date Revealed: The Human League (or The Future)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CNrnmDmffRc?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nAs ladymisskirroyale suspected, our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/mystery-date-11\" target=\"_blank\">latest Mystery Date<\/a>, a song entitled &#8220;4jg,&#8221; was by early <strong>Human League<\/strong>, or maybe The Human League under their original name, <strong>The Future<\/strong>. I downloaded this track from a collection of early demos, <em>The Golden Hour of The Future<\/em>, and didn&#8217;t pay attention to which band name this track was recorded under.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s no doubting the band name for this track, from the same collection:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/DanceLikeAStar.mp3\">The Human League, &#8220;Dance Like a Star&#8221;<\/a><br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9EHpozHn-QA?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nLately the hit songs by The Human League have been all over television, in ads for Coke and Sprint, I believe. Everytime I hear the few hits by The Human League I feel something deeper than a &#8220;guilty pleasure.&#8221; It&#8217;s not often that I can enjoy a synth-pop song from the &#8217;80s, and that was the case when these songs were new. As some of you know, I&#8217;m of the belief that rock &#8216;n roll was dealt a nearly fatal blow in 1983. The various forms of &#8220;Big &#8217;80s&#8221; production were a nightmare for my ears. Arrangements conformed to the new technical standards, and I checked out.<\/p>\n<p>I especially hated synth-pop, or what&#8217;s since been lumped in with the late-&#8217;70s term &#8220;New Wave.&#8221; The <strong>Thompson Twins<\/strong> were the worst. I could enjoy <strong>Pete Shelley<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;Homosapiens&#8221; because it still had the charms of a Buzzcocks song. One time the first <strong>Yaz<\/strong> album didn&#8217;t sound so bad, but that night I was hanging out with a girl I had a crush on. (As you might suspect, the crush never went anywhere.) Beside those songs, to my ears <strong>Gary Numan<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;Cars&#8221; sucked. <strong>New Order<\/strong> was OK, because they still used guitars and a real bass, but the rest of those bands, whose identities I&#8217;ve long blocked out, made me want to rip my head off whenever I had to hear them. <strong>Depeche Mode<\/strong>&#8230;ugh!<\/p>\n<p>The Human League&#8217;s &#8220;Don&#8217;t You Want Me,&#8221; which was a huge smash as I entered college, was a huge exception to my hatred of synth-pop. I always liked that song. It was fun and upbeat and distinct. It laid its hooks on the line. There was no phony asexual posing going on. The band members looked a bit pouffy, in the way big-jawed Brits wearing eyeliner can&#8217;t help looking, but they struck me as people who I could have a conversation with at a party. The couple of hits that followed were enjoyable too. As much as I felt like music from that scene was morally wrong, I couldn&#8217;t help but let &#8220;Don&#8217;t You Want Me&#8221; take advantage of me.<\/p>\n<p>My friend Karl and I did a graveyard shift at our college station. They had the first two Human League albums, from the time when a future <strong>Heaven 17<\/strong> (I think) guy was in the band and before the two big-jawed British women joined. That stuff was experimental, more like the instrumental song I posted, often a lot more like <strong>Throbbing Gristle<\/strong>&#8216;s tuneful numbers than anything they were doing during their hit-making days. By this time I liked Throbbing Gristle, but I could never get myself to buy one of those early Human League albums or their smash hit, not even the single I truly liked. It would have been hypocritical. Now that I own an iPod I could probably allow myself to download &#8220;Don&#8217;t You Want Me.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As ladymisskirroyale suspected, our latest Mystery Date, a song entitled &#8220;4jg,&#8221; was by early Human League, or maybe The Human League under their original name, The Future. I downloaded this track from a collection of early demos, The Golden Hour of The Future, and didn&#8217;t pay attention to which band name this track was recorded <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/mystery-date-revealed-human-league-or-the-future\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[332,338,56,2,331],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}