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In 2023, they were one of the headliners at the Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, California however they had to cut short their performance due to storms. [45] Legacy and influence [ edit ] a b c Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19thed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p.262. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.

On 11 December 2009, the Human League signed a new recording contract with UK based Wall of Sound. [37] They also have their own studio in Sheffield [38] and are managed by Sidewinder Management Ltd. The band continue to record and play live, with regular appearances at music festivals worldwide, at many of which they are among the headliners. The Human League's work was now recognised on both sides of the Atlantic. In February 1983, the band was nominated for the Best New Artist award at the 25th Annual Grammy Awards (though the award eventually went to Men at Work). [25] Pareles, Jon (1 August 1998). "POP REVIEW; Early 80's Return, With English Artifice". The New York Times . Retrieved 10 September 2011. At the end of 2012, the band undertook the 'XXXV Tour' across Europe and the UK to celebrate 35 years in existence. The shows were critically acclaimed. The UK's Daily Telegraph said "as good a night's entertainment as you are likely to find anywhere on the planet". [41]

The band has been the subject of, and appeared in, various TV documentaries and features, including Channel 4's Made in Sheffield and the BBC's Young Guns: The Bands of the Early 1980s. In June 2007, Sulley and Catherall presented a documentary on Sheffield's pop music history entitled The Nation's Music Cities for VH1. Lineup changes and rise in popularity [ edit ] The Human League in 1984. Members: Catherall, Callis, Wright, Oakey, Sulley, Burden In 1987, Ian Burden also left the band. In November 1988, a greatest hits compilation album was released that reached No.3 in UK. This was preceded by the release of the single " Love Is All That Matters" from Crash. In 1982, the band received the Best British Newcomer award at the annual Brit Music awards, and Rushent also took Best Producer for his work on Dare.

Human League record first album for nine years". Sheffield Telegraph. 14 January 2010 . Retrieved 30 January 2014. Retaining the Human League name came at a heavy price for Oakey. As the band's sole remaining member, he was responsible for all Human League debts and commitments. Furthermore, the terms of the Virgin contract required him to pay Ware and Marsh one per cent of royalties of the next Human League album. The split also jeopardized the band's upcoming tour. With the first performance only ten days away and the music media reporting that the Human League was finished now that "the talented people had left", promoters started threatening to sue Oakey if the concerts were not completed as contracted.Throughout the following years, the band has continued to tour frequently, enjoying enduring success and popularity as a live act. In 2004, they released ‘The Human League Live At The Dome’, a DVD of a live show in filmed at the Brighton Dome complete with a compilation CD called ‘Live At The Dome’. Prior to this, in 2003, Virgin records had released ‘The Very Best of the Human League’, a DVD of most of their previously recorded music videos and, at the end of 2005, they released a compilation album of remixes called ‘The Human League Original Remixes and Rarities’ aimed mostly at the DJ/Dance market. There was a pleasing Dadaist blankness to The Human League: what you saw was what you got. They were prime numbers in a world of complex equations: you couldn’t break them down. Despite the sometimes arcane subject matters of their songs, there was always a certain straightforwardness to the League. Even Oakey’s handsome Yorkshire accent was never modified to a mid-Atlantic drawl for the sake of radio digestibility and it’s notable that, in 25 years, the band has never left their hometown of Sheffield for the lure of London. Using Future material, the Human League released a demo tape to record companies under their new name. The tape contained versions of "Being Boiled", "Toyota City" and "Circus of Death". Ware's friend Paul Bower of Sheffield new-wave band "2.3", who had just recorded a single for Bob Last's Edinburgh-based independent label Fast Product, took their demo to Last and he signed the band. Capitalising on the success of the album and their recent No.1 hit single, " Being Boiled" was re-released and became a Top 10 hit in early 1982. The band toured for the first time together internationally. Concurrently, Dare (later renamed Dare!) was released in the US by A&M Records and "Don't You Want Me" also reached No.1 there in the summer of 1982. A remix album of Dare entitled Love and Dancing was released under the group name " The League Unlimited Orchestra" (a tribute to Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra), reaching No.3 on the UK album chart.

Ankeny, Jason. "The Human League Biography". AllMusic . Retrieved 24 January 2017. Synth pop's first international superstars, the Human League were among the earliest and most innovative bands to break into the pop mainstream on a wave of synthesizers and electronic rhythms, their marriage of infectious melodies and state-of-the-art technology proving enormously influential on countless acts following in their wake.

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In 1989, the band built their own studio in Sheffield, jointly funded by Oakey and a business development loan from Sheffield City Council. Since 1978, the Human League have released 9 studio albums, a remix album, a live album, 6 EPs, 29 singles and 13 compilation albums. They have had 6 top 20 albums and 13 top 20 singles in the UK and had sold more than 20 million records worldwide by 2010. [3] [4] As an early techno-pop [5] act that received extensive MTV airplay, they are regarded as one of the leading artists of the 1980s Second British Invasion of the US. [6] History [ edit ] 1970s: Early years [ edit ] In March 2014, "Don't You Want Me" re-entered the Top 20 of the UK Singles Chart, thanks to a social media campaign from the fans of Aberdeen F.C., who won the Scottish League Cup the previous weekend. They have adopted the song as a terrace chant, citing their midfielder Peter Pawlett with the lyrics changed to "Peter Pawlett Baby". [42]

In August 1978 the band recorded a session for John Peel, including a re-worked version of "Being Boiled." [10] Formed in Sheffield in 1977, The Human League released two albums with their original line-up. When founding members Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware left to form Heaven 17, singer Phil Oakey brought it female vocalists Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley and reinvented the group, moving them away from their dark, experimental roots and reinventing them with a more commercial synth-pop sound. A chart-topping album, 1981’s Dare, followed, as well as a string chart hits, including Don’t You Want Me, Love Action (I Believe In Love) and Mirror Man. The old posters were torn down. The League posters went up. If you were older and/or more clued in to the musical avant-garde, you already knew all about The Human League. For my generation, they were the fresh sound of a new decade. Eagerly, you re-investigated their enigmatic past… Jones, Anderson (5 May 1995). "Music Review: 'Octopus' ". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved 23 February 2020.

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At the end of 2005, together with EMI, the band released a compilation album of remixes. Called The Human League Original Remixes and Rarities, it was aimed at the DJ/Dance market in the US and UK. Although the subject of retirement is often brought up in interviews, Oakey, Sulley and Catherall have all stated that they still enjoy performing and intend to carry on for “as long as they are filling concerts and people want to see them”. Sulley often jokes that she “has to carry on because she doesn’t know how to do anything else.”