Customer Reviews

Very Best of

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

That's what you get for your money if you decide to own this album. I'm not quite sure if it is the most representative selection, but most of it is really good. Personally I'm not really keen on songs 2, 3 and 4, and I think it's a shame they're three of the five that are sampled here since they're nowhere near the rest, in quality or style.

As to the others, it is a bit difficult to compare them as they do differ from each other. Together in Electric Dreams stands out as different and you can tell straight away it's Giorgio Moroder. Nothing wrong with it though, I think it's quite a sweet song, maybe a bit on the naive side. Human is one of my favorites, although it may sound a bit less electronic than the rest, but it does have an impressive musical quality. Being Boiled is also remarkable, although the situation is reversed here, I'd say it's the most electronica orientated piece of the album. It might sound a bit simple, but that's not bad and then you have to consider it was released about twenty five years ago and believe me, it stands the test of time.

Don't You Want Me, Tell Me When and One Man in My Heart are too well known to comment, though I'll say that I always thought they're great songs. Heart Like a Wheel and Lebanon are somewhere in between these three and the ones above, but they are not just filling the disc, they make a very pleasant listen, they really do.

This is truly the best CD I have bought in 5 years!!! The synth sound used in every song sounds amazing and just makes me feel ALIVE! The sound and feel of the music is very 80s, and both the lyrics and the synthesized instrumentation are very well done, and combine to make an incredible album. This band is now my favorite band after listening to this CD. I have been listening to it repeatedly over a course of 7 months and still am not tired of it! If you like 80s music, you should LOVE this.

This fantastic CD serves as a career historical for one of the most gifted technology - based pop bands ever . Except for the omission of " Seconds" which was a cult favorite anyway , this has ALL the hits of the League . Unlike most ' Best of.. ' collections , there are no ' filler tracks ' here! Standout tracks like " Love Action " , " Lebanon " and the forgotten " Electric Dreams " perfectly augment their U.S. successes of " Don't You Want Me " , " Fascination " , " Tell Me When " , and " Mirror Man " . Ask yourself if the most recent tracks " Stay With Me Tonight " & " Tell Me When " don't prove that with the exception of the Goo Goo Dolls , Orgy , and Tori Amos , many of the best artists around are actually leftover acts from the 80's . God knows the music scene needs this kind of optimistic , ' feel - good ' sound . MUST BUY !

I have to say that I could not disagree with Iggy's review more, fair play to the review it's a valid opinion but does not fit with my memory of this band, let me tell you more.
This band, like me, grew up the late 70's and early 80's North of England. These times were depressing and grimy, politics were harsh and hard right wing in Britian and it felt like an living in an elitist regime of which the North fell foul.
The band's hometown, Sheffield, was particularly hard hit and it was impossible to believe that such an original and highly creative musical genre could develop from Sheffield at this time, but develop it did!
"Don't you want me", a popular single late in their commercial career, is not representative of their best. It is sugary POP trash in comparison to classics like "Love Action", "Being Boiled" and "Sound of the Crowd". These songs fueled a disaffected youth into thinking and feeling differently in times of gloom and dispondancy, not for nothing was this musical movement termed "New Romatacism" and it was starkly different genre and message from the years of Punk and New Wave which immediately preceeded, one felt contained, hopeful and nourished at a time of spectular dissillusionment.
Oakey's voice is masculine and powerful and in their height spouted emotional importence and explored his femininity to the hilt, this marked their appeal, exploring individualism in a time of samishness and bigotry. It was like having cavier instead of the same old mackerel paste.
The backing singers aren't great but that's the point, the songs are generation specific and speak strongly of their time, they embrace the beautiful in each of us and include us in on something grittly real, directional, safe and oddly beautiful.
I agree with Iggy that New Order, Yazoo and OMD were excellent but you cannot underestimate the power of the Human League and this album is a nice, tidy representation of their early career.
I kind of hate to say it, but in a way you had to be there!

If you liked The Human League in the eighties you will love them now! This record points out how bad music has gotten since it's peak in '83! Buy it and go back in time when music was magic.

Looking back from a time of angry, unmelodic rap music, it's fun to return to the upbeat, feelgood and shamelessly artificial beats of the Human League, from the manic triangle tinkling of "Love Action" to the speedfunk guitar on the ode to the horrors of peacekeeping in "The Lebanon". Too bad the Greatest Hits left out "Seconds", a lyric about John F. Kennedy's killer (whoever he may be) which still brings a tear to my eye, even though I was only John-John's age at the time.

This album is a very good chronological showcase of Human League's career, but I doubt whether it's really their best. For that, one has to look no further than the Dare album. What makes this still essential, though, are the early pre-pop experimental tracks like Being Boiled and the brilliant pop song Together In Electric Dreams (a collaboration with Giorgio Moroder who produced Donna Summer's classic synthesizer disco in the 1970's). Not all the tracks are great - Lebanon, for example, is just a plodding affair that lacks both pop sensibility and experimental edge. The other good tracks here that are not found on Dare include Fascination, Human and Heart Like A Wheel. This is an interesting album, but those who prefer tuneful pop should investigate Dare first, with its wonderful hook-filled songs like Open Your Heart and Seconds that are not found here.

On the face of it, in October 1980, it was a preposterous idea. Here was Phil Oakey (vocals/synth), a former hospital porter, who had just been abandoned by the two main musician of the band, due to the usual 'artistic differences'. He was drowning his sorrows in a local Sheffield nightclub, when he noticed teenagers Joanne Catherall and Susanne Sulley dancing. In a last-ditch attempt to save the band, he recruited them. But there was a problem: they couldn't sing, and they couldn't actually dance much, either. As Oakey said, Sulley was 'flailing like an Octopus' and Catherall was 'completely out of time'.

But somehow they put together the League's greatest achievement, DARE, which included many upbeat electronica-based singles such as the classic 'Don't You Want Me?'. For most of us, the League were primarily a singles band, and the only problem with buying DARE, rather than this album, is that you don't get 'Human' (their biggest worldwide hit) or the other Jam/Lewi-produced track, 'Love is all that matters'.

For me, the League's greatest moment is that drum-and-bass line of 'Sound of the Crowd'. That alone is worth the price of this CD.

This compilation from 1998 must be a U.S release because the 1995 CD titled "The Human League Greatest Hits" (which was actually the second version) had five other top ten UK hits on it. "The Sound of the Crowd", "Open Your Heart", "Life On Your Own", "Louise", and "Love Is All That Matters' are all missing. However, to this variation they added "Tell Me When", "One Man In My Heart", "Heart Like A Wheel" and Audio Liner Notes (hidden on track 14). Since the previously mentioned five songs were omitted on what is actually the third "Best of" compilation (there are four to date), I must admit that this is definitely a step down from the previous releases. Surprisingly enough all of which are missing one of the favorite Human League anthem songs of all time, "The Things That Dreams Are Made Of".

If you're not really too familiar with The Human League and just want some groundbreaking synthpop classics, then I would recommend this CD because you won't miss the songs that they left out this time around.

An extremely well chosen collection....yes, this is "the Very Best of the Human League." I listened to nothing but this CD for two months straight! If you've liked "Don't You Want Me," "Human," "Tell Me When," "Fascination," etc, but never bought any of their albums in the past, then BUY THIS CD. You will become addicted, just as I have.