|
 UK
Release date: 23.01.95
Label: East West Records
LP: V2391
Cassette: TCV 2391
CDV 2391
Octopus
is currently deleted but you can order second hand copies by clicking
here
Track
Listing
01:
TELL ME WHEN
02: THESE ARE THE DAYS
03: ONE MAN IN MY HEART
04: WORDS
05: FILLING UP WITH HEAVEN
06: HOUSE FULL OF NOTHING
07: JOHN CLEESE IS HE FUNNY
08: NEVER AGAIN
09: CRUEL YOUNG LOVER
PRODUCED BY IAN STANLEY
UK Chart
position: 6
Purchase OCTOPUS from
amazon.co.uk
Singles
released:
Tell Me When
(31 December 1995)
UK Chart position: 6
One Man in My Heart (12 March
1995)
UK Chart position: 13
Filling up with Heaven (11 June
1995)
UK Chart position: 36
Don't You Want Me Red Jerry Remix
(22 October 1995)
UK Chart position: 16
NOTES:
The critics have been unkind to The Human League over the years
since the release of the ground breaking album Dare in 1981. The
music press rightly praised Dare when it was released as the European
innovation that would combat the stale and pedestrian guitar driven
rock from America. The subsequent album releases of the 80's failed
to live up to Dare, and how could they? It wasn't until 1995 with
the release of Octopus, that the critics finally began to give Phil
and the girls some credit. The album opener Tell me When was a fine
return to form with it's catchy analogue rifts that made it sound
so fresh and unique. Thankfully, Octopus continues to dazzle the
listener with one of the highlights such as These are The Days,
a song that should have been the next single with a melody to kill
for. Other highlights include the bass driven House full of Nothing
and the modern techno/house epic Cruel Young Lover. The crisp production
is every bit as clear as Dare, and Octopus represents the League's
finest collection of songs in over 14 years.
Produced by former Tears For Fears keyboard player Ian Stanley,
the album signalled a return to what the League do best, pure electronic
pop with no regards for current trends or fads.
Some weaker tracks such as Words seem to ruin the flow of the album,
but overall, it is the League's most complete album since Dare.
Providing two Top Twenty hits after many predicted the commercial
death of the League following Romantic, Octopus eventually went
on to sell 100,000 copies in the UK alone.
The distinctive album sleeve and the singles that followed were
designed by Mark Farrow, the man behind the Pet Shop Boys covers.
Choice Tracks:
These
Are The Days
Filling Up With Heaven
Tell Me When
Cruel Young Lover
Never Again
orac october 2001
MELODY
MAKER REVIEW 21.01.95
DOING
IT FOR THE SQUIDS
Whoever would have thought, after a year torn between triumphant
wideboy swagger and the darkest whiteboy angst, that the sound of
a daft romantic cliche delivered deadpan over a tacky, teittering
synth would sound so fresh, so vital?
Forget the much-touted 80's revival, the arrival of Tell Me When
in the nation's Top Ten has little to do with kitsch. The League
at there best (and Tell Me When is pretty damn near, are pop at
its best - a knowing process made so well that it appears without
tension, naive and unabashed.
It's all there in the name. There is no hidden agenda, no so-bad-it's-good
clever rubbish to contend with. Thetrue beauty of The League League
in 1995 is how they haven't become coy or bitter, how they haven't
fallen out of love with pop, pure and simple.
The fact that it's inappropriate to use cold, dead machines to recreate
Motownesque mini soap operas of human warmth and hurt- in other
words, the arty aspect- doesn't even come into it any more like
it did back in the days when we actually thought in terms of a past
and a future. Remember and laugh when we once thought The League
were leading us into a promised land of push-button leisure where
guitars would be nothing but weird exhibits in museums.
(Dr Who & the Human League illustration
taken from NME 1995 © Carl Flint)
All that brainache twaddle's redundant. The Human League sound natural
(and) now. No theory. And no apologies.
Of course, if you must about it, Octopus is everything we should
hate because it works exactly the opposite way to the rock we champion.
'Tell Me When', 'These Are The Days', 'One Man in My Heart', 'Filling
Up With Heaven' - the bits when the album is boss -are pure, 100
per cent formula. That deep, totalitarian Oakey vocal testifying
some soppy cliche as if he were delivering some deep philosophical
insight while the girls - they'll never be women, The League's music
defies time - come swishing in on gorgeous, uplifting choruses to
sweep us onto the dancefloor. This sound was patented over a decade
ago with 'Dare'.
This
is pop at its most traditional - obvious and calculated, built like
furniture. Yet it doesn't feel that way. And that's the League's
true genius. The vocals convey sheer sincerity, the lyrics never
blush. During 'Words', for example, Oakey rhymes "propaganda"
with "memoranda" with "your girlfriend Alexandra".
No-one else could possibly get away with it but The Human League
are all about forgiving and forgetting, surrendering to the sound
and taking it all on trust.
Of course they're absurd, but why worry when something like 'These
Are The Days' - an indictment of nostalgia, bo less! - is so lacking
in snobbery that it happily discos round its handbag as if, in the
very act of making it, the song has preserved The League in their
teens. There's an inherent understanding here of the permanent nature
of pop - that it is doomed to repeat the same paltitudes of grief
and comfort forever.
Most bands - especially rock bands - feel burdened by this and kick
against it to ever more outlandished and kick against it to ever
more outlandished and wanton extremes. But the League at their best
revel in the constrictions, enjoy the flush of familiarity. You
can live with these songs and use them. Everyone can, not just some
clique with the right haircut and trousers. This is true pop.
Sadly, some of 'Octopus' falls into the ordinary old trap of wishing
to appear experimantal or, even worse, entertains misguided notions
of contemporaneity. Remenber how crap 'Crash' was when The League
went all "modern" dancey and got in producers Jam & Lewis? 'Never
Again' and 'House Full Of Nothing' are considerably worse. The League
for some unfathomable reason wanted to be taken seriously. 'John
Cleese: Is He Funny?' is naff too, a needles sitcome theme instrumental.
But hey, as the song goes, they're only Human, born to make mistakes
(see, pop music put to use!). So it's a warm welcome back and...
Oi! Oakey! OK!
(7)
Steve
Sutherland
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