Scouring through the thirty-years-ago-today charts for a worthy subject of the 'I Love 1980' series I was amazed that there wasn't really much exciting going on at that moment in time and was wondering why on earth had I got so excited about 1980 anyway? I've already featured the best chart singles of the moment, OMD's Messages and Gary Numan's We Are Glass (Already on the way down), Kitchen At Parties... and OK I could stretch it to Lipps Inc.'s electro-disco hit Funky Town, Splodgnessabound and their wonderful Two Pints of Lager.., no doubt a rare 'indie' representative in the mainstream chart, or even ELO and their rousing I'm Alive, but...wait ..what's that single there coming in at no. 62??? Why, it's The mighty Human League with Empire State Human! That's more like it...
Although the song had already been released as a single in 1979 from debut album Reproduction, it had of course failed to get anywhere and was now being 're-purposed' by Virgin as a double 7" package with Only After Dark off the brand-new Travelogue album, wishing to ape the previous near-success of the Rock n Roll double pack. Good idea!
It's a classic early League song combining a sci-fi B movie scenario (some 'bored kid' who wants to be as tall and as big and as strong as the pyramids and the Empire State Building and stuff) with stomping electronics (recently remixed for this) and is still performed live by what's left of the League today. Its infectious and anthemic 'Tall tall tall..I wanna be tall tall tall..' is a well-known refrain among fans and non-fans alike, the difference being that of course us real fans knew it was a fantastic record. In fact in 1980 I went out and bought it (much to my chagrain finding only single 7" format), also on the back of a Smash Hits feature which appeared a couple of weeks later. It got several plays on my stereo that summer and I continued to confound friends at parties...The B side 'Introducing..' is a curious track expressing the band's more experimental side from their Future roots. Sort of hard to explain how it goes (you can't whistle it) so here's a video I put together to go with it...a sort of fantasy live performance of the track which of course never happened.
Although the single did get The League more widespread recognition (despite not being a hit) it was their last one in the Oakey/Ware/Marsh/Wright formation and after the tour that summer the (Bob-Last engineered) split was imminent.
We all know that the shiny new Human League and indeed Heaven 17, went on to bigger things, but you often wonder what else they could have created if they'd stayed together.
get Empire State Human and Introducing.. here: on amazon
The Human League - Empire State Human
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