List | H | The Human League | 'Reproduction' CD 1979

Track:	Name:	Time:
1.	Almost Medieval	3:39
2.	Circus Of Death	4:00
3.	The Path Of Least Resistance	3:34
4.	Blind Youth	3:26
5.	The Word Before Last	4:05
6.	Empire State Human	3:18
7.	Morale... You've Lost That Loving Feeling	9:39
8.	Austerity / Girl One Medley	6:45
9.	Zero As A Limit	4:13
10.	Introducing	3:20
11.	The Dignity Of Labour part 1	4:23
12.	The Dignity Of Labour part 2	2:56
13.	The Dignity Of Labour part 3	3:57
14.	The Dignity Of Labour part 4	3:54
15.	Flexi Disc	4:11
16.	Being Boiled Fast Version	3:54
17.	Circus Of Death Fast Version	4:42
	Total	75:00

Comments:

This is the first Human League album in existence, and it's so old it's from way back when they were so much more than what they turned into later - they were in fact utterly brilliant, though not enough people recognise this fact. It's purely synthetic (as was originally intended); sharp, noisy and sometimes mellow synthetics and mechanical beats, with odd and surreal lyrics. Many of the tunes are really catchy, but in spite of this the band met limited commercial success.

The band started off as an experiment in creating synthetic music by computer programmer colleagues Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware under a completely different name. In addition, a guy named Adi Newton worked with them for a while, but then left to join Clock DVA instead. Thus, Marsh and Ware recruit Philip Oakey on vocals and adopt the name The Human League from a board game. For visual stimulantia during concerts, art student Philip Adrian Wright joined to operate the slide-show machine.

The songs are of quite a wide range of styles, and with different use of the synths, more innovatively than many other artists, both before and after this release. Some specific sounds remind a little bit of early Kraftwerk, but they're used in a rather different way. This is pop music, though some people seem to argue it's not. It may not have been very popular at the time, but most of the songs are catchy and clever, perhaps just a tiny bit too complex for the pop crowd. The extra tracks of the CD are perhaps a bit more experimental, instrumental and noisy. Some of it still sounds innovative even today ('97), and some is very obviously a bit dated.

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