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Single Reviews
Single Review: The Human League – Night People (Wall Of Sound)
By Marc Samuels | Published on Friday 19 November 2010
It feels a little wrong to call this a comeback, given The Human League have never been a prolific group, but this, the first single from their forthcoming ‘Credo’ album is a fortunately-timed return and a welcome one.
Given that electro-pop is now officially (at least still at the time of writing) the nation’s favourite music, you could be forgiven for expecting the League to return after their usual lengthy hiatus with a good but relatively safe synth-pop song of the sort they’ve been knocking out sporadically ever since ‘Dare!’ And whilst ‘Night People’ is no major departure – they’ve not gone post-rock or anything – it’s arguably the group’s most surprising and unlikely single since 1984’s ‘The Lebanon’.
It seems to be striving for some kind of post-Xenomania non-conformist pop wherein standard verse/chorus convention is dismissed for loads of random bits thrown together that end up working by virtue of their individual and synergistic brilliance. There’s also the faint, though possibly misleading, suggestion – mainly by way of the ludicrous lyrics and general air of deranged pop – that Oakey has listened to the group’s two pre-‘Dare!’ albums for inspiration.
Thankfully, it’s neither awful, nor embarrassing. In fact, after several listens, it eventually reveals itself to be almost a preposterously brilliant pop song from Phil, The Girls and whoever has programmed this album for them.
On the remix front, Cerrone do disco, Mylo pretends it’s 1985 for three seconds before going a bit Northern Soul, whilst Emperor Machine try throbbing hi-NRG/Italo. Best of the bunch is Villa’s frenetic Frankmusik-esque wonky pop, but none are a match for the original, really. MS
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