The Human League Archives | marksimpson.com

1983: The High Summer of (Synth-)Pop

by Mark Simpson
February 20, 2014August 5, 2022

From the gender-bending antics of Eurythmics and Culture Club, to the propulsive synthpop of Depeche Mode, New Order, and the Human League, was there ever, asks Mark Simpson, a more spectacular time for pop? In 1983, the year that McDonald’s introduced Chicken McNuggets and the second Cold War was at… Read More »1983: The High Summer of (Synth-)Pop

Stretch Jeans & Synthpop: The Human League’s ‘Dare’

by Mark Simpson
June 5, 2013August 6, 2022

By Mark Simpson IN THE EARLY YEARS of the 1980s, stretch jeans were all the rage. Stretch jeans and The Human League’s Dare. Both were revolutionary but practical and, when wrapped around youth, snugly-smugly invincible. I was sweet sixteen when Dare was released in 1981 and it confirmed all the psychoses of teenagerdom. We… Read More »Stretch Jeans & Synthpop: The Human League’s ‘Dare’