Don't you want me
| Don't you want me | |
|---|---|
| The Human League | |
| publication | November 27, 1981 |
| length | 3:57 |
| Genre (s) | New wave , synth pop |
| Author (s) | Jo Callis , Philip Oakey , Philip Adrian Wright |
| Producer (s) | Martin Rushent |
| album | Dare! |
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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Don't You Want Me is a song by British synth-pop group The Human League from 1981. It was taken from their third studio album, Dare! Released as fourth single on November 27, 1981 .
It is the band's best known and most commercially successful song. In the winter of 1981, Don't You Want Me became the UK Christmas number one hit , selling over 1,400,000 units. This makes the title number 25 of the most successful songs in the history of the British charts. On July 3, 1982, Don't You Want Me became a number one hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 and spent a total of three weeks on the top.
history
Lead singer Philip Oakey came up with the idea for the lyrics to the song while reading an article in a US tabloid . Originally planned as a solo recording, Oakey's film A Star Is Born inspired a duet with one of the two underage female background singers. Oakey offered part of the stanzas to Susan Ann Sulley. In a magazine, Sulley stated that she was only chosen by chance. More realistic is that Sulley was the better singer and Catherall was too shy for lead vocals. Jo Callis and Philip Adrian Wright composed a heavier version on the synthesizer than the one later published. Producer Martin Rushent was dissatisfied with the first recordings. He and Callis remixed the title and gave it a softer and, in Oakey's opinion, more "pop" sound. Oakey hated this version and thought the mix was one of the worst on the album. Oakey was so dissatisfied with the title that he made the song the last track on the B-side of the vinyl album.
Before the release of Dare , the successful singles The Sound of the Crowd and Love Action (I Believe in Love) were already released. Virgin Records released the single Open Your Heart in October 1981 , which reached number 6 on the UK charts. With a hit album and three successful singles, Virgins CEO Simon Draper pushed for a fourth single to be released before the end of 1981. His choice fell on Don't You Want Me , but Oakey didn't want to release another single and said “People become slowly getting sick when they only listen to music from The Human League ”. He was also sure that Don't You Want Me would be detrimental to the band's newfound popularity. After much discussion, Oakey relented on the condition that the record company put out a large poster with the single, as Oakey felt that fans “won't get excited if we just release an inferior single”.
Don't You Want Me was released in the UK on November 27, 1981. To the amazement of the group (and Oakeys in particular), Don't You Want Me rose to the top of the UK charts. That success was repeated six months later in the US and Don't You Want Me reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks . The Billboard magazine listed the song at number 6 of the biggest hits of the year 1982. In the same year was Do not You Want Me in the US with a gold record the RIAA award for selling over one million units.
The Human League often added mysterious allusions to their productions; so with Don't You Want Me a “100” was added to the title on the album cover. This is an allusion to the 100 Club, a restaurant in Sheffield , the band members often met in the.
Today Don't You Want Me is considered a classic of the synth-pop and new wave era.
The often assumed autobiographical background is untrue. Susan Ann Sulley repeatedly denied that the lyrics were related to her and Joanne Catherall's entry into the band. Sulley was only 17 years old at the time of recording and too young by British law to work as a waitress in a cocktail bar; rather, she was still a student at a secondary school at the time. Oakey also tried several times to clear up the misunderstanding that it was a love song and emphasized that it was "an unpleasant song about gender-specific power games".
The song was remixed and re-released in 1995 , this remixed version reaching number 16 on the UK charts.
Music video
In 1981 MTV started broadcasting and the music video developed into an important sales element. Virgin took this as an opportunity to produce a more elaborate and expensive promotional video for Don't You Want Me than for its predecessor, Open Your Heart .
The music video was shot in Slough in November 1981 and is based on a film within the film for the recording of a detective story. In the video, the group members portray actors and the production crew on set. Steve Barron directed. Susan Ann Sulley plays a successful actress in the music video and meets director Philip Oakey on the film set. The music video is based remotely on the film A Star Is Born .
The shoot on a cold winter night was produced on 35 mm film instead of the cheaper magnetic tape that was common at the time. Susan Sulley said Steve Baron was heavily influenced by the cinematography of the music video for the Ultravox hit Vienna and the François Truffaut film The American Night . The word “Le League Humaine” in one scene pays homage to Truffaut.
The music video made Oakey, Sulley and Catherall the visual icons of the early 1980s. The music video later became controversial because of a scene in which Wright shot Catherall with a pistol from a car window. This scene was later cut out by music channels.
The music video was released in December 1981 at a time when music videos were becoming the standard in the music industry. Don't You Want Me also became a success thanks to the music video.
Web links
- Don't You Want Me on "The Black Hit of Space.dk"
Individual evidence
- ↑ Charts DE Charts CH Charts UK Charts US
- ↑ The UK's Best Selling Singles on ukcharts.20m.com (accessed June 1, 2011)
- ↑ Interview - Smash Hits Magazine - December 1981
- ^ Martin Rushent speaking on UK Channel 4 Documentary "Top 10 Electro Pioneers" BBC - 27 Nov 2001
- ^ Human League Biography . League-online.com. Archived from the original on August 9, 2007. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 18, 2010.
- ^ Rolling Stone 1983 . Rolling Stone. Retrieved February 21, 2011.
- ↑ Smash Hits Magazine December 1981
- ↑ Human League Interview - Eamon Homes GMTV 2001
- ↑ British Hit Singles and Albums (Guinness 19th Edition). 20 Rev Ed edition. Guinness World Records Limited, 2007, ISBN 978-1-904994-10-7 .
