Track Listing

1. Don't You Want Me
2. Love Action (I Believe In Love)
3. Mirror Man
4. Tell Me When
5. Stay With Me Tonight
6. Open Your Heart
7. Keep Feeling Fascination
8. Sound Of The Crowd
9. Being Boiled
10. Lebanon
11. Love Is All That Matters
12. Louise
13. Life On Your Own
14. Together In Electric Dreams
15. Human
16. Don't You Want Me (1)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #902 in Music
• Released on: 1995-10-30
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
The reunion that inspired this collection was of debatable wisdom--the title of the rather limp comeback single, "Tell Me When", couldn't help but prompt the response "About a decade ago, you daft old buggers"--but the collection itself is, almost by definition, unimpeachable. The Human League at their best performed that rarest of feats--defined a moment, and transcended it. Any reputation that can survive a shocker like "The Lebanon"--it of the oft-quoted, rarely bettered and, frankly, still hilarious "And where there used to be some shops / Is where the snipers sometimes hide" lyrical own goal is built on sturdy foundations indeed. The songs on Greatest Hits are, simply put, as good as pop gets: "Don't You Want Me", "Mirror Man", "Fascination" and, well, all of them, amount to the definitive exercise in storming the charts entirely on one's own terms. Before The Human League, bands were supposed to choose between being cool and being successful: the indie underachiever ethic was beginning to exert its clammy grip on the alternative sector. The Human League, like ABC at around the same time, were too smart to fall for any such nonsense--what was the point of pop if it wasn't popular? And this is why people still love the songs on this album and nobody talks all that much about The Close Lobsters. The history of popular music is a history of cheap, disposable pop music for kids triumphing over serious, intelligent rock music for grown-ups (The Jacksons' "I Want You Back" still fills dance floors; Genesis's "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" reliably empties rooms). The Human League joined the winning side, and taught it to play better than ever. --Andrew Mueller

Customer Reviews

Were you expecting this?
I would like to take this opportunity to express my feelings not only about this album but also about the Human League who are one of my favourite bands and an inspiration, not only for their music but their togetherness as a band.

Firstly, the Greatest Hits album. The only track I'm not too keen on is the remix of 'Don't You Want Me' at the end, which I find a bit tacky (couldn't Virgin have put 'Heart Like A Wheel' on instead?). The other tracks on the album are of at least a good standard, with my favourites being 'Love Is All That Matters', 'Together In Electric Dreams', 'Human', 'Mirror Man' and 'Tell Me When' which was the song that introduced me to the band. Overall it is a superb collection of fine electronic music.

Secondly, the Band. Despite a turbulent and troubled past during their 25 year history (30 if you go back to the original line-up of Phil, Martin Ware & Ian Craig Marsh), the trio of Phil, Joanne & Susan deserve credit for sticking together & keeping themselves going (at times against the odds) and have every right to be proud of what they have achieved. For me, they are the original masters of electronic pop and having seen them at the Manchester Apollo last year, they proved they can still do the business. I feel they will be seen as an influence by many others in the electronic music world for many years to come and I must admit that if it wasn't for the Human League, I probably wouldn't have got into electronic music.

A Greatest Hits Ever Done by H.L
If you love 80's Music Especially New Waves Buy this Collection,

Human League One of the Best 80's Bands in the UK and U.S.

Don't You Want The Human League ?
This Greatest Hits package is basically an update of their 1988 compilation which I already own on tape, with their 1989-1995 material thrown in for good measure... not that's there much of it. As the previous reviewer stated, they had their wilderness years in the late-80's and into the mid-90's (producing a lot of dross), with a return to form on their 1995 album Octopus.

However, the compilers really should have included their only decent single from this era, the highly-catchy Heart Like A Wheel, together with the Top 20 single from Octopus, One Man In My Heart. Moreover, they could have payed slightly more attention to their late-70's experimental phase aside from including the 1982 re-release of Being Boiled (originally a 1978 indie-release), with the inclusion of their unworldly single Empire State Human. A chronologically-correct song-list would have also allowed non-fans to track the interesting development of the band through from 1978 to 1995. The shoddy Snap-remix of Don't You Want Me? is also surplus to requirements and thoroughly unneccesary.

However, gripes aside, this is probably the best compilation of the League's material out there, and as such comes recommended to the as yet uninitiated, quite simply because it contains a multitude of classic pop tunes (note that I did'nt mention the lyrics !) I've just seen them at a 1,000 sell-out concert in Basingstoke (of all places !) and they can still do it live !