| Dare!/Love and Dancing | 
 enlarge | Artist: The Human League
Label: Blue Plate Caroline
Category: Music
List Price: $15.98
Buy New: $8.98
You Save: $7.00 (44%)
New (32) Used (7) from $8.19
Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 17152
Format: Original Recording Reissued, Original Recording Remastered
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 80601
UPC: 724358060126
EAN: 0724358060126
ASIN: B00007MB2U
Release Date: January 28, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | The Things That Dreams Are Made Of | | • | Open Your Heart | | • | The Sound Of The Crowd | | • | Darkness | | • | Do Or Die | | • | Get Carter | | • | I Am The Law | | • | Seconds | | • | Love Action (I Believe In Love) | | • | Don't You Want Me | | • | Hard Times | | • | Love Action (I Believe In Love) | | • | Don't You Want Me | | • | Things That Dreams Are Made Of | | • | Do Or Die | | • | Seconds | | • | Open Your Heart | | • | The Sound Of The Crowd |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Album Description
Perfecting fusing electronic music with infectiously catchy songwriting, Dare is one of the best selling electronic albums of all time. For this special remastered reissue, the entire Love and Dancing album (arguably the earliest example of a remix album, featuring instrumental and dance mixes from Dare, as well as 'Hard Times'), has been included as bonus material. Caroline. 2003.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
Two Great Human League Albums On One Cd! July 6, 2003
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
Caroline Records has released several classic Human League albums on one cd, completely remastered for improved sound quality. "Dare", in my opinion is the "classic" Human League album, full of excellent synthesized pop songs. The song "Don't You want Me" needs no introduction as this was the major hit off the album. MTV also played the video on regular rotation as well. While there were several other hits from the album, such as "Open Your Heart" and "The Sound Of The Crowd", nothing matched the melodic "Don't You Want Me" in terms of mass appeal. Combine Philip Oakey's deep male vocals with Joanne Catherall and Susanne Sulley's female vocals and you have one of the "new romantic era's" best bands. The album "Love And Dancing" are the full 12" instrumental or dub versions of the songs on "Dare". This album was a must for disc jockeys who wanted to be creative and mixed the vocal versions with the instrumentals. Caroline Records wisely has re-issued and remastered a good portion of the Human League catalog for those who enjoyed their unique sound. Highly recommended!
Purchased this for ONE track, and I'm satisfied July 8, 2004
11 out of 17 found this review helpful
When I was a wee lad, New Wave was still actually somewhat "new." I used to spend hours listening to KROQ and tape recording songs by holding up a hand held cassette recorder to one speaker of my sister's stereo. Mind you, we're talking about 1979-1983 or so. Devo, Oingo Boingo, Ultravox, Visage, Invisible Zoo, Kraftwerk, etc. were the bands of the day. I listened to those tapes until they wore out. Then suddenly Depeche Mode grew their hair out and started wearing wife beater t-shirts and growing facial hair and new wave went to hell, as far as I was concerned. There went the neighborhood.
Anyway, one of my favorite songs on my tapes was Seconds by the Human League. It was just such a great, anthemic, monolithic riff. Something made me want to hear it again recently, so I hunted it down and found it on this CD. And I'm satisfied with my purchase. Funny, I guess I didn't pay any attention to the actual lyrics until now; I had no idea it was such a dark, somber song. It sounds like it's about Mark David Chapman gunning down John Lennon, which is something that still depresses me to this day. And thankfully, there are a handful of good songs here that I remember from KROQ and it's fun to hear them again as well.
It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This January 11, 2006
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Who says time travel hasn't been invented?
Pop this CD in your player, fix yourself a gin and tonic (or a Midori Sour), lie back in your recliner, and LISTEN!
Within seconds of the start of "Don't You Want Me?" you'll be immediately transported back to that dance floor in 1981, your hair fully spiked and highlighted, wearing your parachute pants, capezios, a short short skirt, a wife beater and an open deco shirt singing to your dance partner, "You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, when I met you...."
According to Billboard Magazine:
"Dare! captures a moment in time perfectly -- the moment post-punk's robotic fascination with synthesizers met a clinical Bowiesque infatuation with fashion and modern art, including pop culture, plus a healthy love of songcraft."
For those of us in the U.S. for whom the sounds of the era (the late 1970's) no longer held the fascination they once had. Also, disco seemed to have become repetitive, in large part. Then.....then...out of England began to come a noise....a sound...not disco, not rock, not punk, but something much more different!
Long before there was a name for it (New Wave, as it would be called), there was The Human League.
The slick, smoothe sounds that groups such as The Human League were putting out struck just the right chord. The Human League really got started in 1977, but we, on this side of the pond, didn't know it. It wasn't really until 1981's Dare! that the U.S. got a good dose of what the latest British invasion had in store for us. Certainly, The Human League took a strong nod from Kraftwerk, but whereas that group's sound was far more "synthesized," The Human League did as their name tells us and added a much more human factor to the element. It softened out the technology and allowed the vocals to be front and center supported fully by dynamic synthesized sounds.
Is this all too much lavish praise to heap on The Human League? Not really. While there were many groups in England at about the same time creating a similar sound, it was The Human League that really were the first out the gate with the most fully realized, fully formed elaborate orchestrations of synthesizers and slick vocals.
Dare! is not their first album but it is quite possibly their most important album, because it cemented their amazing talent in the collective mind of the U.S. with the tremendously popular and danceable "Don't You Want Me?"
While each song on this album is a hit in its own right (if not charted as such), remember that it was widely received by the music industry as a benchmark album.
You will want this album so that you, too, can travel back to 1981 with no trouble at all!
Dare! is worth the trip.
70+ minutes of pure 80s electropop joy February 13, 2003
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
If for some reason you have been putting off getting "Dare" then this is the reissue you should get. It contains the wonderful "dub" or instrumental remix EP "Love and Dancing." Together these two releases make up an essential starting point for the 80s Synthpop revolution.
Earlier albums, such as the League's own "Travelouge" and "Reproduction" (also remastered and reissued recently in the US with great lost singles and b sides), and albums by Kraftwerk, Caberat Voltiare and others explored what you could do with synths. But "Dare" was really the first album to the art/rock sensibility of the earlier work and marry it to disco/pop. The results are damn near perfect and certainly perfectly encapsulate what 1982 was all about. The sound is cold and sleek yet oddly human and accessible. Phil and the gals sing about love, and (ahem) dancing, plus friends, parties, etc. In fact the only odd step here, "Seconds," stray from that formula, with interesting sonic result but fairly unimaginative lyrics.
People familiar with "Don't You Want Me," (and who isn't, even today's tightly limited pop stations have it in recurrent on their play lists) might be put off that the rest of the album is not quiet as top 40. But give it a spin or two and open you mind.
Dare is the perfect marriage of Art and Pop.
Pop Masterpiece December 8, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The Human League. 1981. DARE!, one of the best synthpop albums to come from the best decade for music. Ah, where to begin? Anyone glancing at this review has certainly heard the smashing hit "Don't You Want Me," but this album has so much more to offer an electronic-minded listener. First, there is
1. "The Things That Dreams Are Made Of," a delightful, bouncy number featuring somewhat laughable lyrics, my favourite being "March, march, march across Red Square!" All in all, a fun, energetic track perfect for the urban dillettante. Next, we have
2. "Open Your Heart," a nice tune with rather decent lyrics and lovely synths--as usual. But the next track is possibly my favourite--or second favourite--on the disc. It is
3. "The Sound of the Crowd," which certainly deserved its number twelve spot in the British charts back in '81 soon after the original band split into Heaven 17 and what is now more or less The Human League. I adore this song! It features decadent, hedonistic dance lyrics and beats with Phil's signature delivery backed up by the girls. This song soon gives way into
4. "Darkness," a somewhat creepy, pessimistic song about madness and fear. Cool vibes throughout, though, and it segues nicely into
5. "Do or Die," which has extremely awesome synths all over the place--especially its synth solo in the middle part of the song--and it has a catchy, upbeat chorus. Then, we get
6. "Get Carter," an extremely short instrumental that acts as a prelude to
7. "I Am the Law," which would have fit perfectly on TRAVELOGUE, The Human League's 1980 effort. It's rather minimalistic and dour, with none of the bounce or flair that the other tracks possess, but it has interesting lyrics that actually make some sense. However, I usually skip this one and go on to
8. "Seconds," another creepy track, but this one concerns the Kennedy assassination--at least from what I can tell from the lyrics. Icy cold, this one song is perhaps another vestige of The Human League's creative and innovative period of their career. It certainly isn't like its more pop-oriented peers on this album. But! we're now at my all-time favourite The Human League track which is
9. "Love Action (I Believe in Love)," an all-around perfect pop tune--it reached no. 3 in the British charts--that encapsulates everything I love about the League: quirky synths (come on, check out the opening one! I never fail to smile when this pops on), cool vocals, and cheesy lyrics. Listen and love it as I have. Ah, but now we have
10. "Don't You Want Me," the League's most famous track, one still played on radios and Muzak all over the world, one performed at karaoke bars, one forever beloved by the masses...etc., etc. Everyone knows this song! And rightly so: it's pop perfection, and it helped cement that distinctive '80s sound, so infused with synths and Casio keyboards and British/continental elegance. But I'm digressing...The rest of this remastered edition is the 1982 remix album, LOVE AND DANCING, which features instrumental or dub-ish sounding versions of most of the songs found on DARE! This is a most worthy purchase. You will be happy for buying this epic synthpop/New Wave marvel, I can assure you.
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