Synth pop’s soulful survivors

Thirty years on, the Human League still dare to be different, says Ed Power

SUSAN Ann Sulley is discussing the song that changed her life. “It is partly thanks to Don’t You Want Me that I’m doing the job I do now,” says the Human League vocalist. “Thirty one years on, I still have a career because of it.”

Don’t You Want Me is considered a synth-pop classic. In 1981, the Human League resisted releasing it as a single. Phil Oakey, the band’s songwriter, considered it the weakest track on their album Dare, a throwaway trifle. Besides, they’d put out three chart-topping seven inches from Dare. He feared over-exposure “We didn’t think it was representative of the group,” Sulley says. “We battled the record company. We told them ‘no, don’t do this’. They overruled us’.”