The Men aka The Human League In 1979 the original Human League line-up of Phil Oakey, Martyn Ware, Ian Craig Marsh & Adrian Wright recorded the single “I Don’t Depend On You”. The track was out of character with the band’s material at the time as it used traditional instruments and had female backing vocals. It had been recorded at the request of the record label in an attempt to make the group more commercial sounding. Although the band had agreed to do this they didn’t want to use the Human League name and this is why the track was released as The Men. The single was released in Europe on 7” and 12” and both contained the same tracks. The B-Side “Cruel” was simply an instrumental remix of the A-Side. The only other release of the single is a really excellent collectible as it does contain the Human League name on it. A Canadian 7” was released and contained “I Don’t Depend On You” on the A-Side, the label of which listed to group as The Human League (A.K.A. The Men). More interesting is the B-Side as instead of using “Cruel” as on the European release, a Human League track from their debut LP “Reproduction” was chosen. “Blind Youth” makes its only appearance on single format here. No picture sleeve was issued for the Canadian single and it simply came in a PolyGram Canada company sleeve. In Europe, like every other Human League record at that time, “I Don’t Depend On You” failed to make a dent in the pop charts and it wasn’t until the original line-up split into two groups (Heaven 17 & The Human League Mk 2) that greater commercial success came along in the 80’s. Listen to “I Don’t Depend On You” here: https://youtube/watch?v=MCAeCTLEF9Y Listen to the instrumental B-Side “Cruel” here: https://youtube/watch?v=CZ-7KKySXqg Listen to the Human League’s “Blind Youth” here: https://youtube/watch?v=3BsUOZ6l9Z0
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 17:42:18 +0000