Everybody out there over the age of 30 will be familiar with The Human League’s “Dare!” (and if they aren’t, they bally well should be) - it’s one of the definitive albums of the 1980s, and the template for a million and one pale and uninteresting imitators currently engaged in a synthpop revival - so I’ll spare you a bit of the the usual muso-socio-politico-historico-eco-lefty-liberal-socialist guff that normally goes with a TTOTDOWOHOHCBATCI. But not all of it, obviously.

“Love Action” was the first single from “Dare!”, but not the biggest; that was, of course, “Don’t You Want Me”. But - whisper it soft - in the author’s opinion, “Love Action” is actually the better song. It’s absolutely classic pop, catchy and minimalist, and memorable for three other reasons: 1) the rhythmically tricky intro (it’s in 4/4, the easiest time signature of all, but try counting along and picking exactly when the main drum part comes in - it’s VERY difficult) 2) the impenetrable chorus lyrics - “I love your love action / Love’s just a distraction / No talking, just looking / Watching your love action”. Eh? Is he watching a porno? Watching his partner “enjoy herself”, as it were? (There’s probably an easy answer - those of you who may have spent more time on the Good Ship Venus might want to enlighten me) and 3) Phil Oakey’s portentous baritone. I challenge anyone to try singing this song without artificially deepening the timbre of their voice, dancing robotically, pulling a moody face, growing their hair long, having it militarily straightened and then cutting half of it off by mistake…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Taf's Tune of the Day, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.