Heaven 17 to Release a Ten CD Compilation This Week

The British synth pop legends Heaven 17 have announced the release of 'Play To Win: The Virgin Years', a brand new 10 CD compilation deluxe set which will feature all five albums issued in the 1980s, along with over 100 bonus tracks, including demos, B-sides, non-album singles and remixes. It will also be released as a 5LP coloured vinyl box set called Play To Win: The Virgin Albums. Both the CD and vinyl variants of Play To Win will be released on 29 March 2019 via Edsel and Demon Records respectively.

http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/heaven-17-play-to-winthe-virgin-years-10cd-deluxe-5lp-vinyl-box/ 

Heaven 17 To Release Five Album Classic Set

Heaven 17 will release a Classic Album set which will include all their albums released in the 80's decade from 'Penthouse and Pavement' to 'Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho'. No bonus tracks are planned and the album compilation is set for release on June 17th.

Best of 1983- The Album List

The year 1982 was undeniably dominated by Michael Jackson's groundbreaking album "Thriller," which went on to become the best-selling album of all time. The accompanying music video for the title track presented a significant challenge for MTV airwaves but is now regarded as one of the greatest music videos ever created. Riding on the wave of Michael Jackson's success, other artists achieved notable milestones: David Bowie released "Let's Dance," his most commercially successful album up to that point. On the female front, both Madonna and Cyndi Lauper made their debut appearances, exploring unconventional and unique styles. Kim Wilde received recognition by winning the Brit Award for Best British Female Artist.

Meanwhile, in 1982, Germany produced the first compact discs, which were initially sold in Japan during the third quarter of the same year. These CDs were later introduced to the U.S. market in 1983, revolutionizing the music industry in the years to come.

As New Wave gradually transitioned into Pop, the decade's most significant stars—Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, and George Michael—continued to dominate the charts for the remainder of the '80s and beyond.

 

Best of 1982 - The Singles List

After having been propelled further by the New Romantic movement and becoming much easier to handle, Synthesizers became dominant in pop music and a possible formula for future success. The Human League were still ruling the charts and won the BRIT Award for the best Breakthrough act. Following their success story other bands like Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Soft Cell adopted synthesizers as main instruments which had an impact in launching of the Second British Invasion in the US. This brought the new styles, rhythms and stars to the States including Duran Duran, The Human League, Eurythmics, Billy Idol and more. Sadly some of the great bands from late 70s and early 80s disbanded which included most notably Blondie, Adam and The Ants, ABBA and Japan.

01. Yaz(oo)- Don't Go 

02. Tears for Fears- Mad World 

03. Heaven 17- Let Me Go 

04. Talk Talk- Talk Talk 

05. Yazoo- Situation 

06. Duran Duran- Rio 

07. Tears for Fears- Pale Shelter 

08. Eurythmics- Love is a Stranger

09. A Flock of Seagulls- I Ran (So Far Away) 

10. Japan- Ghosts 

11. The Psychedelic Furs- Love My Way 

12. Visage- The Damned Don't Cry 

13. New Order- Temptation 

14. Soft Cell- Torch 

15. Simple Minds- Promised You A Miracle 

16. The Stranglers - Golden Brown

17. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark- Maid of Orleans 

18. Modern English - I Melt with You 

19. Duran Duran- Save a Prayer 

20. ABC- Poison Arrow 

Heaven 17- 'The Luxury Gap' Reissues and Tour

Heaven 17 have announced the reissue of their second album 'The Luxury Gap' in October. This will be another expanded reissue which will feature three-disc (2CD and DVD). The original album from 1983 will be on one CD along with a second CD of remixes and a DVD of promo videos and live performances. 

The band will also go on tour and perform the classic album in its entirety including the hits "Temptation" and "Let Me Go". Several tour dates have been confirmed for October, November and December in the UK and Germany. 

More info via Heaven 17 official

 

Heaven 17/BEF- "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" Live

Here is brilliant performance of the song "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" by Heaven 17/ BEF during the two day music festival "Music of Quality and Distinction" live at London's Roundhouse. The song appeared on The Human League's album 'Reproduction' and was performed by Philip Oakey. Righteous Brothers' original was released in 1965.

 

Heaven 17 Present The 80's

To dovetail Heaven 17’s world premiere of “The Luxury Gap” album performed in its entirety in 3D sound at the London Roundhouse on Friday October 14th, and songs from B.E.F.’s Music of Quality & Distinction albums the following night on Saturday October 15th, Heaven 17 have launched their own weekly radio series on Absolute 80s entitled “Electronic 80s with Heaven 17.” Click here for more info about the series.
 The hour long radio show will see Heaven 17 play the best of electronic 80s music from Kraftwerk, Human League to Scritti Politti and Blancmange. Each week the show will include a special guest. This week’s guest on the Sunday September 11th show is Kim Wilde, who, along with a number of other guest vocalists, will also participate in the “B.E.F. presents “Music of Quality & Distinction” concerts at the London Roundhouse on October 15th.

Other guest vocalists who will perform at the B.E.F. concert at the London Roundhouse concert on Saturday October 15th will include La Roux’s Elly Jackson, Sandie Shaw, Glenn Gregory, Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside, Boy George, Midge Ure, Polly Scattergood, the Noisettes’ Shingai Shoniwa, plus Kate Jackson (former lead singer of The Long Blondes). B.E.F. will perform songs from their first two “Music of Quality & Distinction albums, plus new songs their forthcoming third MQD album, “Dark.”

Click here for more info:
http://www.noblepr.co.uk/Press_Releases/meanfiddler/heaven17-bef.htm

Books: Electric Dreams: The Human League, Heaven 17 and the Sound of the Steel City

"Electric Dreams', the long awaited super book by David Buckley which tells the story of how a band, a city and a lot of synthesizers provided the ultimate soundtrack to the Eighties. David Buckley, the acclaimed author of 'Strange Fascination: David Bowie – The Definitive Story', charts the Human League’s unlikely rise from avant-garde veterans of the punk wars to international pop sensations and reveals how a small number of bands in Sheffield created the music that came to define an era: electro-pop. The release of the book also marks the thirtieth anniversary of 'Dare', the Human League’s seminal third album. Pre-order your book here.  

More about the Author: /www.david-buckley.com/

B.E.F. & Heaven 17's 'The Luxury Gap' Live

Following the success of Heaven 17’s 'Penthouse and Pavement 30th Anniversary Tour' in 2010, Martyn Ware’s production project, ‘British Electric Foundation’ (B.E.F.) is proud to present ‘Music of Quality and Distinction Live’, a 2-day festival at London’s prestigious Roundhouse from October 14-15th, celebrating 30 years of seminal electronic music and unique collaborations.

Heaven 17 will perform the world premiere of their 1983 album ‘The Luxury Gap’ on Friday October 14t husing 3D soundscape composition techniques pioneered by Martyn Ware and Vince Clarke followed by B.E.F.’s first ever live performance featuring tracks from the albums ‘Music of Quality & Distinction Vol. 1 & 2’ on Saturday October 15th. Guest vocalists confirmed for the Music of Quality and Distinction concert include Elly Jackson (LaRoux), Boy George (Culture Club), Green Gartside (Scritti Politti), Sandie Shaw, Kim Wilde, Andy Bell (Erasure), Shingai Shoniwa (Noisettes), Midge Ure (Ultravox), Glenn Gregory (Heaven 17) and Polly Scattergood (more names to be confirmed shortly).

Tickets go on sale Thursday April 12th at 10am. Ticket hotline: 0844 844 0444. Book online: www.ticketmaster.co.uk. Day tickets: £23.50. Weekend tickets: £42.50.

http://www.heaven17.com/index.html

The Golden Hour Of The Human League

The Original Human League

In April, 1979 The Human League released their first EP under Fast Record entitled ‘The Dignity of Labour’, which contained four experimental instrumentals. Although the EP barely charted, major record labels began approaching the band. Eventually in May 1979, the band accepted an offer by Richard Branson's Virgin Records. The band recorded and released their first full studio album Reproduction in August, 1979. Both the album and the single "Empire State Human" failed to make any impact on the charts.
In 1980, the band released their second album Travelogue and made their first TV appearance on BBC TV Top of the Pops. The re-release of “Empire State Human" failed to make any good chart impacts and due to their lack of commercial success, Virgin refused to release further singles from Travelogue and the general discontent among the members led to internal conflict within the band. Oakey and Ware often quarreled over creative and personal matters. Ware insisted the band maintain their pure electronic sound while Oakey wanted to emulate more successful pop groups. In the same year Ware decided to quit the band with Ian Craig Marsh joining him. Ware and Marsh became Heaven 17.

The Human League 'Mk2'

After Ware and Marsh departed from the Human League, Phil Oakey carried on with the name and he was responsible for all Human League debts and commitments. The Human League also had to pay Ware and Marsh one percent of royalties of the next Human League album under the Virgin contract. With the tour only ten days away promoters started threatening to sue Oakey if the tour was not completed as contracted. To complete the tour, Oakey had to recruit new people in a matter of days. Oakey and his then girlfriend went into Sheffield city centre on a Wednesday night with the intention of recruiting a single female backing vocalist. After looking in various venues, they visited the Crazy Daisy Nightclub on High Street where Oakey spotted two teenage girls dancing together on the dance floor. Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall were just schoolgirls on a night out together. Neither had any experience of singing or dancing professionally. With no preamble, Oakey asked both girls to join the tour as dancers and incidental vocalists. Phil said that having two female vocalists/dancers would also add potential glamour to the band. Another two band members joined the band Ian Burden from Sheffield synth band Graph who was covering the keyboards for the tour due to departure of Ware and Marsh. In April 1981, the fifth final member of the group was joining the band, another professional musician who used to play in the band called the Rezillos. The Mk2 Human League formation was now complete.

Dare!

Dare is considered as the Human League’s most successful album to date. The musical style of the band has rapidly changed with the new Human League formation leaving the experimental e avant-garde electronic style to the past and welcoming the new commercial synth pop sound. ‘Dare!’ was recorded between March and September 1981 and first released in the UK on 20 October 1981, then subsequently in the U.S. in mid-1982. The album was produced by none other than the veteran producer Martin Rushent who was an expert on emerging music technologies of the time. During 1981 the group enjoyed huge commercial success with both the album and the singles. The fourth single “Don’t You Want Me Baby” reached the top positions in the UK and USA. Dare became critically acclaimed and has proved to be a genre-defining album, whose influence can be felt in many areas of pop music today.

"Don’t You Want Me"

"Don't You Want Me" is a single by British synthpop group The Human League, released from their third album: Dare on 27 November 1981. It is the band's best known and most commercially successful recording to date, and was the Christmas number one in the UK where it sold over 1,400,000 copies, making it the 25th most successful single in UK Singles Chart history.

The lyrics were originally inspired after lead singer Philip Oakey read a story in a "trashy US tabloid" and the very expensive and elaborate promotional video for the song was created by filmmaker Steve Barron. The Music video was a very new phenomenon and cable TV station MTV had only just started up to capitalize on this new media but had very little material to work with. Virgin Records syndicated the video to MTV which was played around the clock. The video is credited for making Oakey, Sulley and Catherall visual icons of the early 1980s.

Source: Wikipedia (edit)

The Rise of Human League (Part I)
The Human League- Hysteria (Part III)

(All media is copyrighted by their respective copyright owners)

The Rewind Festival- 80's Supernova

Rewind – The 80s Music Festival is to launch a new weekend event at Scone Palace in Perthshire, Scotland from 29th-31st July 2011. The festival will boast the biggest live outdoor line-up of 80s recording artists and performers ever! Tickets go on sale to the general public at 9am on Friday January 21st. For further ticket outlet info and prices visit: www.rewindfestival.com.The all-star 80s line-up will perform at the historic setting of Scone Palace in Perthshire; the home of The Earls of Mansfield and the crowning palace of the Kings of Scotland. 

More info:
http://www.noblepr.co.uk
Ticket Info

Heaven 17 Live on Later with Jools Holland

Heaven 17 have been confirmed as special guests on Later With Jools Holland. The programme will be transmitted LIVE on Tuesday 19th at 10.00 p.m. on BBC2 and the pre-recorded programme will transmit on Friday 22nd October at 11.45pm on BBC2.

Heaven 17’s appearance on Jools Holland will precede the highly anticipated 30th Anniversary tour of their seminal album "Penthouse And Pavement". It will be the first time the band will perform the album in its entirety. The tour includes the following dates: Edinburgh Picture House (Nov 22), Glasgow 02 ABC (Nov 23), Manchester Ritz (Nov 25), Birmingham HMV Institute (Nov 26), London HMV Forum (Nov 28), Oxford 02 Academy (Nov 29), Brighton Corn Exchange (Nov 30) and Bristol 02 Academy (Dec 1).

www.heaven17.com

Sinner's Day Festival

A newcomer festival from Belgium comes with its second edition this year. This indoor festival which already hosted the greats from the New wave and Punk world will open its gates again. The date is October 31, 2010, during the All Saints weekend. Check out the official page and Facebook fan page for more information.

http://www.sinnersday.com/

In Conversation: Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17

Enjoy “30th Anniversary Penthouse And Pavement Tour”  exclusive interview for the Burning Blame Blog with Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17.

1. Which band or musician was your major influence at the beginning of your career?

I would have to say the early influences of Heaven 17 are very eclectic. Strangely enough I think I can speak for the three of us, as we were all pretty much into the same types of music. There was Glam… Hurrah loved it! Bolan, T Rex, Roxy Music, Jobriath , David Bowie even Slade and The Sweet - all of these bands touched our lives growing up both musically and stylistically.

I wish I had a photograph of Martin in his green fun fur bomber jacket and his skin tight white trouser tucked into his silver platform boots… oh he looked great!

Then there was early electronic music… Kraftwerk, Can, Faust, Gong (hippy Electro), Tangerine Dream… even Pink Floyd and maybe a bit of Emerson Lake and Palmer…

And then there was Black Dance music, Soul and Northern Soul. It was all going in being mixed together and coming out as something else!

Heaven 17- The 30 Years Anniversary Show

Heaven 17 has announced the 30th Anniversary November UK Tour of their critically acclaimed 1981 concept album ‘Penthouse And Pavement’ which they will perform in its entirety. Featuring original members Glenn Gregory (lead vocals) and Martyn Ware (synthesizers, vocals) and a full six-piece band, Heaven 17 starts their UK tour at the Edinburgh HMV Picture House on November 22nd. The tour follows the ultimate super-luxury edition of Penthouse And Pavement, released by EMI in the autumn.

Dates include Edinburgh HMV Picture House (Nov 22), Glasgow O2 ABC (Nov 23), Manchester Ritz (Nov 25), Birmingham HMV Institute (Nov 26), London HMV Forum (Nov 28), Oxford O2 Academy (Nov 29), Brighton Corn Exchange (Nov 30), Bristol O2 Academy (Dec 1)

http://www.heaven17.com/

Heaven 17 & La Roux Clash

Electro legends Heaven 17 and breakthrough electro artist La Roux join forces at the BBC's Maida Vale studios for a very special session, presented by Steve Lamacq. The artists play some of their own songs, perform on each other's material and also collaborate on a cover. Next on 6 Music live!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qbw9y

Heaven 17- Naked and Advertised

‘Naked as advertised’ is a newly recorded album by Heaven 17. Featuring Tracks derived from their live set as well as a few real collectors items of oddities and rarities..There is even one brand new, never heard before Heaven 17 song, ‘Don’t Fall’. Some of these tracks reach back into the very earliest days of Heaven 17. Re-visited and re-worked they sound as fresh today as they ever did. A beautiful version of the Associates' ‘Party Fears Two’ originally performed at the Billy Mackenzie memorial concert makes you take a second look at this classic and beautiful song.

Follow the link for more info and the song stream
http://www.myspace.com/heaven17

Instant Hit: Heaven17- We're Going to Live for a Very Long Time

"We're Going To Live For A Very Long Time" was the closing track on the "Penthouse" side of Heaven 17's seminal album "Penthouse and Pavement," released in 1981. While it was never released as a single, it remains a timeless piece that continues to endure through the years.