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

Synopsis

The untold story of how a band, a city and a lot of synthesisers provided the soundtrack to the Eighties. October 2011 marks the thirtieth anniversary of Dare, the Human League's seminal third album. With its Vogue-inspired artwork and infectious mix of nightclub pop and post-punk experimentation, it set a completely new agenda: totally modern, cerebral yet danceable, uniquely stylish and wryly post-modern. It went on to became one of the biggest-selling records of the decade, spawning four major hit singles - including No.1s both sides of the Atlantic - and made an instant celebrity of the band's colourful frontman, Phil Oakey. In Electric Dreams 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.