The Human League constructed their own demise with ‘All I Ever Wanted’
Would it surprise you to know that ‘All I Ever Wanted’ by The Human League was only released in 2001?
I say ‘only’; it’s not as if that was yesterday in our current terms. But to the average listener, everything about The Human League screams the 1980s. A time of synth pop, new wave, and shiny fresh sonics that changed the music industry forever. For many, not least Philip Oakley and Co, they mentally never left.
But alas, as much as the era of pop supremacy and neon clothing only lasted ten years, the same as any other passage of time. Subsequently, two decades down the line, as the new millennium dawned, The Human League had a gargantuan task on their hands if they ever wanted to reclaim their synth pride.
Yet the bleak reality of middle age was staring them right in the face: Oakley was 40 by this point, and Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley were both in their late 30s. While this is not to say that the Grim Reaper was anywhere close, in terms of the chart zeitgeist primarily dictated by young people, their graves had practically already been dug.
It bears saying that ‘All I Ever Wanted’ is by no means a bad song. If it had perhaps been released in 1981, it would have been a surefire hit. But then the band had to wake up from their golden slumber dream – 14 years had passed since that point, and the appetite for new wave was no longer nostalgic, but entirely non-existent.
This spoke to an issue of pretty tragic conformity. For all the explosion of synth pop had been a revolution during the ‘80s that The Human League had very much been at the forefront of, it also effectively became the captor that they fell in love with. They wanted to live vicariously in the youth that was still alive and well in their own heads, but was no longer ultimately reflected on the outside.
The song got minimal airplay, and an expected storm up the charts only ended up being a stalled train as it merely managed to reach number 47. It was the dawning moment of realisation for the band that the decade of their dreams was truly dead now, and it wasn’t like they intentionally wanted to give up, but they almost saw no point in carrying on.
As such, after ‘All I Ever Wanted’ had come and gone without much fanfare, it was the watershed for The Human League. They bowed out from a presence on major labels and have only ever made one independent record, in the form of Credo, since then. They knew what their space was, and never wanted to change their rank.
In this sense, to answer the question, yes: The Human League did create their own demise with ‘All I Ever Wanted’. But if there was ever a case study in refusing to change and bowing out by your own decision, you could also turn to them for that. The ‘80s were, indeed, all that the band ever wanted, and they were more than willing to die on that hill.
