Rolling Stone
November 16, 1989
When the Human League's American debut, Dare, began its race up the charts in 1982, both the band and the album seemed unabashed rock rip-offs to more than a few skeptics. The British band, after all, sported no guitars, and there was no drummer or bassist in the group, either. What the Human League used to create Dare was a wash of synthesizers performed by band members who didn't even consider themselves to be professional musicians.
"We started out as rank amateurs with a belief that you could use technology to make up for the fact that you hadn't acquired any skill, that you could use computers to make up for the fact that you hadn't any keyboard players, that you could use sequencers to do rhythms rather than employ a drummer," Human League vocalist and songwriter Phil Oakey told Musician magazine in 1982.
Dare helped pave the way for the onslaught of electronics that would permeate rock on every level in the Eighties. The album demonstrated that synth pop was a viable alternative to rock's time-tested but guitar-glutted formulas. Dare and its smash single, "Don't You Want Me," also proved that the lucrative American market would willingly digest synth pop, provided there was enough in the way of melody and rhythm to overcome the sometimes sterile strains of the synthesizer sound.
With Dare, the Human League linked itself as much to the Sex Pistols as it did to Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder, two Seventies pioneers in techno-rock. Like punk — a movement completely at odds with the kind of pop music a band like the Human League wanted to make — the band confirmed that attitude, and not musicianship, is what's really important in the rock & roll process, and that with enough determination, virtually anyone can play the music.
Produced by Martin Rushent, who had also worked with the Buzzcocks and the Stranglers, Dare was the Human League's third album. The previous two, Reproduction (1979) and Travelogue (1980), were U.K.-only releases. Critically acclaimed, both LPs nonetheless possessed largely unfocused attempts at making synth pop an accessible rock style.
After a personnel shake-up in 1980 that left Oakey and Philip Adrian Wright the only surviving members of the original Human League (Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware went on to form the British Electric Foundation and then Heaven 17), the band was revamped with newcomers Ian Burden and Jo Callis on synthesizers and Joanne Catherall and Susanne Sulley on vocals.
Aside from delivering an alluring synthesizer-soaked brand of rock on Dare, Oakey and the rest of the Human League further validated their best songs with lyrics that went beyond pop pap. "Seconds," a deceptively haunting song about the JFK assassination, "Darkness," a tune about paranoia, and "The Sound of the Crowd," a satirical stab at conformity, are nearly as memorable as "Don't You Want Me."
But in the end, Dare is most remembered for its slick synthesizers, drum machines, dance rhythms and palatable pop.
"We wanted to have a Number One record — like the Beatles," Oakey said. With "Don't You Want Me," the Human League achieved its goal.
NME
Morley, Paul (17 October 1981).
"Review: The Human League – Dare"
"Dare is the second intoxicating intervention to be produced out of the great split [referring to Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware leaving the first incarnation of the Human League, and their album Penthouse and Pavement released with their new band Heaven 17], and already it's the first Human League greatest hits collection... Much more than Abba or whoever you like, The Human League signify that deliciously serious, sincerely disposable MOR music can possess style, quality and sophistication... I think that Dare is one of the GREAT popular music LPs."
BBC Online
Over 30 years on, Dare’s music still sounds fresh enough to mark it a pop classic.
Ian Wade 2012
The Human League were deemed all but dead when the ‘musicians’ left to form Heaven 17. But Phil Oakey’s trip to his local Sheffield nightclub proved to be a very good idea, as he recruited a couple of schoolgirls who’d propel the band to new heights. Within a year Phil, Adrian, Joanne and Susanne (and later Ian Burden and Jo Callis) were to become the biggest band in the country and number one come Christmas 1981 with one of the top-selling singles of the decade.
Dare, released in October '81, showcased the band’s growth from sinister-sounding electronics to a triumph of the new pop aesthetic arising from New Wave. With a high-gloss cover (which cost 50p more to keep it perfectly white) stolen from a Vogue fashion piece, Dare was heralded by a trio of successful singles – the clanking boom-crash of The Sound of the Crowd, the utterly wondrous Love Action (I Believe in Love) and the intense Open Your Heart.
Older fans who might have been put off by this new ‘selling records’ approach were still catered for. Darkness practically invents electro goth, and I Am the Law is a perfectly ominous piece full of dystopian themes, with Phil giving it his best Judge Dredd. The album also touches on wish fulfilment with The Things That Dreams are Made of, explores JFK’s assassination on Seconds, and presents the Get Carter theme via a Casio VL-Tone – essentially a calculator with a samba preset.
Martin Rushent’s enthusiasm for buying fancy new equipment, now at affordable prices, benefited Oakey’s quest for a fresh sound. But for all of Dare’s highs, its closer has proved to be The Human League’s deathless contribution to the eternal pop canon. Don’t You Want Me is a song that has taken a battering from keen karaoke amateurs since its release, but it remains one of the greatest chart-toppers ever.
This reissue collects extended versions along with Hard Times, and includes Fascination, which was an import-only compilation of the next two singles – Mirror Man and the title-track – and respective B sides. Everything’s representative of the imperial phase of a band that genuinely had the world at its feet. Dare is a pop album so perfect that its makers could’ve easily left it there and their legacy would’ve been complete. That this music still sounds so incredible after 30-odd years is what makes it a classic.
The Observer (Sunday 20 June 2004)
96 Dare, The Human League
Virgin, 1981; chart position: 1
Forget the haircuts, remember the songs
A triumph of content over considerable style, Dare was at once phenomenally commercial and gleefully avant-garde. Phil Oakey recently recalled that during the recording process both Virgin Records and producer Martin Rushent 'were adamant that anything that made the record more saleable must be included', yet the album remains true to the Sheffield group's experimental blueprint. It just so happened that with 'Don't You Want Me' they had a worldwide hit that still fills dancefloor to this day. (PR)
Burn it: Don't You Want Me; Love Action
AllMusic
The Human League
Dare!
AllMusic Rating *****
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Dare! captures a moment in time perfectly -- the moment post-punk's robotic fascination with synthesizers met a clinical Bowie-esque infatuation with fashion and modern art, including pop culture, plus a healthy love of songcraft. The Human League had shown much of this on their early singles, such as "Empire State Human," but on Dare! they simply gelled, as their style was supported by music and songs with emotional substance. That doesn't mean that the album isn't arty, since it certainly is, but that's part of its power -- the self-conscious detachment enhances the postmodern sense of emotional isolation, obsession with form over content, and love of modernity for its own sake. That's why Dare! struck a chord with listeners who didn't like synth pop or the new romantics in 1981, and why it still sounds startlingly original decades after its original release -- the technology may have dated, synths and drum machines may have become more advanced, but few have manipulated technology in such an emotionally effective way. Of course, that all wouldn't matter if the songs themselves didn't work smashingly, whether it's a mood piece as eerie as "Seconds," an anti-anthem like "The Things That Dreams Are Made Of," the dance club glow of "Love Action (I Believe in Love)," or the utter genius of "Don't You Want Me," a devastating chronicle of a frayed romance wrapped in the greatest pop hooks and production of its year. The latter was a huge hit, so much so that it overshadowed the album in the minds of most listeners, yet, for all of its shining brilliance, it wasn't a pop supernova -- it's simply the brightest star on this record, one of the defining records of its time.
Amazon.com
When flipping through the annals of new-wave history, one can easily enough overlook the entry marked "Human League." But the truth of the matter is, this Phil Oakey-helmed synth-pop outfit was crucial to the movement, and, Dare, its third release, is an absolute linchpin. Thanks to its breakthrough single, "Don't You Want Me," the record almost single-handedly made it safe to like new wave, and an MTV video gave it a fashionable face that was impossible to ignore. The sound was theatrical, awash in kitschy keyboards, but felt new and refreshing back in 1982. The League would never climb to such hooky aesthetic heights again; Dare! ranks as its greatest achievement--and it still sounds new and refreshing today. --Tom Lanham