In the Remain in Light review, I suggested that the defining feature of new wave music is the synthesiser – that a synthesiserless band can’t be considered new wave. Maybe that’s not a very defensible thesis, given that some commentators consider new wave to be about songwriting style rather than instrumentation, but big deal. The point here is that, whereas most early 80s bands integrated synthesisers into their music, some took this tendency to an extreme and dispensed entirely with conventional rock instruments like guitars and drums. Dave Gahan once said that such acts were motivated primarily by the fact that synths were cheaper to buy and easier to learn, but either way, the resulting coldly electronic and slightly inhuman sound is, to my mind, the quintessence of 80s pop; it simply didn’t exist in the 70s, and it was marginalised or, at best, only emulated in the 90s. It’s interesting that the progenitors of this sound were almost entirely British: Gary Numan, Yazoo, the Pet Shop Boys, the early Depeche Mode, and of course, the Human League, who apparently started off as an avantgarde synth band, until the necessity to pay the bills birthed a bunch of radio hits; a familiar trajectory in the annals of popular music.
So that’s where Dare came from. And perhaps the strangest, most incongruous, and most typically synthpoppian thing about this album is that, though the music is coldly detached and robotic, many of the lyrics are almost childlike in their striving to make some kind of emotional connection, and their encouragement of the listener to embrace the glorious chaos of life and love. The opener, “Things That Dreams Are Made Of”, is almost comically mechanical; it sounds like a cliché of 80s electronica – Alex Turner’s robot from 1984 dancing to electro-pop is surely dancing to this (both the Human League and the Arctic Monkeys were formed in Sheffield, after all). Oakley’s vocals sound imperious and distant, while the song is powered throughout by an icy electronic throb. And yet the lyrics basically aim to remind us that we only live once, and so we should spend our short lives travelling the world, having one-night stands, and eating ice cream. “The Sound of the Crowd” is similarly disjunctive – initially, its minimalistic, mean-sounding synth verses are intensely threatening, and yet the chorus explodes with a life-affirming call to go among people, have fun, and sink your proud individuality into the warm embrace of the frolicking collective.
A comparably discombobulating effect is achieved by Dare’s love songs (and two of its biggest selling singles). The reptilian keyboard and icy reverb of the drums at the start of “Open Your Heart” are evocative of Joy Division, but the chorus is unexpectedly invaded by a chirpy flute, while the lyrics invite us to keep our hearts open to love even after we have been hurt and want only to protect ourselves. Phil compares the tendency toward emotional retreat and self-protection in the face of pain to a kind of living death – which is curious indeed, given how unalive and inhuman the music is. “Love Action”, too, presents romantic love as an irresistible, almost religious experience and a convenient substitute for god, even as the music sounds angular and emotionally inaccessible. “This is Phil talking”, Oakley feels compelled to sing at one point, as if to remind us that there’s an actual human being behind this android-like cacophony.
But despite all of this hugs-and-learning, there’s a dark underbelly to Dare, in the form of some Black Celebration-style synth-horror tracks, plus a handful of toxic relationship songs. To the former category belongs “Darkness”, a funereal-sounding number which, if I’m not mistaken, narrates Phil Oakley’s childhood fear of the dark. As somebody whose life was briefly ruined by the Ladybird Classics versions of Dracula and The Mummy, I can wholly relate to this song, and its effect is interesting, as it comes hot on the heels of the celebratory singles which open the album. The impenetrably icy “Seconds”, meanwhile, is about an unnamed assassination. The reference to a parade in the opening verse points to Lee Harvey Oswald, but there are surely echoes here of John Lennon’s murder, which lay only two years in the past at the time this album was recorded.
Dare is also peppered with some nasty relationship songs which, as Oakley once observed, are more about “toxic sexual politics” than “believing in a thing called love.” “Do or Die” is the most austere sounding song on the album; its lyrics brilliantly impugn a malignant lover that Philip cannot seem to extricate himself from, while the rather plodding “I Am the Law” enters yet more disturbing territory with its overprotective and controlling proclamations. This song can perhaps be filed alongside the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” and Depeche Mode’s “Question of Time” as 80s pop tunes which obligingly illuminate the perspectives of slightly psychotic stalkers.
And yet even when the lyrics are toxic rather than life-affirming, the overwhelming air of detachment conjured by the coldly cyborgian music remains dominant. Perhaps the only song that breaks through the ice is “Don’t You Want Me?”, which was apparently relegated to being the last song on the album because Oakley so disliked it. The lyrics again conjure a possessive and potentially insane boyfriend, who objects to being abandoned by the lover that he purports to have single-handedly elevated from obscurity to stardom. She, for what it’s worth, sounds like a bit of a cold-blooded social climber, happy to discard her former beau now that she’s “made it.” After an accusatory verse, the bridge slips into disbelieving melancholy, before culminating in what can only be considered an outright threat – that if she doesn’t come back, then both of them will be sorry. It’s a thoroughly bad natured song with two not terribly sympathetic protagonists, and of course, it’s one of the finest moments in all of synthpop.
Dare, clearly, is all about the singles, and I can think of few albums which more effectively channel the aloof and inhuman sound of early 80s pop music. When it lapses into the more expansive avantgarde electronica of the band’s formative years, like on “Do or Die” or “Seconds”, then it gets a bit boring, even exasperating. 80s synthpop is indubitably at its best when packed into a four-minute single, and albums from this era are ultimately best judged on the strength of their radio hits. Dare has an abundance of these. But after an intensive listen, I wouldn’t necessarily have objected to the sound of something warmer and even flawed; a full-sounding guitar, some inexpertly played drums, vocals that briefly lose control. You don’t get that with the Human League, which is ironic, considering the name of the band – perhaps yet another attempt to remind the listener that, yes, there are flesh-and-blood people behind this music, just in case you forgot.
7/10
Highlights: “The Things That Dreams are Made Of”, “Sound of the Crowd”, “Don’t You Want Me?”