The Daily Mirror 1995

TOP OF THE LEAGUE

Leo Roberts

80's icons The Human League have had their fair share of ups and downs

over the years.

The remix of their classic 1981 chart-topper Don't You Want Me shot

straight into the charts at No 16 last weekend.

It was the band's fourth big hit of the year. Yet five years ago the Sheffield - 

Phil Oakey, Susan Sulley and Joanne Catterall - were at rock-bottom.

They'd been dropped by Virgin Records after Romantic?, their sixth album,

bombed.

Susan says: "We were so disheartened that we thought we were useless

and that no one liked us."

The future looked bleak, but the band's fortunes changed when they were

snapped up by East West Records and staged a successful comebackat

the beginning of this year.

Now, with a gold album, Octopus, under their belts and a new Greatest Hits

album in the shops, they are all set for their first British tour since the mid-

Eighties.

Blonde Susan, 32, says: "We haven't toured for nine years and everyone is

really scared. I'm absolutely petrified."

But the success of the tour looks assured thanks to the band's recent hits.

"It has been a great year for us, but I'm never satisfied unless we get to

number 1," says Susan, who joined the Human League in 1980. 

"We get really miserable if one of our records doesn't get into the top 10.

"But you have to get things in perspective. There are people out there dying

in Bosnia - and we haven't lost sight of that even though things haven't been

going well."