Greatest Hits (CD/DVD) - Heaven 17

Heaven 17 arose from the ashes of Human League Mk1. Leaving Phil Oakey to pick up girls from the local disco in order to fulfil tour obligations, the technical boffins of the group Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh formed the BEF and resurrected Tina Turner's career (so now you know who to blame for Simply The Best…). Prior to that event, however, they hooked up with 6ft 37" singer Glenn Gregory who really was an Empire State Human to form a collective called Heaven 17, named from the Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange.

This release some 25 years later is the ubiquitous Greatest Hits compilation that comes hot on the trail of the remastered release of their first three albums. Coupled with this release is a rather spiffing DVD containing their promo videos.

Musically the early Human League were purely electronic and it was probably expected that Ware and Marsh would follow that musical style in their new incarnations. Oddly though, that didn't happen. As a trio, their music was certainly electronic but it was fleshed out with funk elements such as the jangly guitar (which is a bit of a trademark actually), real bass and brass. To my ears at least, this wasn't that obvious on the first two albums but became very evident on How Men Are, which was an album I hated almost immediately and continued to until I bought the remastered reissue earlier this year. Some of the tracks also lyrically go a bit left wing, and the group were big supporters of the Labour Party in England during the 80's.

Alongside classic single Temptation is an early demo of the song from 1981 which I'd never heard before, but I can tell you now is the perfect template for Electroclash right down to the monotonous Germanic female vocals. Superb, really is. Most of these tracks are a perfect example of really good synthpop by one of the most underrated groups of the time.

The quality tends to taper a bit towards the latter part of the CD with tracks like Contenders, Trouble and Ballad Of Go-Go Brown not as strong as what came before, same could be said really for brass tinged Sunset Now and This Is Mine. The album finishes strongly though with another underrated track in Train Of Love In Motion, which would be in my Top 5 of H17 tracks easily. Musically we veer between moody tracks like Let Me Go and And That's No Lie, the funk of Penthouse And Pavement, outright dance with We Live So Fast and I'm Your Money, and then ballad with Come Live With Me. Also included is soul ballad A Foolish Thing To Do where Glenn Gregory passes the mic to soul legend Jimmy Ruffin.

The DVD contains just about all the available promo vids made by the band and unlike the recent Japan release, this is just superb. Whilst the picture does look a little grainy in places, the picture is pretty much artefact free and sounds fantastic. Whoever did the sound on this did a really good job. Included as extras are Temptation '92 (which is really the Brothers In Rhythm remix) and Penthouse And Pavement '92, the latter I don't even recall. The vid for the former is exactly the same video as the normal release bar the song title appearing a few times whilst the latter is just a collage of all the promos on this release, therefore not that good but worth it to hear the track.

The price is pretty cheap and my only real gripe is the artwork design and lack of TOTP performances which would have made the DVD extra special. I really thought that the label could have made the effort to either commission another Ray Smith piece or reproduce the NASA style logo from Endless. Instead it looks a little cheap, but then at the price it's a must have for any synthpop fan.

Buy it, you won't regret it.

This review appeared on www.synthpop.net in 2006