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From: chetano
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  • too bad they went silly commercial, for me they are the I-mac of modern music

  • yes, young people have to realise they owe their souls, all that they are to a bunch of free thinking nuts back in the day. Take the pain and enjoy

  • english P-I-O-N-E-E-R-S

    

  • Those lovely, loveable, nice sounding analoque synthesisers were not so easy ones to keep in tune. I know. And I have stopped my sericulture. And Phil's hair is good.

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  • Love the sound of those old analogue synths.

  • i have another version of this song on vinyl,much harder but i cant find it here.Its only the old version.this is a being boring to me,i want the other version...where can i find it?

  • @gnu63 Best version IMO is the 1980 version. Search for Being Boiled 1980.

  • @gnu63 look for the "fast" version . . . i just watched/heard it on YOUTUBE.

  • ...and what's wrong with 'gay' hair anyway? prolly took a fair amount of guts to sport that kinda 'do back then. Pretty badass tune by the way

  • gay hair??? how about stellar tune. move the fuck on.

  • the hair wouldnt look 'gay' if he teased that long side or something. it looks kind of lame like that. it's maybe like what one of those 'outrageous'/flamboyant gay guys would wear (if it was blond) lol. anyway this is obviously very good. i think it was kind of a cool hair-do for 1978. i agree the synths are incredible though.

  • Das ist ja mal eine verschwuchtelte Frisur!

  • kick ass man

  • kmfdm totally stole this song in blitz

    

  • Roland Jupiter 4 .. Wonderful!

  • It's a shame how many great UK bands went rubbish by trying to break into the US market- OMD, the Human League, New Labour…

  • @SuperTruth77

    I sort of diagree, since at that point the US market wasn't to favorable to pop anyhow, let alone electronic pop.

    And anyway, the great thing about Human league is that they showed, with their subsequent music, that synth music doesn't have to be the stereotypical cold "robot" thing. If they had stayed doing this style they may have been forgotten as just Kraftwerk-lite.

  • The main hook is a killer, I've never got it out of my head. They lead the way in synth music, this sounded metal when it first came out. Uber cool.

  • Truly amazing version.

    South Yorkshire's best export without doubt.

  • KMFDM have a version of this..not sure who covered who. /watch?v=UYnNeUcstS8

  • @kymully1 This is the original :)

  • Great... but the synth guys..Martyn Ware & Ian Craig Marsh were from Sheffield not Cambridge.

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  • Ahhhh, proper 80's, before heaven 17, there was proper human league too! gets no better.

  • Great sound

    

  • Top tune !

  • @TRB1946 ♥

  • Listen to the voice of Oakey...

    Saying stop and listen to their new song called Night People.

  • @Animateme3D Listen to the VOICE of Oakey....saying "Stop talkin' ALL that hokey"......

  • @Animateme3D Night People just doesn't compare with this.

  • A truly fantastic song. Brilliant sound.

  • I was 11 at the time... Now i'm 43 and I still adore it

  • brilliant synths. love the sound , very interesting idea although buddhist monk garments are cotton

  • Best synths. I prefer wen they were up there with TG not pop.

  • i remember ..... surly not everything - but i remember ;-)

  • This is brilliant... 1978!

  • Man beachte den Peak Level,sowas gibt es so nicht mehr,geil! Schöne Vergangenheit,i love it :-)

  • the live version is better than the studio

  • Those synths sound incredible!

  • @HAL0INREVERSE

    Compare these sounds to the shitty, thin, shrill, boring, flat, lifeless sounds used in most music of the last 15 years. Hmmmm someone fucked up didnt they lol.

    Most songs from the 70's and 80's contain 'sounds' that really interest me. I've never come across a Korg Triton, Nord Lead, JP8000 sound that made me excited.

  • @DIGITALSCREAMS It's the same old story; "experts" tell us digital is superior to analogue. That C.D. is superior to vinyl & that transistor amps are superior to valve. 20 odd years down the line experts change their minds & tell us what some of us have always known, that they were wrong! Meanwhile all those mugs who got rid of their "inferior, obsolete" gear, pay through the nose in a desperate attempt to reacquire it. So says a man who replaced his (nicked, admittedly) Juno 6 with a D10!

  • Check it out in the credits for Ninja Assasin, 2nd song. What a cool song!

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  • I had this cassette.

  • Questa musica si ballava al COSMIC ... gradi Human

  • ok ..ready..let's do it!

  • The synth guys who were part of the human league were computer geniuses from cambridge. God the sequences must of taken ages to program and record on those ancient reel-to-reel tapes which date back to the 50s. Real talent behind that great techno

  • Saw them live tonight here in Sweden, this song included, and they were easily the best act of the night in my opinion (together with Ultravox). Wonderful experience, I'm happy to have seen them all and very lucky to have them visit my town in particular. Made my month.

  • Thanks so much for posting this...I never seen this played live...:¬)

  • Meine erste Discobegegnung

  • The best song about silk production ever! So cool - even now! Phil Oakey is one sexy guy too! - a girl :)

  • awsome just awsome

  • A big thank you Metalbucket,I loved your comments. A breath of fresh air in these times. There influence hasn't been fully recognised or acknowledged by people with no taste or feeling in my opinion.

  • This reminds me for some Depeche Mode's early song.. hmm..

  • The Human League gave us two brilliant bands for the price of two. Heaven 17 and Human League Mrk2.

  • Que cosa mas extraña, a la vez que innovadora y experimental.

    Genial.

  • Good old Tony.

  • Phil Oakey wasn't a very good singer and this sounds like something Kraftwerk were doing years before they came along and the polyphonic syth sounds badly programmed. "LIsten to the voice of Buddah" was a regular wanky 80s line, pretentious and silly at the same time. Some people are blinded by nostalgia.

  • @metalbucket2 "Phil Oakey wasn't a very good singer" then go listen to Whitney Houston, faggot.

  • @derpestarzt Sorry I forgot this is this spotty geeks forum. It's all about masturbating over the electronic equipment and the tape players. Why don't you put the Kleenex down, walk out of your bedroom, go out and meet some people.

  • @metalbucket2 I know lots of people, go out regularly and don't have spots, oh and i also have a girlfriend and drive a cool car but if u don't get turned on by those synthes there is something seriously wrong wit u!!! The sound or raw electricity is fuckin amazin so if ya don't like it don't listen. Simple eh???

  • @RasOrville Amen!

  • @RasOrville what's the car? :)

  • @metalbucket2 Lol, I know that in the eyes of a simpleton like you anyone who can use a synth has to be for necessity some sort of brainy freak with no friends, but that only says how much of a retard you are. Also I'm a girl so I don't need Kleenex :)

  • @metalbucket2 Its still beats the pants off music today. Still funky. Bottom line. And if you can't hear that...music was never made for you.

  • @metalbucket2 i dont know why you think that phil oakey cant sing..... have you seen the band live.. remember that this was from 1978 i used to go down to near kelvin and listen to them rehearse

  • Gay hair? It was 1978 ffs you muppet

  • @snoozedoggydog still it was a bit lopsided. lol

  • the lead singer has really gay hair. but the music is good.

  • @UberDouchClanLive That is gay hair? Hes wa more hot and talented than you'll ever be ;) Love phil & only 13

  • @tinkerbellys Cool story, bro.

  • @UberDouchClanLive I know :) I love your sarcasm :// :/ & Phil still *hot* now.

  • Aha! I have the answer.. it was 15/2/79, not 78 and the programme was So It Goes on Granada

  • Does anybody know the date the programme was first broadcast. It was 1978, probably June... anybody know more?

    Thanks

  • heavy synthesizer sound, especially for the end of the seventies :)

  • Who exactly is playing the beat here? A talentless machine, programmed by musically intelligent "musician".Your obsession with "authenticity" is misplaced. Electronic music has been moving towards the cold embrace of machines since get go,including their sequencing. House before and after your arbitrary date of 1990 used samplers and sequencers and like the HL and all the electronic bands that cam before them involved pressing buttons. It involves musical intelligence just the same.

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  • I have this, original 7". Good tune

  • wow.

  • All you so called electronic DJ's, don't you see the difference? You call yourself a musicians? You call techno a music? Listen and watch THIS, because this is electronic music made by man and played on live instruments. Even a monkey can make music by pressing a key on keyboard. STOP CALLING TECHNO/HOUSE ELECTRONIC MUSIC!!

  • @AORCrazy AGREE'DDD!!! DJ's play a recorded song and just play around with it (ruin it) .. thats it .. they take credit for others work. Cheers

  • @AORCrazy

    I have to ask, did you know that the GOOD old house wasn't made in this primitive sampling way?

  • @gombie M8 i know how the good old house was made perfectly well, i wasn't refering to it, i was refering to house music beyond 1990 which is made half/half e.g. half man made and half sampled. The only house music that i like is the likes of Bomb the bass or S Express or Colonel Abrams, when house was taken over by DJ it went into shit.

  • @AORCrazy

    Good, i was just checking. Because there is always people who think that electronic music is just mixing samples.

  • @AORCrazy Of course Tech/House music are electronic music, you have to a monkey not to understand that. If you want hands on "musicianship"you are in the wrong bar my friend...get down to Nashville.

  • very nice

  • Fuck, this would sound soooo good if the audio was better quality

  • a very sexy track.

  • My fave version, I wish this was released.

  • Thank goodness not all of the music from the 70s, the decade I was born, totally sucks. Phew.

  • Probably the only anti-silk trade song ever written LOL

  • 1979!!! i was 2 years old and i remembered!!

  • 1978, actually

  • Yeah but there were the size of rooms and all monophonic. Nothing at all like the ones the HL or Kraftwerk used. In fact, Kraftwerk used to build their own synths!

  • You must remember that this was written at a time when synths had just about been invented! Very few musicians were using them and nobody was using them like this (apart from Kraftwerk). These guys were the trailblazers of their time. But two of them left to form Heaven 17 and left Phil to go pop!!!

  • @CombatRocks You make it all sound so amicable. They didn't just "leave", they were booted out and replaced by the 2 all dancing and all singing girls!

  • Been looking up some old bands that are related to the tunes I like, experimenting; but what happened to Human League this is nothing like that "don't you want me" and "the lebanon" b/s. I know bands like to experiment and try new stuff but, Yikes.

  • 'don't you want me' WAS the experiment

  • Yea for sure didn't this stuff come first or am I wrong?

  • when Mr Oakey went from this and produced pure pop - I recall being very sniffy about it all.....I was wrong of course because it is all sumptuous stuff

  • @accepthis Got ya

  • This was 1978. Don't You Want Me was 1981.

  • sericulture

  • interesting song

    its unbelievable for me to think that the song was released 7 years before my birth

    it sounds so fresh and innovative

    according to wikipediia the song was a commercial failure in 1978 and was rereleased in 1981 and became a huge hit

  • yes thats right. I have the 1978 version on 7" vinyl on the fast product label and it was actually recorded in mono, quite rare.

  • not... really. sounds like the early 80's..

  • Late 70's

  • I was at Grammar School in the UK when this came out. Tried to grow my hair over Summer break , no no...even got written up for wearing white socks below my "sensible slacks" Went in next day in a pair or 14 hole Doctor Marten's...DM's

    No one knew what this song meant....I mean, the start of keyboards etc....I remember dancing to this....Like Carlton off the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.......Hahaha...and Vodka....I remember that too, and.......

  • Is it true that DJs back in the day mixed this with Fade to Grey by Visage and they synced up EXACTLY! The guy who told me tried....and failed miserably

  • maybe Night Train by Visage?

  • i was 21 around the time this came out ! ABSOLUTE QUALITY !.......

  • QUALITY

  • best version of being boiled

  • @MrPhiloakey

    This was played at their first gig in 1978, so I believe. Way better than the punk stuff.

  • yeah,much better!

  • i recommend you the dvd MADE IN SHEFFIELD. it's about the synth revolution in the late 70's interviewing the human league and other great bands and so on. great stuff. there's another great dvd called synth britannia(SYNTH REVOLUTION,BBC).

  • @MrPhiloakey

    Hi

    I started the decade a Jam fan, then when I started to hear these new synth bands in the middle of 1980, decided that a band whose image was 15 years out of date was not the way forward. Bowie, The Human League, Ultravox and late period Blondie were my early faves.

  • great music taste. oh,it's a pity that i'm only 23 years old,i couldn't enjoy the real 80's parties... these days are horrible,don't like the music and charts,it's terrible... 80's music is charismatic,deep,strong and not superficial.

  • @MrPhiloakey

    I grew up in this era, started the decade as a Jam fan but soon realised the synth bands were way better. 80s fashions and youth cults were a lot more exciting, fortunately the chav look seems to be dying out, though.

  • great that you like that style and music,compliment. are there any nice 80's wave parties nowadays? or else we need a time machine ;)

  • @MrPhiloakey

    One of the clubs locally has an eighties night, but this always on a working day. Best to check the internet and listings.

  • there are 80's parties once a month in my hometown... but it's mostly the same. would like to visit a typical synth party but that's not so easy in austria. we don't have lots of underground or scene locations here. would like to go to an other country in some years.

  • @MrPhiloakey

    They do tend to play other stuff like stadium rock, PWL pop and early house music, but I suppose in London there would be nights devoted to early 80s synth music.

  • yeah,i think so,too. london and other english cities have lots of nice oldschool parties,especially synth and 80's pop. i mean,the best music came from england so they have the best things there.

  • @MrPhiloakey

    I saw a documentary in the early 80s about American kids music tastes and most of them preferred British music to banal American crap like REO Speedwagon. We really were top of the game then.

  • Could someone upload the KMFDM version? I cant find it here on YouTube.

  • @MagnitudePerson

    Yeah, like none of the songs from Blitz are on YT yet... probably because it only came out this year. Give it a few months and someone will...

  • This and all versions kicks as and rocks!!!

    The Human League was best at this age id say, i hate the new sutff, i love the lo-fi+raw synth+cloth and "fashion" of this age, thgier newer stuff reminds me of Britnet Spears(one of those modern artists who actually has fake voices, and probably allso body...) Synthpo and Electropop THESE DAYS is just pop, oldschool=WIN.

  • I have not heard their new stuff. The last that I heard was the Octopus album and I liked that but that was about 1994 so I don't know what their new stuff is like. I think that in 1994 I was surprised that they came out with a "new" album. It is a good one. But yes the really early lo fi analog synth sound of The Human League could not be beat. I guess now they are using digital synths and trying to be current which would suck.

  • Human League just signed to UK recording label Wall of Sound! New material (songs, videos, album) expected in 2010!!!!

  • That's great, first Throbbing Gristle returned, then Cabaret Voltaire.

  • But they're old now :<

    Maybe there kids and grnadkids and there kids will invent music for the other ages(Industrial was Victorian Age-followed music, said TG)

  • Interesting that you mentioned it, i've been thinking about that...

  • yes indeed, i wonder how you could take new-thought music up, and if they had time would they had chosen to "take the music up" to another "age"? Im currently working on this, a fusion between EBM and IDM(called IBM, Intelligent Body Music duh..) and theres some underground industrial genres wich never take any big sceen at all, groups like Pig Face(i think this is what the band was called) and some underground, old industrial stuff by NIN(mostly soundtrack tracks n thingies) new Music worlds!!

  • Even more interesting that you tell me that, i'm slowly starting my project to mix old industrial elements (noisiness and metal percussion) with some 90's Industrial rock elements and little bit of ebm elements.

  • Nice nice nice, you must love yourself more than H league. have fun and go f yself buye.

  • KMFDM version kicks ass.

  • Fantastic revolutionary track. This is 31 years old and STILL sounds better than anything thats being released now. The HL were sooo ahead of their time.They pre-empted the 80's by four years! HL/Philip Oakey should be given an Outstanding Achievement Award and made members of the Hall of Fame. They are Britains first and longest-lived synth band. (Keep) Listening To The Voice of Buddha ;)

  • i liked the starting beat.

  • Well said. The Human League to this day is like a group of the future both in terms of making music and also image. Many people don't get this. I wish they get the recognition and accolades for their achievements like you said. But sadly, those awards are already reserved for mega-boring bands who are like Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.

  • Indeed...

  • yes! a ROLAND JUPITER 4 analog synthesizer!

  • This song is on the Ninja Assassin soundtrack!

  • Thank you corbyz - I didn't know what it was about. It is a weird idea for a song, but maybe it is a metaphor, saying don't torture the weak and helpless for your own ends? I note the words "blameless victim." I like everything the Human Leaque did EXCEPT "Don't you want me Baby" which was dreadful.

  • I agree whith what brunsk123 said, I haven't heard all of the Human League's songs yet but I don't like 'Don't you want me' either =/ quite cheesy. 'Human' is my favourite.

    And that syntheziser is cool =D

  • Yeah i think this could be expandedi not a metaphor...

  • Love this track, the league were great until they went too poppy.

  • Listen 2 the voice of Buddah !!!

  • Big Fan of the old Human Leauge.Hated the new stuff! the only good thing about the, Don't you want me baby Video was the Saab 99Turbs in it!

  • @Dillboy And the rover! The saab was really cool, don't get me wrong but there was a Rover SD1 V8 there, which was also really cool and retro,

  • years before i was born, i`m born in oct 15 - 1981. I love synthesizer music/electronics. The great smooth synth sounds - who dominate this song.

    in the video to, the elegance, huge synthesizers, lot of eguitment in the studio, the pioneer of the synth/electronic

    music. Big tapes from "Revox" or "Sony"

  • Those reel tape players are so cool...

  • COOL !!!!

  • i think the kmfdm cover sounds pretty cool

  • I only just realized this song is about not doing silk farming. "Listen to the voice of Buddha, saying stop your sericulture." I went to a silk factory in China and saw the little silkworms being boiled alive. It's how they loosen u...p the threads so they can get it all in one long string... if the worm is allowed to chew its way out, then you get short threads (which can be weaved into "peace silk"). What a weird idea for a song. Though I do agree with it, and never buy silk.

  • Excellent post; I was wondering about the lyrics and your comment put it all together for me. Thanks!

  • Ummm.... WHats wrong whith that?

    ALlso lol i was in Thailand not long ago and they did that for making silk, anyways i love Budhism its more Philosophy than religion AND why dont you buy silk? I LOVE SILK, buy it you wont regret.

    if this is animal vivsecting then your an idiot its an insect, even plants are life. Christianity on the other hand...

  • Some people will kill insects or fish but nothing more intelligent, some will kill birds but nothing higher, some will kill cows and any animal and then some will even kill people... I guess it's a personal issue where you choose to draw the line. Silk production isn't something I'm comfortable with. Anyway, that's what the lyrics are about.

  • Okay, ofc i understand, i just don't get why this song is criticising buddhism when its just handy to sacrafice 1 tiny insect, whos simple lifed.

    Anyways yeah you can't live whithout using nature, even all other animals/insect/fdfish/micros do that! Its just resources. Lions aren't vegetarian for a reason so so are human neither.

  • This is my favorite version. It's so raw and gutterral.

  • Couldn't have said it better !

  • At the time it was revolutionary to have a pop band perform using only synthesizers. As you can see the tech was hardly ready. Plus, THL had punk cred. They weren't playing mindless disco -- at least not yet.

  • Fantastic track- blew me away when I first heard it aged 11 in 1980, and it still has the same effect now.

    However, I still have absolutely no idea whatsoever what the lyrics are about...

  • i prefer the much more minimal non-album "fast product version"

  • you know the great Lester Bangs was said to be listening to Human League when he died. Probably died of fright, or just plain disgust....

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  • Vintage synthesizers are so effin' awesome. Better than the computer-made crap today!

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  • Not necessarily. I mean, isn't the whole point of electronic music that it keeps evolving into better things as the technology becomes more sophisticated?

  • I spit on anyone who does not love this!

  • I've come around from my earlier, stupider time in my life where I would smash the faces of any band that didn't have a massive drum set and a 7 minute guitar solo.

  • fuck kmfdm, this is the origional, the best!!!!

  • What an awesome song. Is he saying "Listen to the voice of Buddha"?

  • Yes he is

  • nice song, i heared the KMFDMs cover, first and its also great

  • I prefer the KMFDM version, but this isn't too bad. :D