Human League - "Don't You Want Me"

Three years ago I posted this video with a 99MB encoding - Virgin/EMI had had all the others pulled down, but this remains! Happy 3rd!
Where were you in 82?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_...

The Merchants of Cool:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontli...

The history: http://www.drownedinsound.com/directo...

Youtube Insight Stats as of Nov 1, 2008:

The "Hottest" spot in the video is at 2:56 (The Rover SD1 and the Sabb 99 seem to be the most interesting part of the video for many - the average viewer is a 40 year old makle living in the UK); the most frequently looked at parts of the video are the cars.

37% of the viewers are Female & 63% Male. 13-17 year olds are @12%, 18-24 @8%, 25-34 @11%, 35-44 @35%, 45-54 @28%. 55-64 @5%, 65+ @1%

Nations with the highest percentage of total views:

1. United Kingdom 30.35% 2. United States 28.83% 3. Canada 13.35% 4. Ireland 12.14%
5. Germany 10.92% 6. Spain 10.32%
7. Chile 10.32% 8. Belgium 9.71%
9. Italy 9.10% 10. Sweden 8.80%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_...

The Human League - Don't You Want Me. 1981
With a hit album and three hit singles in a row Virgin's Simon Draper decided to pull one more single from the album before the end of 1981. Their choice of "Don't You Want Me" instantly caused a row with Oakey who did not want another single released because he was convinced that "the public were now sick of hearing The Human League" and the choice of the "poor quality filler track" would almost certainly be a disaster, wrecking the group's new found popularity Virgin were adamant that a fourth single was going to be released and Oakey finally agreed, on the condition that a large colour poster was given away with the single because he felt fans would "feel ripped off" by the 'substandard' single alone.

"Don't You Want Me" was released in the UK on 5 December 1981 and to everyone in the band (and especially Oakeys) amazement it went almost immediately to number one and remained in the UK charts for 13 weeks. The success was repeated six months later with the release of Dare in the U.S., with "Don't You Want Me" hitting number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Billboard magazine ranked it as the United States' sixth-biggest hit of 1982.

The lyrics were originally inspired after lead singer and front man Philip Oakey read a story in a "trashy tabloid". Originally conceived as a male solo, Oakey was inspired by the film A Star Is Born and decided to turn the song in to a conflicting duet with one of the bands two teenage female vocalists. Susan Ann Sulley was asked to take on the role. Up until then she and the other female vocalist Joanne Catherall had only been assigned backing vocals; Sulley says she was chosen only through luck of the draw.[1] There are two more realistic reasons for her choice, that Sulley was the better singer and/or that Catherall, a very introverted character at the time, shied away from the role.

"Don't You Want Me"
In 1981 record company Virgin were becoming aware that promotional music video was evolving into an important marketing tool, with MTV being launched that year. Because it was agreed that the video for Open Your Heart had looked "cheap and nasty", for "Don't You Want Me" they commissioned a much more elaborate and expensive promotional video than for any of their previous releases.

The music video for the song was filmed in Slough, UK in November 1981 and has the theme of the shooting and editing of a murder-mystery film, featuring the band members as characters and production staff. Due to it being a "making of" video, the crew and camera apparatus used within appear throughout. It was conceived and directed by filmmaker Steve Barron, and has at its core the interaction between a successful actress played by Susan Ann Sulley walking out on 'film director' Philip Oakey on a film set. It is based on the theme of the film A Star Is Born. Shot on a cold, wet, winter night it was shot on 35mm film instead of the cheaper video tape prevalent at the time. Susan Sulley states now that Steve Baron was heavily influenced by the cinematography of the promo video for the Ultravox single "Vienna" and used it as a benchmark when shooting "Don't You Want Me". Steve Baron was also influenced by François Truffaut and his film Day for Night and because of that the clapper board seen in the video bears the inscription "Le League Humaine" as a tribute to Truffaut. The video is credited for making Oakey, Sulley and Catherall universally known visual icons of the early 1980s. The video was released in December 1981

• Category

  Music

[murphicus]

Cool! It finally topped 7,000,000! As I said in the description, I uploaded this in 2007 from a 99mb file that I worked over in "Cleaner" to shrink the file from 1GB & polish audio & video. There were piles of inferior versions up then and this came out close to perfect. Emi had all the others removed, but left mine up, along with theirs - /watch?v=uPudE8nDog0 - I think because mine is better! The only problem is that mine is not allowed to be viewed in the USA, where I am (Seattle). Thanks!!!

[MrAlitrab]

Do the americans know the rover SD1?!

[murphicus]

Nope. Only those who are car junkies or have spent lots of time across the pond.

[murphicus]

Great to see it span the generations! I'm 54 and fell for a girl who had the same hair cut as the blonde in the video and looked like her - she WAS working as a waitress in a cocktail bar at the time - and I was a bouncer at the bar! The song has been "ours" since, but a few thousand miles from each other. Cheers! (Teach it to your kids some day!)

[bengt dahlberg]

Yeah!

[black953mg]

Un gran clasico. Saludos desde España

[TheTerraxa]

was everybody gay back in the 80s? I'm glad this shit is over

[сергей магел]

ХИТ ХИТЫЧ

[andovacdz]

7.165.629 reproducciones,Ohhhh!!!! Esta canción y este grupo se lo merecen.

[Alexia Fernandes Kemp]

i love this vid i love 1980's i would like be there!

[bloodhound63]

In the South Atlantic, Falklands! But still remember this on the radio!

[De Vos]

I was still in my dads left nut when this was released

[TheDahuddy]

Touch'e! Great musical era! :-)