The Human League “Fascination!” 1983. EP.  Today, March 22nd, is the birthday of singer Susanne Sulley (b. 1963). Sulley as well as bandmates Philip Oakey, Joanne Catherall and Jo Callis all are featured vocalists on the hit track which reached #2 in the UK and #8 in the US. The EP has two versions of “(Keep Feeling) Fascination,” an extended mix and an improvisation. The song is relentlessly catchy and I suspect I’ll have it as my ear worm for the entire day. The video is worth watching if you want to see what overdone 80′s makeup looked like (for both men and women).

“Mirror Man” is also on the EP. The Human League released it as a single in ‘82 in the UK and in ‘83 in the US. “Mirror Man” is unique to the Human League sound as it featured the first non-synthetic instruments in the band’s output up until that point. According to Allmusic, lyricist Oakey has stated that the target of the song’s lyrics was Adam Ant “whose quite public transformation from bonage-trousered punk to doomy post-punker to flamboyantly colorful new pop pirate seemed crassly desperate to some. In this context, the otherwise inscrutable chorus clearly puns off of the most tabloid-like of British newspapers, The Daily Mirror, as well as the American gossip magazine People, references that wouldn’t make sense if this were the more conventional love song some have mistaken it to be.”

You know I’ll change
If change is what you require
Your every wish
Your every dream, hope, desire

Here comes the mirror man
Says he’s a people fan
Here comes the mirror man