Rating: 
Summary: All I Ever Wanted.
Review: "The Very Best Of" Human League is what a music video dvd should be--extremely thorough, insight into the band and good videos. In fact, although I've been a Human League fan since 1981, the only videos I was exposed to were "Don't You Want Me", "(Keep Feeling) Fascination", "Human" and "Heart Like A Wheel". The other 15 videos were surprisingly good for the 1980's. The six live performances were just an added bonus. The interview with the band I found to be most interesting and it converted my wife into appreciating Human League as a cornerstone of electronic music.Basically what you get is 19 videos ranging from guerilla film-making like "Circus Of Death" and "Empire State Human" from 1979 to solid storyline videos like "Don't You Want Me" and "Louise" to sleek videos like "Human", "Heart Like A Wheel", "Tell Me When" and "All I Ever Wanted". The videos total 1 hour and 11 minutes. There are six live performances--four from 1981 and two from 1995. Also included is a 2003 interview with the band that runs about 25 minutes. The total length of the content is approximately 1 hour and 56 minutes. It is a regionless, NTSC disc and the videos and audio have been digitally remastered with the exception of the live performances. Everything is in 2.0 sound. All in all, a little pricey for one disc, but this may likely be the only dvd compilation of videos from this band for quite some time.
Rating:
Summary: A DVD To Own
Review: After finding out this DVD was in existence, I immediately got it and was pleased in the product I got. This disc has every video the League ever made (up to now), and not the most impressive number of extras in the world, but as good as you can get for the Human League. The videos themselves are nice and sharp. Since all but a few of the League's videos were finished on film, I got a tad irked after finding out that they all the videos were sourced from videotape. You can't really remaster videotape, and I was scared that the videos would be ancient transfers to an archive format, like U-Matic. It turns out they are ancient transfers (though I doubt to U-Matic). This surprised me, because at the time some of the older videos were made (specifically, the Dare and Hysteria vdeos), other bands who were much more famous, like ABBA, were having shoddy, washed out transfers being archived. So to see a film transfer from 1981 with just about the same clarity you'd get today, that was suprising. These videos really didn't need to be original negative remasters, since they were so well transferred back when. On the other hand, ABBA's well-done Definitve Collection has every video remastered from the original film (when they were made on it), because, like I said, if Universal got lazy and used the masters for Gold and More Gold, there would be some very ugly videos on that DVD. I won't bother to repeat what others have said about this, other than Virgin went the extra mile and put a nice 25 minute interview on the DVD. The live performances I don't really care for, since the band is just lip-synching to the songs, and there are a few overdubs thrown in just for fun. Good job, Virgin, it's just what we wanted!
Rating: 
Summary: Hits & Misses! Fascinating!!
Review: Ahhh...The Human League- one of the most enduring & strangely endearing 80's synth-pop bands to ever cross the Atlantic. Anyone watching MTV in the 80's is sure to have images of the band etched in their heads thanks to hits like "Fascination" & "Don't You Want Me," featuring singer Phil Oakey & his 2 female back-up singers, Joanne & Susanne, competing to see who could wear the biggest earrings & the heaviest eyeliner.
This career-spanning video collection follows the group through every up & down, every hit, & every miss- from their earliest days as avant-garde electronica pioneers, to mainstream dance-pop stars.
Rating:
Summary: Love Action, Not Quite, the DVD is Missing In Action
Review: Grab it ...if you can find it. The videos are very cleaned up and beautiful to look at, (particularly Fascination). The only things missing are the original video version of "The Sound of the Crowd," from Top of the Pops TV show that appeared on previous VHS video compilations. Instead there is a different TOTP version and a live version as well. Also the rarely seen "Filling Up With Heaven", video is missing as it was from the last Best Of Double CD. This was omitted simply because Virgin couldn't get permission from EastWest Records to use it on either compilation. Sadly where the band interview is concerned, there seems to be a lot of editing going on (there are many fades to black after the band answers any given question that is asked of them). My guess is either the band just trailed off on boring tangents, or what's more likely is that Virgin didn't want some of the content to be seen or heard by viewers (remember Virgin dumped the League from their label several years ago). Anyway, if you are a fan of this band then I suggest you try to get a hold of this DVD as as I doubt another video compilation of this much under-appreciated band will ever appear again in our lifetime. Here's the content listing: 1. Cicus of Death
2. Empire State Human
3. Love Action
4. Open Your Heart
5. Don't You Want Me
6. Mirror Man
7. (Keep Feeling) Fascination
8. The Lebanon
9. Life on Your Own
10. Together In Electric Dreams
11. Louise
12. Human
13. Love is All That Matters
14. I Need Your Loving (Yuck!)
15. Heart Like A Wheel
16. Soundtrack to a Generation
17. Tell Me When
18. One Man in My Heart
19. All I Ever Wanted Band Interview TV Appearances (Top of the Pops): The Sound of the Crowd
Love Action
Open Your Heart
Don't You Want Me Live with Jools Holland (1995): The Stars are Going Out
The Sound of the Crowd
Rating:
Summary: FASCINATED WITH THE HUMAN LEAGUE
Review: HEY 80S FANS!! CONTRARY TO THE PREVIOUS NID-PICKING REVIEWER,IF YOU WERE AND STILL ARE A BIG FAN OF "THE HUMAN LEAGUE" THEIR BEST-OF DVD IS TOTALLY EXPLOSIVE!THIS DVD IS DIGITALLY MASTERED FOR NEAR-PERFECT PICTURE AND SOUND QUALITY.ITS A MUST HAVE,MUST SEE.INCLUDED ARE MOSTLY ALL OF THEIR VIDEOS IN VIVID 80S GLORY!!THERE ARE ABOUT 6 LIVE PERFORMANCES.IF YOU TRULY APPRECIATE NEW WAVE MUSIC,POP MUSIC,OR DANCE MUSIC YOU'LL LOVE THIS DVD!!
Rating:
Summary: FASCINATED WITH THE HUMAN LEAGUE
Review: HEY 80S FANS!! CONTRARY TO THE PREVIOUS NID-PICKING REVIEWER,IF YOU WERE AND STILL ARE A BIG FAN OF "THE HUMAN LEAGUE" THEIR BEST-OF DVD IS TOTALLY EXPLOSIVE!THIS DVD IS DIGITALLY MASTERED FOR NEAR-PERFECT PICTURE AND SOUND QUALITY.ITS A MUST HAVE,MUST SEE.INCLUDED ARE MOSTLY ALL OF THEIR VIDEOS IN VIVID 80S GLORY!!THERE ARE ABOUT 6 LIVE PERFORMANCES.IF YOU TRULY APPRECIATE NEW WAVE MUSIC,POP MUSIC,OR DANCE MUSIC YOU'LL LOVE THIS DVD!!
Rating:
Summary: FASCINATED WITH THE HUMAN LEAGUE
Review: I picked this up yesterday after searching awhile. It's as good as it gets as it collects nearly every video the Human League made going back from 1979 to 2001. Keep in mind that even with VH1 Classic, only 3 of their videos get shown nowadays if even (Fascination, Human and the timeless Don't You Want Me), so it's great to see all them together. The only complaint with the videos is a slightly wrong order, Love Action was released first in the UK, but they didn't film the video until mid/late 1982 after Open Your Heart and Don't You Want Me, when they released it as a US single, and you can tell easily that it was filmed later. But besides that, it's no biggie. We also get 4 Top Of The Pops performances from 1981, culminating with them performing Don't You Want Me and "NUMBER ONE" flashing on the screen at the end. We also get 2 1995 UK performances on the Jools Holland show. Also of interest is a lengthy 2003 interview with Phil and the girls, running about 25 minutes. In it they discuss everything you want to know. Fall 2003 is a great time for fans of new wave/synth-pop bands. As Human League, Duran Duran, Erasure and Pet Shop Boys have all issued complete video collection DVD's. All well worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: Human League gets their due
Review: I picked this up yesterday after searching awhile. It's as good as it gets as it collects nearly every video the Human League made going back from 1979 to 2001. Keep in mind that even with VH1 Classic, only 3 of their videos get shown nowadays if even (Fascination, Human and the timeless Don't You Want Me), so it's great to see all them together. The only complaint with the videos is a slightly wrong order, Love Action was released first in the UK, but they didn't film the video until mid/late 1982 after Open Your Heart and Don't You Want Me, when they released it as a US single, and you can tell easily that it was filmed later. But besides that, it's no biggie. We also get 4 Top Of The Pops performances from 1981, culminating with them performing Don't You Want Me and "NUMBER ONE" flashing on the screen at the end. We also get 2 1995 UK performances on the Jools Holland show. Also of interest is a lengthy 2003 interview with Phil and the girls, running about 25 minutes. In it they discuss everything you want to know. Fall 2003 is a great time for fans of new wave/synth-pop bands. As Human League, Duran Duran, Erasure and Pet Shop Boys have all issued complete video collection DVD's. All well worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: Wow! -- They're alive and well and still making music!!!
Review: I was so excited when I heard this DVD was coming out. The League is one of my all-time favourite bands, and over the past two decades I've played their "Dare" and "Love and Dancing" albums over and over and they've always sounded just as fresh as the day I bought them. But it always brought a tinge of regret in me over the way -- I assumed -- this great group had self-destructed and disappeared with the end of the 80s. And although they were more popular here in Canada, since they only had a couple of hits in the US which it seemed everyone had long since forgotten about, I thought a DVD compilation like this was just a crazy dream for fans like me on this side of the Atlantic. Well, not only was I overjoyed in actually getting such a DVD, but I had the most amazing surprise in store for me when I found out that they had NOT broken up after the last video of theirs ever shown in my part of the world ("Human"), and that in fact they had continued making music aaaall these years and were even still together and making music today. I had no idea! It's made me SO happy!! It's like finding out one of your best friends who you thought had died in a "Crash" (pun intended) years ago is in fact still alive and well and living just around the corner from you! I loved seeing the two videos I've been dying to see again -- "Open Your Heart", and "Fascination" -- after all these years. Still great, great songs and classic videos. And the opening notes of "Mirror Man" made me think "Hey I know this song...wait a minute...what is it? ...Oh yeah!!" It was wonderful rediscovering a song I had TOTALLY forgotten about. Some real treasures for me here were the Top Of The Pops performances, which I had always dreamed of owning but thought I would have to wait endless millennia for some sort of TOTP compilation to get. Thank you, Virgin! I see the beginning of the band's decline as "The Lebanon". Still a good song, but Phil's sudden change in image -- from an avant-garde icon who led the way that others followed, to a more regulation-issue jeans and leather jacket with gritty unshaven beard and "rock star hair" kind of look -- sent alarm bells ringing in my head and told me some record company exec must have gotten hold of them and told them they had to change their image to appeal to a "wider demographic" or some such nonsense. Grrr... It's been interesting going through the rest of the videos, catching up and following the ups and downs of their career over the years since then. The sickeningly sweet saccharine sentimentality (--whew, how's that for alliteration? ;) ) of "Louise" I can do without. And the Human League trying to be The Gap Band?? Say wha..? And the utterly conventional rock tune "Heart Like a Wheel" seems pretty uninspired. "Soundtrack To A Generation" sounds pretty good, until you get to that annoying "ooh wow -- holy cow!" chorus which puts it instead into the "what WERE they thinking???" category. But then, miracle of miracles, things very suddenly start to improve. "Tell Me When" actually has that good old techno sound that I LOVE, and the videos for this and "One Man In My Heart" are utterly beautiful. Yeah, they're clearly directed at what the record company believes is an older, more mellowed and cappuccino-drinking audience, but still very, very good. And then we come to the video which just blew me away -- "All I Ever Wanted". THIS is the Human League I remember, updated for the new millennium! All the elements which once made them great are back -- the fashion sense, the technology, the futurism -- plus one of their most solid songs in years! So WHY~ is this not getting the airplay it deserves and becoming the hit it should be??? Which brings me to my most favourite part of all of this DVD, which is the extended interview. It's wonderful to finally meet the people who've brought me so much musical pleasure over the years. We find the band in a rather sombre and demoralized state after having given their all and made a killer new album, but being unable to reach anyone with it due to being completely shut out from today's totally cookie-cutter radio playlists. It's like somewhere around 1990 or so, some fat backroom exec in LA said "okay, as of today everything we've called 'New Wave' will now be called 'Old School' or 'Retro', and we'll only play the old hits of these artists but nothing new. From now on we're only gonna push Grunge, Rap and made-in-the-USA plastic pop icons." And from that day onward music descended into the utter PAP which infests the airwaves today. So if this DVD helps the band to cut through this crap and re-connect with more long-lost fans like myself, all I can say is a huge "BRAVO!!!"
Rating:
Summary: Wow! -- They're alive and well and still making music!!!
Review: I was so excited when I heard this DVD was coming out. The League is one of my all-time favourite bands, and over the past two decades I've played their "Dare" and "Love and Dancing" albums over and over and they've always sounded just as fresh as the day I bought them. But it always brought a tinge of regret in me over the way -- I assumed -- this great group had self-destructed and disappeared with the end of the 80s. And although they were more popular here in Canada, since they only had a couple of hits in the US which it seemed everyone had long since forgotten about, I thought a DVD compilation like this was just a crazy dream for fans like me on this side of the Atlantic. Well, not only was I overjoyed in actually getting such a DVD, but I had the most amazing surprise in store for me when I found out that they had NOT broken up after the last video of theirs ever shown in my part of the world ("Human"), and that in fact they had continued making music aaaall these years and were even still together and making music today. I had no idea! It's made me SO happy!! It's like finding out one of your best friends who you thought had died in a "Crash" (pun intended) years ago is in fact still alive and well and living just around the corner from you! I loved seeing the two videos I've been dying to see again -- "Open Your Heart", and "Fascination" -- after all these years. Still great, great songs and classic videos. And the opening notes of "Mirror Man" made me think "Hey I know this song...wait a minute...what is it? ...Oh yeah!!" It was wonderful rediscovering a song I had TOTALLY forgotten about. Some real treasures for me here were the Top Of The Pops performances, which I had always dreamed of owning but thought I would have to wait endless millennia for some sort of TOTP compilation to get. Thank you, Virgin! I see the beginning of the band's decline as "The Lebanon". Still a good song, but Phil's sudden change in image -- from an avant-garde icon who led the way that others followed, to a more regulation-issue jeans and leather jacket with gritty unshaven beard and "rock star hair" kind of look -- sent alarm bells ringing in my head and told me some record company exec must have gotten hold of them and told them they had to change their image to appeal to a "wider demographic" or some such nonsense. Grrr... It's been interesting going through the rest of the videos, catching up and following the ups and downs of their career over the years since then. The sickeningly sweet saccharine sentimentality (--whew, how's that for alliteration? ;) ) of "Louise" I can do without. And the Human League trying to be The Gap Band?? Say wha..? And the utterly conventional rock tune "Heart Like a Wheel" seems pretty uninspired. "Soundtrack To A Generation" sounds pretty good, until you get to that annoying "ooh wow -- holy cow!" chorus which puts it instead into the "what WERE they thinking???" category. But then, miracle of miracles, things very suddenly start to improve. "Tell Me When" actually has that good old techno sound that I LOVE, and the videos for this and "One Man In My Heart" are utterly beautiful. Yeah, they're clearly directed at what the record company believes is an older, more mellowed and cappuccino-drinking audience, but still very, very good. And then we come to the video which just blew me away -- "All I Ever Wanted". THIS is the Human League I remember, updated for the new millennium! All the elements which once made them great are back -- the fashion sense, the technology, the futurism -- plus one of their most solid songs in years! So WHY~ is this not getting the airplay it deserves and becoming the hit it should be??? Which brings me to my most favourite part of all of this DVD, which is the extended interview. It's wonderful to finally meet the people who've brought me so much musical pleasure over the years. We find the band in a rather sombre and demoralized state after having given their all and made a killer new album, but being unable to reach anyone with it due to being completely shut out from today's totally cookie-cutter radio playlists. It's like somewhere around 1990 or so, some fat backroom exec in LA said "okay, as of today everything we've called 'New Wave' will now be called 'Old School' or 'Retro', and we'll only play the old hits of these artists but nothing new. From now on we're only gonna push Grunge, Rap and made-in-the-USA plastic pop icons." And from that day onward music descended into the utter PAP which infests the airwaves today. So if this DVD helps the band to cut through this crap and re-connect with more long-lost fans like myself, all I can say is a huge "BRAVO!!!"
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