Crash is the fifth studio album by English synth-pop band the Human League, released on 8 September 1986 by Virgin Records. The album would provide the band with their second US number-one single, "Human", the same year. It was produced by the American production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who also wrote several tracks.[1]
Background
After spending two years recording their fourth album Hysteria, which met with only moderate commercial success, the band struggled to record further material. They recorded some new material with producer Colin Thurston in Utopia Studios in London, who previously worked with them on the Reproduction album. However, the slow progress in the studio was wearing his patience thin, so once he left for his honeymoon he let his assistant Paul Rabiger take over the rest of the sessions, who would be credited for keyboards and arrangements on the final album.[2] By 1985, musician/songwriter Jo Callis had left the group. Virgin Records, worried by the lack of progress in one of their leading acts, called the band principals to a meeting where a solution was sought. As the problem was perceived to be the lack of production, it was suggested that the band take up an offer to work with Minneapolis-based production duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.[1] Jam and Lewis had written for and produced the S.O.S. Band, Cherrelle and Alexander O'Neal, and had just finished working on Janet Jackson's breakthrough album Control.[1] They had developed an interest in the Human League after the success of their US releases; they were also seeking an opportunity to cross over into mainstream pop and saw the Human League as the perfect opportunity.[1]
In February 1986, the Human League flew to Minneapolis to work at Flyte Time Studios with Jam and Lewis.[1] After initial enthusiasm on both sides, the working relationship began to break down. Jam and Lewis had total control over the final album and insisted that their own tracks take precedence over the band's material. Jam and Lewis were also intolerant of the band's laid-back working methods and lack of musical technical ability. The basic arrangements for the band's material were worked out in England using sequencers, which Jam and Lewis had re-cut with the parts all played by hand for a more natural feel: the liner notes reinforce that "there are no sequencers on this album."[3][4]
After four months in Minneapolis, a sidelined Philip Oakey pulled the band out of further recording. They returned to Sheffield leaving Jam and Lewis to complete the album using session musicians. Oakey said later:
We like to be in control in the studio. We don't like giving that up to a producer. That's why we had a big, final argument, and we just decided to go home and leave them to finish it off. It just got to the point of who had the power, and in that instance...They were the men behind the mixing console, so they had ultimate control.
Keyboard players Philip Adrian Wright and Ian Burden also had been sidelined by Jam and Lewis. "I really wished we were back in Berkshire(where Dare was recorded) with Martin Rushent, making a Human League album," Burden recalled. "It was gratifying to get a US number one with 'Human', but otherwise the album was a crashing bore in every sense."[5] Wright would not recover from the humiliation and left the band upon their return to the UK. Burden eventually quit in 1987.
The album name was taken from a moment in the studio during the recording. Oakey described it thus:
It's from a crash cymbal, because it's a disco album again with lots of cymbals. One day somebody said "what sorts of cymbals do you want, a ride or a crash?", and we thought, "what a great title!"
The album quickly became an unexpected success.[according to whom?] One of Jam and Lewis's compositions, "Human", became the Human League's second number-one single on the US Billboard Hot 100 and their first UK top 10 single in over three years, peaking at number eight. Follow-ups "I Need Your Loving" and the 1988 release "Love Is All That Matters" were less successful, failing to reach the UK top 40.[6] The album itself peaked at number seven in the UK (where it has been certified Gold for shipments in excess of 100,000 copies) and number 24 on the US Billboard 200. Oakey stated his discomfort with the record in 1995, saying: "The Jam and Lewis album [Crash] was just like being a puppet for four months. It was interesting to pick yourself out of the industrial north of England and dump yourself in Minneapolis. Great experience, but it just wasn't our album."[7]
However, in 2015, producer Jimmy Jam mentioned that the primary source of tension between the Human League and Jam and Lewis was the issue of background vocals. Jam thought Sulley and Catherall were good singers, but wanted to use them for the spoken parts on "Human".[1] Jam and Lewis brought in their session vocalist Lisa Keith, who – with Lewis – performed the background vocals. This caused a rift between the producers and the group, which was started by Catherall who was discussing the issue with Oakey at the time of recording.[1] Catherall did not like the idea of another female voice on the album, while Jam and Lewis thought Keith's vocals added to the songs. Jam explained:
The next day we got to the studio. Phil was seeing one of the girls in the group named Joanne. And she was the one raising a stink about the other girl being on the song. Phil walked in and told us, "I have to say. I don't like the idea of another girl being on our record." We said, "What?" He repeated, "I have to say. I don't like the idea of another girl being on our record." We said, "Oh. We get it. We got you. You just have to say it. We got it. Perfect." We called the record company and told them, "We either have your first single or a record that is off the album. And you guys can figure out how you want to handle it." I told Jordan Harris, who was the Virgin/A&M Records A&R at the time that, "We think the song is perfect the way it is. We don't want to change anything about it. And by the way, the songs we wrote, we're going to finish them the way we want to finish them. That's the way it should be. The songs they wrote they can finish them however they want to, but our songs we're going to finish them the way we want to finish them." And he said, "That sounds fair. It makes total sense." I said, "So we're not taking the girl off 'Human' because we think the song sounds perfect the way it is."
In 2005, Crash was re-issued with extended versions of the three singles.
Artwork
The out-of-focus cover photo was used to disguise the fact that it was taken at very short notice to meet a print deadline, after the disaster of the planned original photo shoot. Oakey originally wanted to return to the Vogue cover style of Dare artwork for Crash. He had persuaded Virgin Records to finance a studio photo shoot of the band with Vogue's Paris-based photographer Guy Bourdin. The band were flown out to Paris for the two-day photo sessions. However, on arriving at Bourdin's studio, it became apparent that he was only interested in photographing the two female vocalists Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall. Matters came to a head when Bourdin ordered Sulley to do a handstand wearing a mini-skirt, a pose she considered inappropriate. After she turned on Bourdin and the two clashed angrily, the photographer refused to work with the band and they walked out of the session with the loss of all fees. Oakey would later comment that "we spent two days there, it took nine hours to set up one photograph and I daren't tell you how much money we spent."[8]
Ken Tucker of The Philadelphia Inquirer gave the album a two stars out of four rating, stating that the groups collaboration with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis "should have been exciting, but instead they are merely fitfully enjoyable since the melodies are wispy and the vocals weak."[19][13]AllMusic's William Ruhlmann considered Crash a collection of "songs with appealing backing tracks that maintained their dance appeal while eschewing the overtly synthesized sound of previous albums", which made it "an improvement over the lackluster Hysteria, but still not on a par with Dare."[9]
In the 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide, in a review of the Human League's entire discography at the time, Crash was noted for featuring two sounds, one praised for "sounding like the Human League of yore, albeit with a better rhythm section", and the other criticised for "coming across like contemporary R&B sung by the generally soulless Oakey, Sulley, and Catherall." Of the album's ten tracks, the lead single "Human" was called a highlight for "find[ing] the perfect middle ground [between the two sounds]".[20]
