Background
After spending two years recording their fourth album Hysteria, which only met with moderate commercial success the band struggled to record further material and by 1985 they had lost both Dare producer Martin Rushent and musician/songwriter Jo Callis. Virgin Records, worried by the lack of progress in their previously most profitable signing, called the band principals to a meeting where a solution to the impasse in the band 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. Jam and Lewis who had written for and produced the SOS band, Cherrelle and Alexander O'Neal. They were also working on Janet Jackson's Control album. Jam and Lewis had developed an interest in the Human League after the success of their U.S releases; they were also seeking an opportunity to cross over into the mainstream pop and saw The Human League as the perfect opportunity.
In February 1986 The Human League were flown out to Minneapolis to work at Flyte Time studios with Jam and Lewis. 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 Human League's. Jam and Lewis were also intolerant of the bands' laid back working methods and their musician's lack of technical ability.
Keyboard players Philip Adrian Wright and Ian Burden had been sidelined by Jam and Lewis. Wright (an original member) would not recover from the humiliation, and feeling redundant he immediately left the band on return to the UK, a year later Burden would follow him.
After 4 months in Minneapolis, Oakey pulled the band out of further recording and 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. | ” |
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! | ” |
Although at the time the band had all but washed their hands of the album post production, when released it quickly became an unexpected success. One of the Jam and Lewis compositions, "Human", was released as the album's first single and became the Human League's second number-one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 (no.8 in the UK). The Album itself was more popular in the U.S than the UK. Follow-up singles "I Need Your Loving" and the 1988 UK-only release "Love Is All That Matters" were not as successful. But the album had succeeded in returning the Human League back to mainstream prominence both sides of the Atlantic five years after their Dare album. Oakey with hindsight states that it was this album that saved the band’s career and one of the main reasons they are still recording today.
In 2005, Crash was re-issued with extended versions of the three singles.
Read more about this topic: Crash (The Human League album)
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)