The Human League - Never Let Me Go

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  • Yes, that Human League. Bow to your elders all you like (and I can never stop loving "Don't You Want Me," obviously), but I can't say I particularly enjoy hearing Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley (and, to a lesser extent on this song, Phil Oakey) through Auto-tune. It feels gimmicky in a pro forma kind of way—adjusting to fashion, and not quite getting there. Italoconnection's original production is big and trancy and neither here nor there. DJ Pierre's Afro-Acid Mix is a forward-looking combination of a pulse similar to the forward-loping stuff coming out of South Africa with a restrained, subliminally hooky 303 line, but by opting to keep all that Auto-tune intact—and in manipulating things, sometimes bunching it up in places—the track seems a lot more standard than that description implies. Aeroplane owns this release, and not just because he opts to get rid of the vocal tinsel. In his hands, the women's lead vocals are stretched slightly, bringing out a hyper-English drawl that, along with the clean-and-spangly synths, puts the track comfortably near Pet Shop Boys terrain (who said all '80s synth-pop was alike?). When Oakey comes back in over a confident guitar-synth thump (with "woo! woo!" electro-tom accents, no less) that snuggles up to prime New Order, it's the definition of smart people doing big, dumb fun up right.
  • Tracklist
      01. Never Let Me Go (Radio Edit) 02. Never Let Me Go (Italoconnection Remix) 03. Never Let Me Go (Italoconnection Remix Radio Edit) 04. Never Let Me Go (Aeroplane Remix) 05. Never Let Me Go (Aeroplane Remix Edit) 06. Never Let Me Go (DJ Pierre's Afro Acid Mix)
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