Crash (The Human League album)
Crash is the fifth studio album by the British synthpop band The Human League.
Genesis
The band retired in August 1985 with music producer Colin Thurston in the 24-track home studio of Philip Oakey back to write new songs and record. Thurston had already produced for the bands Magazine and Duran Duran. However, cooperation with Thurston proved difficult and was canceled in late summer. Jo Callis left the band and Jim Russell, who had willing participated in Hysteria, was a new member. The album was initially postponed indefinitely. In the spring of 1986, the band went for four months to Minneapolis to work there with the team of producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who had already produced the commercially successful album Control for Janet Jackson. Jam and Lewis were involved in these compositions, which again meant a reorientation of musical New Wave to Contemporary R & B for the band. The decoupled as a single number -one hit was human Jam ( James Harris III. ) And Lewis wrote. The other two titles published as a single does not come from the pen of band members. Dave Thompson reported that at the end of the recording sessions a violent dispute broke out about how much music outside help should be incorporated into the receptacles. Philip Adrian Wright left after the recordings the band and Ian Burden followed him a year later.
Publication and chart success
A month after Human was released in August and turned out to be chart hit, the album by Virgin Records in Europe and A & M Records was released in the United States. It debuted on September 20, 1986 in the UK album charts at No. 7 and stayed 6 weeks. The Association of British Phonographic Industry BPI certified gold record in October 1986. In Germany, the album placed in September at number 14 and stayed 11 weeks in the Billboard 200 album reached the 35th place
Reception
William Ruhlmann from the music database Allmusic considers crash an improvement over the " lackluster " Hysteria predecessor. However, the album was not " on par with Dare ," the most commercially successful album of the band from 1981.