Human League - Romantic? (1990)

The Human League reorganized in the four years it took to follow Crash, stripping down to a trio of singers -- Philip Oakey, Joanne Catherall, and Susan Ann Sulley -- then adding guitarist Russell Dennett and keyboard player Neil Sutton. They also shed producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, returning to old friend Martin Rushent on a couple of tracks, among them the Top 40 hit "Heart Like a Wheel." But eight years after "Don't You Want Me," the group's pop-synthesizer sound seemed dated. Although some songs showed a little spirit, especially when Catherall and Sulley were used more prominently, all of this had been done before, and better. Romantic? spent only two weeks in the British charts and didn't chart at all in America.