The tale of Heaven 17 is actually the tale of two bands separated at birth. The bands two founders and original members Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware actually started out as The Human League. After a search for a lead singer ended with their prime candidate getting away (Glenn Gregory), the League would settle for Philip Oakey.
The newly formed band had creative differences right away and its founders left leaving the name and Oakey behind. What was created that night in Sheffeild after catching up with Glenn Gregory was Heaven 17, a name inspired by the film Clockwork Orange. Always the business minded, shortly after starting a band, the group started a production company called the British Electric Foundation (BEF).
The BEF would become the vehicle from which Heaven 17 would create their debut album Penthouse and Pavement. The album’s cover art and the bands business attire suggested something more than just another Duran Duran clone. Heaven 17 wanted the spoils of a capitalist society, but only on their terms – terms that did not rub too well with the establishment.
Like the Human League, Heaven 17 was heavily electronic. Synthesizers, drum machines and the occasional session musician playing the piano, guitar or bass rounded out the band’s sometimes harsh but always dance-able sound.
Penthouse and Pavement was never officially released in America initially, putting Heaven 17 at a disadvantage compared to cross town rivals The Human League. In many ways listening to this album is like hearing an alternate version of the Human League – one that includes an element of funk, often in the form of slap bass. Glen Gregory’s vocals had very much the same cool drone as Philip Oakey from the Human League with much the same suggestion of gloom.
The big difference of course was Heaven 17’s left-wing leaning politics. The first single ‘(We Don’t Need) No Fascist Groove Thang’ made no attempt to mince words about Thacher’s government and was promptly banned by the BBC. The funky nature of the song made it popular nevertheless, but it would never reach its full potential until greater exposure via MTV and other outlets introduced the song to new audiences a year or two later.
While wrapping heated political statements in dance music was not new, Heaven 17 managed to do it with a bit of humor and irony. ‘Lets Go Make a Bomb’ actually starts out like a layered Boards of Canada song before winding up to a catchy chant of its title. Of course the absurdly morbid concept of assured mutual destruction via nucelar war was as a big ’80s song subject, few had managed to do it with such catchy and groove happy results.
Other songs like “We’re Going To Live for a Very Long Time’ and Geisha Boys and Temple Girls’ sounded as if they could have been on the Human Leagues Travelouge (out around the same time). If fact ‘We’re Going To Live For a Very Long Time’ sounds like the reverse of Only After Dark on Travelouge. Despite the similarities, the Human league would capture the public’s imagine and go on to conquer the charts on both sides of the Atlantic while Heaven 17 was relegated to angry dance electropop.
In some ways Heaven 17 could have been considered the starting off point for more angry sounding dance music from the likes of Cabaret Voltaire, another Sheffield band. Penthouse and Pavement has become more appreciated with time. A reissue in 2008 remastered songs and additional tracks.
Beatopolis 