by André » Sat Feb 11, 2017 5:11 am
I finally bought the box set: I had a ten pounds voucher so that lessened the hurt. Here's my review, for what it's worth:
Terrible package, just terrible. Where to start with this fiasco? Well the so called hardback book is not, it's a softback book. The essay is ok but the visuals are slapdash and underwhelming: you get some poor resolution photos that seem taken from Smash Hits or No1, grainy and dull colours, band portraits spread over two pages where Phil's face falls right in the fold and you can't see it. Sparse memorabilia over plain pages notably a whole section on Iggy Pop (backstage passes, ads and other) with no obvious relation to Human league! And then you have the general artwork. Now the league is still famous for their approach to glamour, class and sleekness (often tongue in cheek), here we have 9 full page of caricatures (!) of the band by Pete McKee, who also wrote his recollection of buying the album Dare (fascinating... not). When we come to the music and the DVD, it's still not 'wow!'. The DVD has loads of TV performance footage, some of which are cropped and the overall quality of the image is not as good as it could be.
Then you have 3 cd's of music, which is very little for the excessive retail price of this set i.e £80. You get most of the singles a-sides (I count 4 missing, 5 if you count I Don't Depend On You by The Men) and two b-side (Sound of the crowd instrumental! and Hard times). It would have been good to get b-sides and mixes that are still missing on CD, maybe live tracks... anything to bulk it up to 4 or 5 cd's of rare music. So like many I bought the whole thing for the last disc of unreleased material... And here there are some nice surprises, but so much more could have been added, there are plenty of demos, kicking around the net, surely the band and the label has more to offer us in their archives. After all this box set is aimed at fans, but just not catering for fans... Who ever put this together must be underwhelmed by the project, burnt out by his job or nearing retirement.