Library Rock's Backpages

Heaven 17

Heaven 17

29 articles

Audio interviews

Heaven 17 (1988)

Interview by Adam Blake, Rock's Backpages audio, 1 September 1988

Martyn Ware does most of the talking about Heaven 17's new album Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho: about the process of recording and their use of samples; their attempts to recreate a '60s R&B sound; the problems with marketing themselves; their the European view of art; their influences; Frank Zappa and associated artists; the current appalling state of pop, especially Stock Aitken Waterman, and their dislike of hip hop and House...

File format: mp3; file size: 29.4mb, interview length: 30' 36" sound quality: ***

List of articles in the library

By date | By writer | Most recently added

The Human League: In the Battle for Gallactic Supremacy — Humans Beleaguered

Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 2 May 1981

Life in the League with only one haircut between them ...

Heaven 17… Or Music For Business And Pleasure

Report and Interview by Ian Birch, Smash Hits, 17 September 1981

BACK IN THE middle '70s, when punk snapped out of the woodwork, everyone wanted "complete control". It was a Robin Hood policy — steal from ...

Heaven 17: Penthouse and Pavement (BEF/Virgin)

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 19 September 1981

YES, THERE'S plenty of use! Sometimes you can wonder why you're so enthalled by pop's maze: it would be easy to break out in that ...

Heaven 17: Pavement Artists

Interview by Betty Page, Sounds, 3 October 1981

IN THE MANNER of any smooth operation worth its nuts and bolts, the British Electric Foundation chose to discuss the prospective publicity of one of ...

Heaven 17: Heaven CAN wait

Profile and Interview by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 18 February 1982

MAYBE IT'S something to do with the '80s computerised approach to pop. Or maybe it's a reflection of the hard business sense many young bands ...

Heaven 17: You Ware It Well

Report and Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 6 November 1982

THESE THREE men belong to neither pavement nor penthouse. Instead they've grown comfortable by the fireside. Heaven 17, Martyn Ware, Ian Craig Marsh and Glenn ...

Heaven 17: Heaven 17 (Arista)

Review by j. poet, Creem, May 1983

BACK IN 1980, after producing two terminally grim LPs that delighted morbid brooders worldwide, Human League split up trumpeting the usual clichés, vis-a-vis artistic differences ...

Heaven 17: The Luxury Gap (Virgin)

Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 7 May 1983

A Luxury You Can't Afford ...

Heaven 17: Another Chapter In "The Rocky Road To The Top"

Interview by Ian Birch, Smash Hits, 12 May 1983

"I KNEW The Human League were about to break. We'll take a lot longer but we'll do it in the end." ...

Heaven 17: The Luxury Gap (Arista, LP)

Review by Betsy Sherman, Boston Rock, 5 July 1983

THE LUXURY Gap, the long-awaited second album by Heaven 17, is the best album of 1983 thus far. Here is an album so alive it ...

Heaven 17: The Luxury Gap (Arista)

Review by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 9 August 1983

DISCRIMINATING rock-and-roll fans in this country can finally tone down their horrified wails about white British dance bands' ubiquitous, maddening, mosquito-whine electroboogie. Pride in shallowness ...

Heaven 17 Faces Right

Report and Interview by Jon Young, Trouser Press, September 1983

IF DICKENS HADN'T gotten there first, Great Expectations would be the perfect title for the saga of Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh. After their ...

Heaven 17

Interview by Johnny Black, Smash Hits, 1 September 1983

Why was Glenn Gregory smashing windows? What's this about platform boots with five-inch heels? Who or what are The Underpants? Johnny Black gets to the ...

Room At The Top: Heaven 17

Interview by Fiona Russell Powell, The Face, November 1983

The son of a Sheffield steel worker, Glenn Gregory's ambition was to become an actor. Instead he found himself playing the role of pop star ...

The Tube: Ready... Steady... Um...

Report by Helen Fitzgerald, Melody Maker, 5 November 1983

Helen FitzGerald has a nightmare... and finds herself at the first night of THE TUBE. ...

Carol Kenyon: Oh Carol!

Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 4 February 1984

Could this be love? Almost certainly. Colin Irwin (drooling reportage) and Andrew Catlin (provider of lascivious images) feign maturity in the presence of CAROL KENYON. ...

Heaven 17: Three Steps To Heaven

Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 18 August 1984

INITIATION ...

The Heaven 17 Manifesto

Interview by Max Bell, No. 1, 1 September 1984

Once upon a time, Heaven 17 presented themselves as the dynamic young businessmen of pop. But now they've crossed sides to support the miners, the Labour ...

Heaven 17: How Men Are (Virgin)

Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 29 September 1984

YOU KNOW the pokerwork proverb in every chippy/cab firm/newsagent in the country: "You don't have to be mad to work here…but it helps!" ...

Heaven 17: Gregory's Gossip

Interview by Paul Sexton, Record Mirror, 2 February 1985

In our fascinating profile of Mr Glenn Gregory, crooner of this parish, we discover what Heaven 17 and toilet paper have in common. And there's ...

Heaven 17: Endless

Review by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 5 July 1986

EIGHTY-FIVE minutes of cassette, 68 of compact disc and no record – Heaven 17 continue the aspirations of the ironic yuppie with their Greatest Hits ...

Top Of The Pops and The '80s Brit Pop Boom

Overview by Stuart Maconie, Q, November 1994

YOU CAN tell if they're boys or girls these days, that's the trouble. Just look at them, these so-called modern pop phenomena. ...

Martin Lilleker: Beats Working For A Living – Sheffield Popular Music 1973-1984 (Juma)

Book Review by Rob Young, The Wire, July 2005

PRACTICALLY EVERY city in Britain has a roster of musical hod carriers with appalling names. This exhaustive history of Sheffield's music scene is crammed with ...

ABC/Human League/Heaven 17: Hammersmith Apollo, London

Live Review by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 10 December 2008

THERE ARE QUEUES around the building for the Sheffield groups who brought electro-funk (Heaven 17), orchestral disco (ABC) and synth pop (the Human League) to ...

The Steel City Tour: Human League, ABC and Heaven 17 at the Hammersmith Apollo

Live Review by Daryl Easlea, Record Collector, February 2009

THE STEEL CITY TOUR is a thrilling glimpse of the once- future through the lens of the past. What these groups attempted in Sheffield at ...

Heaven 17

Retrospective by Paul Morley, The Guardian, 29 October 2010

PAUL MORLEY re-introduces Heaven 17 as they dive into the nostalgia circuit. ...

Heaven 17: Penthouse and Pavement Revisited

Retrospective by Stephen Dalton, The Times, November 2010

"SHEFFIELD HAS ALWAYS had a bit of a maverick attitude," says Martyn Ware of evergreen electro-pop veterans Heaven 17. "It's the natural bolshiness of the ...

Forgive Us Our Synths – How 80s Pop Found Favour Again

Overview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 18 November 2010

Ostentatiously intellectual and scornful of rock'n'roll cliche, the likes of OMD and Heaven 17 briefly set 80s pop alight – and now they're back in favour. ...

see also British Electric Foundation

see also Human League, The

see also Carol Kenyon

RSS

back to LIBRARY

COPYRIGHT NOTICE