Tell Me When

Product Information

Music Week rated the single five out of five, describing it as "pristine synth pop as a deep Oakey lead and girl harmonies make this the most joyful single of the week. Released in a variety of vinyl and CD single formats, these variously included remixes of "Tell Me When" by contemporary electronic acts Utah Saints, Development Corporation and Red Jerry, a non-album B-side ("The Bus to Crookes"), and a track from the band's recent collaboration with Yellow Magic Orchestra. By the time of its release, the single received over one thousand plays per week across the board according to East West Records.

A demo version was recorded in 1991 and presented to Max, Ian and Jean [ clarification needed] at East West. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. The song fared well on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, where it peaked at number nine on 22 April 1995. They added, "But the tune is an infectious anachronism—the synthesizer trio still tinkle about as soullessly as they did in 1982, when they hit No.

It received considerable radio promotion in advance of its late 1994 UK release, hitting the airwaves at a time when many people started to get Christmas song fatigue.In the album review, the reviewer said that "Tell Me When" "portrays Phil Oakey and the girls as a perfect replica of the electro pop band around 1981's Dare album. And the (then) mixers du jour Utah Saints sprinkled their magic dust over what was already an accomplished slab of gorgeousness to churn out an even bigger dancefloor stonker. It topped the Major Market Airplay charts in the UK for two weeks commencing 4 February, registering total plays of 915 for the week of 11 February. The band then performs in the main hall of the Wallenstein Palace, surrounded by lit candles and candelabras. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

People Magazine stated that "their hot new single 'Tell Me When' has made the Human League hip again".David Sinclair of The Times commented, "All the familiar components are here join-the-dots tune, danceable synth-pop arrangement, catchy bubblegum chorus but the result sounds disconcertingly like the Human League by numbers. Tell Me When" became the Human League's most commercially successful single in nine years and reintroduced the band to many of the British general public. But isn't that what the League have always had, in abundance, with more than a modicum of electronic auteur thrown in? Tell Me When" was the first Human League single to be released from Octopus and was issued in advance of the album. A music video was produced to promote the single, and was shot entirely on location in Prague [ citation needed] in the Czech Republic.

The song was originally written for the act, "Fast Arithmetic" (Oakey–Beckett), a side project in development within the Human League environment. It also peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100, on 15 April 1995, giving the band their last hit to date in the United States. Jennifer Nine from Melody Maker viewed it as "a brightly hopeful, wafer-thin compendium of standard League traits, including that pocket calculator-powered "funky" breakdown. Dave Thompson of AllMusic said it echoes earlier material, likening it to " Fascination" and " Mirror Man".Then there is the tendency to fiddle with the original to such an extent it almost becomes unrecognisable from the outstanding original.