When The Human League released Dare , their seminal third album, in October 1981, little did they realise that they had created the soundtrack and the look for a whole new era. With its Vogue-inspired artwork, and infectious mix of nightclub pop and post-punk experimentation, the record set a completely new agenda: entirely of the moment, cerebral yet danceable, aesthetically unabashed and wryly post-modern. It went on to become one of the biggest-selling albums of the decade, spawning four major hit singles - including No.1s on both sides of the Atlantic - and made an instant celebrity of the band's colourful frontman, Phil Oakey. In Electric Dreams David Buckley, the acclaimed author of Strange Fascination: David Bowie - The Definitive Story, charts The Human League's unlikely rise from avant-garde veterans of the punk wars to international pop sensations, revealing how a small group of bands in Sheffield - and a lot of synthesisers - created the music that came to define a decade: electro-pop. .