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"Only After Dark" | |
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Song by Mick Ronson | |
from the album Slaughter on 10th Avenue | |
Released | February 1974 |
Recorded | July 1973 |
Studio | Château d'Hérouville, Hérouville, France; Trident, London |
Genre | Glam rock |
Length | 3:32 |
Label | RCA |
Producer(s) | Mick Ronson |
"Only After Dark" | ||||
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Single by The Human League | ||||
from the album Travelogue | ||||
B-side | "Toyota City" | |||
Released | 9 May 1980 [1] | |||
Recorded | Monumental Studios, Sheffield, England | |||
Genre | Synth-pop, new wave, minimal wave | |||
Length | 3:51 | |||
Label | Virgin Records | |||
Songwriter(s) | Ronson/Richardson | |||
Producer(s) | Colin Thurston | |||
The Human League singles chronology | ||||
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"Only After Dark" is a song by the English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and producer Mick Ronson. Co-written with Scott Richardson, it was on Ronson's 1974 debut solo album Slaughter on 10th Avenue , released shortly after leaving David Bowie's backing band The Spiders from Mars. It was the B-side to Ronson's second solo single "Love Me Tender"; a song made famous by Elvis Presley.
In 1980, British synthpop group the Human League recorded a version for the band's second album, Travelogue . The Human League's version was produced by Colin Thurston. [2]
The song was pressed as a single by Virgin Records following the release of the Travelogue album, but it was then decided to re-release the song "Empire State Human" (from the band's first album) instead and include "Only After Dark" as a free single to be given away with the first 15,000 copies of "Empire State Human". This was perceived by the band as a total lack of faith in their newer material, causing great resentment and anger, [3] and would be one of the issues that contributed to the split of this line-up of The Human League some months later. As a free single it was not included in the UK chart mechanism, though the re-release of "Empire State Human" to which it belonged peaked at No. 62. [4] [5]
Fellow Sheffield band, Def Leppard covered "Only After Dark" in 1992, as a B-side to their UK No. 2 hit single, "Let's Get Rocked". Their version was later included on the 1993 compilation Retro Active ; a collection of touched-up versions of B-sides and previously unreleased recordings from the band's recording sessions between 1984 and 1993.
Only After Dark. a Birmingham clubnight specialising in music from the New Romantic era and David Bowie, has run since 2009 at various Birmingham venues. [6]
Philip Oakey: Which is why we had a very big argument with Virgin Records over Only After Dark, which they pressed without telling us.