Heaven 17

Heaven 17 came out of Sheffield in 1980, built from the wreckage of the original Human League. Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, both founding members of that group, recruited vocalist Glenn Gregory and named their new project after a fictional pop band in Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. They fused synthesisers, drum machines, and funk-inflected grooves with politically charged songwriting, producing records that sounded like the future had opinions about capitalism. Their 1983 album The Luxury Gap went platinum in the UK and yielded "Temptation," a single that climbed to number two and became one of the decade's most enduring synth-pop tracks. Originally a studio-only outfit that refused to tour for the better part of two decades, they did not play a live show until 1997. Ware and Gregory continue to perform as a duo, four decades on from the band that was never supposed to be more than a side project.