The Professional Biography of Susan Ann Sulley

BIOGRAPHY QUICK INDEX:

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Page 1: Synopsis & 1980
Page 2: 1981
Page 3: The Remaining 1980s
Page 4: The 1990s
Page 5: The 21st Century

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Susan Ann Sulley in concert
in 2003

2000 - 2002: PAPILLON AND 'SECRETS'

At the start of a new century the band were already busy working towards a new recording contract, eventually it was announced they had signed to Papillon Records, which was a relatively new label set up by the Chrysalis group. Papillon capitalised on signing 'legacy acts' (those bands already with a large, established fan base) and The Human League were snapped up as their headline signing.

In 2001 the band would release their most recent studio album, Secrets. A carefully crafted piece of work that featured the production talents of the TOY production team. It was almost universally applauded by critics as their best album since Dare over 20 years previously.

By now Susan was being credited by her married name Susan Ann Gayle instead of Sulley. Typically for her (as she is a very private person) this was done with no announcement and it caused some confusion with the public and media who mistakenly believed that she had been replaced when it unexpectedly appeared on the Secrets album credits.

She would be known as Gayle for the next 6 years until for personal reasons she returned to Sulley in late 2007.

What in 2001 should have been another 'Octopus style' career highlight for the Human League simply wasn't! Events would conspire against the band almost as soon as the Secrets album was released. It immediately became apparent that Papillon was in serious financial difficulties from the outset and promotion of Secrets was severely curtailed soon after release.

Another mortal blow happened to the band concurrently. The first single to be released from the album "All I Ever Wanted" was radio play perfect, except that it received absolutely no radio play whatsoever. At the time BBC Radio One, the UK's national pop music radio station and a state funded virtual national monopoly; was having a management inspired identity crisis and refused to play list the single. They arbitrarily declared that the band were now "too old" and "too retro" to connect with their self imposed demographic target audience of teens and 20-somethings. This despite the station being equally popular with 30s and 40s who were apparently no longer wanted. Their target audience were deemed better suited to TV reality show manufactured pop and rap music. (A policy that was sending the station into ratings meltdown until halted in 2002).

But without play on the national network, independent local stations simply didn’t pick up on the single and it stalled. On hearing that Radio One would not list "All I Ever Wanted" Philip with typical stoicism replied "it's their station they can play what they want". But he must have known that it was a death sentence for the single.

Starved of airplay, "All I Ever Wanted" didn't realise any of its full potential. Even though it was released with a very stylish, futuristic video themed on a tie in with the Stanley Kubrick film 2001. Designed to be MTV friendly, it was eventually only played briefly on VH1. The promotional video featured Susan now with a fetching blonde bob in a 'little black dress'. It was commented on at the time that now at 38 years old she displayed a figure that appeared to have changed little since 1982. She would challenge those statements and claim (quite accurately) that she was actually more slender. The video's director had applied a standard director's lighting technique to play down the band's age by increasing the brilliance and white balance which removes imperfections and makes the subjects appear younger. It worked well for the darker Philip and Joanne. But poor blonde, porcelain faced Susan appeared over exposed throughout the video, detracting for her otherwise faultless appearance.

The band were invited to perform "All I Ever Wanted" on BBC Top of the Pops . It was a good promotional opportunity but sadly too late and it didn't save the single. Another sadness was that the band would outlast Top of the Pops which was cancelled in 2006 because of poor ratings. The program had been crucial in their rise to success in the early 1980s.

One of the highlights of Secrets would be the track "Never Give Your Heart", another track with Susan on lead vocals, but this time with a joint contribution by Joanne. It could have been described as "One Man In My Heart" for Secrets, but was much better and like all of the album it was loved by the critics. Susan's beautiful voice was described (complementarily) as "aural candyfloss". "Never Give Your Heart" would certainly have been another hit and another career highlight for Susan had it been released and properly promoted as a single; another of the terrible missed opportunities of Secrets.

Starved of air play and promotion the album failed, this despite all the critical acclaim. But simply no one bought it, not because it wasn't an outstanding

album. But no one (including some Human League fans) knew of its existence. A running joke now is that the name Secrets is actually due to the amount of promotion it would receive. The disappointment was palpable, Susan speaking later in 2004 described the situation:

"We were so proud of it (Secrets); we got the best reviews of our careers!. People were writing such fantastic stuff about us. Then no one bought the record....."

Susan would go on to say that after putting in so much effort and producing a critically acclaimed album that then failed, it was the closest they all came to quitting at any time in their career. It would also explain why there have been no new new releases since.

In December 2001, the group embarked on the Secrets tour, originally planned to accompany the now stalled album. The tour was a universal success, and demonstrated not only the band's continued popularity but also that the group's strength was as a live act. The tour also proved that they had a huge following - not just as a nostalgia band to those who remember the 1980s material - but also to a new generation of fans with new material, fans who weren't even alive when 'Dare' was released. The tour would become a business model of numerous further tours throughout the following years.

In early 2002 a bankrupt Papillon was closed down by its parent company Chrysalis and for the third time in 25 years the band found themselves without a recording contract or record label.

2003 - THE PRESENT DAY

The closure of Papillon would in many ways be a blessing in disguise. The band were completely unfazed by the closure of the label. They had already realised that (like many bands are today) their future lay in more lucrative live work. They have for the years since refined their performance and toured almost constantly. Something many contemporary bands are simply incapable of doing at all or without relying on play back, pyrotechnics and legions of dancers. The lack of a label has has not been a hindrance enabling the band to do exactly what they wanted , as well as retaining complete financial independence.

Often they have been booked to appear as guests at independently organised events and festivals, but their core output from 2003 to the present has been touring in their own right. To places as diverse as Brazil, USA, Australia, Dubai; they regularly play at sell-out venues worldwide. To exclusive intimate audiences as small as 200 to stadiums of 18000.

In 2004 they played a set at the ‘V Festival' (the UK’s second biggest music festival). Uncharacteristically Susan was terrified about appearing at such a high profile mainstream festival amongst much younger contemporary bands, and she was worried how the band now all in their 40s would be received by the festival goers. She needn't have worried, the band were declared as one of the highlights of the festival. Susan freely admits now that she cried when she came off stage at V, such was overwhelmingly positive response of the huge crowd.

With traditional music charts now largely discredited and inaccurate, an accurate measure of the popularity of The Human League can be judged that with little or no promotion almost all of their live venues sell out immediately.

A very visible indication of the level of affection in which Susan personally is held by fans, both male and female, can be seen when she steps forward to sing her verses on "Don't You Want Me" (which remains the most popular song at concerts and is almost always played). She is always met with rapturous applause and cheers; and not infrequently by a standing ovation. It is a highlight of most concerts for Susan who clearly enjoys the admiration and if the audience mood is right a beaming Miss Sulley will often invite the audience to sing some of her lines for her.

In September 2006 the band conducted a micro tour of the US West Coast during which they appeared on the network NBC television show Jimmy Kimmel Live at West Hollywood's El Capitan theatre. Susan's trademark youthful appearance (she is often described as looking 20 years younger than she is) would cause some consternation afterwards. Some viewers hadn't seen the band on U.S TV for 25 years and on the popular NBC internet discussion forum a debate raged that. "while Philip and Joanne looked really good for their age ... it was a shame that the original blonde girl had been replaced". Followed by a flurry of "it is her!" "it isn't her!" posts. It would also be pointed out cheekily by British fans to the Americans who criticised her "older" dress sense "that was also the most clothes Susan had worn on stage for years", and was probably solely to spare the blushes of the US's more conservative TV audiences. Only days later on October 2006 the Human League played one of their largest and most prestigious gigs of recent times at a sell out Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, to a audience of 18,000 fans.

As Sheffield's premier pop stars and an obvious choice, in May 2007 Susan and Joanne were invited to present a documentary feature on the music history of Sheffield for the British music TV channel VH1 entitled The Nations Favourite Music Cities. A task which they both achieved very competently and stylishly. Susan had once expressed an interest in being a TV presenter. (Which she then, at 39, arbitrarily declared she was too old for). VH1 gave her the perfect opportunity to use her 'BBC voice' and she sounded more Surrey than South Yorkshire. It should be pointed out that Joanne certainly didn't!

On the subject of TV work, an internet rumour doing the rounds in 2002 was that Susan, because of her high profile as a stunning Yorkshire pop star, had been offered a role in the Yorkshire set British TV serial drama Emmerdale. When asked about it in an interview (2002) she said that she "wouldn't consider it (Emmerdale) as she had no acting experience and there was no indication that she would be able to act". Aside the fact that Susan has regularly demonstrated that she can act; the lack of acting ability certainly didn't stop Patsy Kensit taking a role.

Susan regularly appears on radio talk shows and in media features as a media personality in her own right.

In 2007 the band has had three headlining appearances at British and international festivals. They also performed a set at FIB Benicassim, one of Europe's largest festivals, appearing directly opposite fellow Sheffield band of a different generation The Arctic Monkeys which caused a small media stir.

The highlight of 2007 was the band conducting a special tour to celebrate their 30th 'birthday' during November and December. Although Philip Oakey is now the only member who has been there since day one, Joanne and Susan being relative newcomers with 'only' 27 years in each. It was an important milestone, but it was also the quarter of a century anniversary of the release of the 1981 album Dare, and the tour was spectacularly themed around the album. Including for the first time a complete rendition of Dare played chronologically to start the set list. The tour took in 20 venues in major UK and European cities. It would prove to be possibly the band's best tour of their careers, most venues were sold out and the performances met with almost universal critical approval. As usual Susan attracted her own particular comment on the internet. As she, not exactly out of character, had managed to look "outrageously stylish" in a succession of tailored black suits and her trade mark very short spangley mini-dresses. And also at 44 years old it was remarked that she "still had the body of a 19 year old" and was "hotter than most girls half her age". (The two previous comments actually coming from a female blogger.) She also apparently sang and danced quite well too!

The Dare tour was not without incident, lax security at Hammersmith, London would allow a drunken stage invader to manage to get hold of Susan during the encore, and swing her around the stage as security guards tried to rescue her. Although clearly shaken by her ordeal, such is her professionalism and character, within minutes she had composed herself and was later that evening chatting to fans and guests at the after show party. She of course has dealt with much worse in the past and it should be remembered that she began her career having bottles thrown at her on stage during her first tour in 1980.

Three decades after Susan first found herself on display in Britain's National Portrait Gallery. In April 2008, her likeness would make another appearance in an art gallery. It is a testament to her, Joanne and Philip's iconic status that for his music themed '33 and 1/3' exhibition of paintings, artist Pete Mckee painted a pop art style piece titled "Fitzallan Street Taxi rank the night Phil met Susan and Joanne." The painting depicts Susan and Joanne arriving in Sheffield city centre on that night in 1980 which would see them visit the Crazy Daisy nightclub and begin their career with the band. The original painting was sold to a private owner at a gala auction hosted by Mckee in Sheffield's Forum, an event which made the national newspapers.

Today the Human League continue to work in the studio and to tour tirelessly. Susan teases that it is the band's intention to release a 10^th Studio Album in her words ‘In the near future’ but this project is kept under close wraps by Philip Oakey who is acting not only as composer but also producer.

A common interview question is how long they intend to continue for. Unequivocally Susan, Philip and Joanne all state that they love performing and they will continue for as long as people still want to see them.

Susan when asked about retirement usually jokes that "she has to carry on as she doesn't know how to do anything else" (which obviously is not the case)

As the Human League enters their 4th decade in 2008, a parallel can be drawn with another great timeless band "The Rolling Stones"; as the Human League only seem get cooler and more popular with age.

The band themselves are at a loss to explain their longevity. Susan says: "bands aren't meant to go on as long as this, but we fit in, people still really like us". Professional critics have now long since given up criticizing the bands age and now accept their continuing contribution to music and mainstream appeal:

EPILOGUE

When asked in an interview (in 2004) to pick the highlight of her career. Susan without much thought, very profoundly but also with her usual instinctive modesty simply replied :

"I think it's still happening. I think the fact we're still doing it now. After all these years - I'm 41 now, and really, I shouldn't be in a pop group any more. But I am! And it's still my job! I wake up in the morning and I haven't got to go to a nine-to-five. I've got this life and I'm very, very lucky! ”

Apart maybe from her fortuitous choice of nightclub in October 1980, luck has never been a factor in Ms Sulley's career.

To Be Continued............

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