My first brush with The Human League came from my old music-guru roommate who said, “I love the Human League, but that’s only because I have a soft spot for crappy 80s pop.” And sure, the Human League lived in the same sort of post-punk/new-wave synthpop that the 80s loved, and true, Don’t You Want Me (the anthem of creepy exes everywhere) is a favorite on my local “inoffensive hits of yesterday and today” station. But Dare! is far from a straightforward pop record. There’s enough synthesized dissonance to make the most avant-garde music fan (see: my former roommate) happy.

And as a whole, Dare! is far from the bouncy pop of Madonna or Olivia Newton John and much more in line with more hipster-friendly groups like Duran Duran or New Order (I don’t remember a New Order album as atonal as Dare!). The beats are simple and sternly deliberate. The bass lines are efficient and menacing. And while Philip Oakley’s delivery is as stoic and free of affect as his contemporaries, his melodies are far more emotive, laying a template for some of Radiohead’s early tearjerkers.