October 16th
album anniversaries

Martin Rushent produced Dare with the Human League at Genetic Sound in Streatley, Berkshire, between March and September 1981. Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley sing alongside Philip Oakey, while Jo Callis and Ian Burden play synthesisers.

“The Sound of the Crowd,” “Love Action (I Believe in Love)” and “Open Your Heart” were all released before the album, which went to number one in the UK. “Don’t You Want Me,” the closing track, followed as a single, became Britain’s Christmas number one of 1981 and later topped the Billboard Hot 100.

Vince Clarke worked on synths and programming with Mark Saunders at his home studio in London, while Andy Bell recorded with Gareth Jones at the Church Studios. Erasure produced Wild! with Jones and Saunders, and Mute released it in Britain.

“Drama!,” “You Surround Me,” “Blue Savannah” and “Star” were all released as singles and each reached the UK top 20, and the album gave the duo their second consecutive number one in the UK. “Piano Song” frames the record, heard as an instrumental at the start and in full at the end.

“10,000 Emerald Pools” first appeared as a single in October 2014, a year before it opened Dopamine, the debut studio album by BØRNS. Recording took place between 2013 and 2015 at Studio America in Los Angeles, Panoramic in West Marin and Rodeo in Santa Monica.

Tommy English, who had also produced the Candy EP, worked on the album alongside John Hill and Jack Kennedy Herkel. “Electric Love” followed as a single in May 2015, and “American Money” was released the next year. Issued by Interscope, Dopamine reached No. 2 on Billboard’s Alternative Albums chart.

Booker T. Jones produced and arranged every track on Serpentine Prison, and the album launched Book Records, a Concord imprint formed by Jones and Matt Berninger. Recording centred on the Earthstar Creation Center in Venice, California, with Jones also playing Hammond organ and piano.

Andrew Bird adds violin and Mickey Raphael harmonica, while Gail Ann Dorsey takes the lead vocal on “Silver Springs.” Sean O’Brien recorded and mixed the album and co-wrote songs. “Serpentine Prison,” “Distant Axis” and “One More Second” were released ahead of it, and in Flanders and Portugal it went to number one.

Sean Booth wrote software and sent it to Rob Brown, who sent tracks back, and for almost a year the pair did not share finished pieces with each other. SIGN, Autechre’s fourteenth studio album, was recorded between 2018 and 2019 and completed in February 2020.

Much of it was built with “the system,” a Max-based network of synthesisers and digital processes that Booth says still needs human input. Brown has said the title is an acronym but would not reveal its meaning. Warp announced the album that September, and a companion record, PLUS, appeared without warning twelve days after release.

Tbilisi, Georgia, is where Album No. 8 was recorded across 2019 and 2020, with Leo Abrahams as producer. Tim Harries co-wrote four of the songs with Katie Melua: “English Manner,” “Heading Home,” “Airtime” and “Remind Me to Forget.”

The album reached number seven in the UK, number five in Germany and number two in Switzerland, and holds a Metacritic score of 82. “A Love Like That,” also produced by Abrahams, premiered on BBC Radio 2 as the first single at the end of June 2020, and “Airtime” followed in July.