Don't You Want Me

For other uses, see Don't You Want Me (disambiguation).

"Don't You Want Me"
Single by the Human League
from the album Dare
B-side"Seconds"
Released27 November 1981
Recorded1981
Genre
Length3:57 (album version) 3:27 (video version)
LabelVirgin
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Martin Rushent
The Human League singles chronology
"Open Your Heart"
(1981) 		"Don't You Want Me"
(1981) 		"Mirror Man"
(1982)
Music video
"Don't You Want Me" on YouTube

"Don't You Want Me" is a song by British synth-pop group the Human League (credited on the cover as the Human League 100). It was released on 27 November 1981 as the fourth single from their third studio album, Dare (1981). The band's best known and most commercially successful song, it was the best selling UK single of 1981,[5] that year's Christmas number one, and has since sold over 1,560,000 copies in the UK, making it the 23rd-most successful single in UK Singles Chart history.[6] It topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the US on 3 July 1982, where it stayed for three weeks.

In November 1983, Rolling Stone named it the "breakthrough song" of the Second British Invasion of the US.[7] In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's seventh-favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.[8] And in 2022, Rolling Stone ranked it as one of the "200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time".[9]

  1. ^ "The 50 Best Albums of 1981". Spin. 12 April 2021. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  2. ^ Borthwick, Stuart; Moy, Ron (2004). "Synthpop: into the digital age". Popular Music Genres: An Introduction. Routledge. p. 130. ISBN 9780415973694.
  3. ^ Harvel, Jess. "Now That's What I Call New Pop!". Pitchfork Media. 12 September 2005.
  4. ^ "New Wave Music Songs". AllMusic.
  5. ^ "The Official Top 50 best-selling songs of 1981". www.officialcharts.com. Retrieved 12 May 2021.
  6. ^ Lane, Daniel (27 June 2013). "Daft Punk's Get Lucky becomes one of the UK's biggest selling singles of all-time!". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  7. ^ "Anglomania: The Second British Invasion". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  8. ^ Westbrook, Caroline (25 July 2015). "The Nation's Favourite 80s Number One: 12 more classic 80s chart-toppers which didn't make the cut". Metro. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
  9. ^ Dolan, Jon; Lopez, Julyssa; Matos, Michaelangelo; Shaffer, Claire (22 July 2022). "200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 30 October 2022.