Tell Me When

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Tell Me When" was the first Human League single to be released from Octopus and was issued in advance of the album. A demo version was recorded in 1991 and presented to Max, Ian and Jean [ clarification needed] at East West. The song was originally written for the act, "Fast Arithmetic" (Oakey–Beckett), a side project in development within the Human League environment. Another NME editor, Paul Moody, viewed it as "sublimely clumsy" with "this killer Human League chorus all over it, the sort that rings around your brain like a nursery rhyme from Mars. It then became the first release by the band under East West, who had signed the Human League after their dismissal by Virgin in 1992.

And the (then) mixers du jour Utah Saints sprinkled their magic dust over what was already an accomplished slab of gorgeousness to churn out an even bigger dancefloor stonker. The band then performs in the main hall of the Wallenstein Palace, surrounded by lit candles and candelabras. It topped the Major Market Airplay charts in the UK for two weeks commencing 4 February, registering total plays of 915 for the week of 11 February. Then there is the tendency to fiddle with the original to such an extent it almost becomes unrecognisable from the outstanding original. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

It received considerable radio promotion in advance of its late 1994 UK release, hitting the airwaves at a time when many people started to get Christmas song fatigue. Released in a variety of vinyl and CD single formats, these variously included remixes of "Tell Me When" by contemporary electronic acts Utah Saints, Development Corporation and Red Jerry, a non-album B-side ("The Bus to Crookes"), and a track from the band's recent collaboration with Yellow Magic Orchestra. It opens with Catherall and Sulley in the Wallenstein Gardens, where leaves are blowing upwards instead of downwards. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.

Jennifer Nine from Melody Maker viewed it as "a brightly hopeful, wafer-thin compendium of standard League traits, including that pocket calculator-powered "funky" breakdown. People Magazine stated that "their hot new single 'Tell Me When' has made the Human League hip again". But isn't that what the League have always had, in abundance, with more than a modicum of electronic auteur thrown in?David Sinclair of The Times commented, "All the familiar components are here join-the-dots tune, danceable synth-pop arrangement, catchy bubblegum chorus but the result sounds disconcertingly like the Human League by numbers. Tell Me When" became the Human League's most commercially successful single in nine years and reintroduced the band to many of the British general public. It peaked at number six on the UK Singles Chart in early 1995, their highest UK chart position since " (Keep Feeling) Fascination" reached number two in 1983, and spent a total of nine weeks on the chart.

Oakey took issue with this description and said in an interview that the band had never stopped recording and performing since its formation in 1977. Dave Thompson of AllMusic said it echoes earlier material, likening it to " Fascination" and " Mirror Man". Tell Me When" is a song by English synth-pop band the Human League, released in December 1994 by East West Records as the first single from their seventh album, Octopus (1995).

As it was the first commercial release in the UK by the band for four years it is often incorrectly described as a comeback as many people erroneously believed the band had disbanded in 1990. He went further, saying that "the real difference is found in the vignette-esque lyrics and the more complex vocals. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.