4 December 1982
‘Mirror Man’ made it to number one for a week in Ireland but was kept off the UK top spot by ‘Beat Surrender’, The Jam’s farewell single. Neither track shows these bands at their best. This was The Human League’s first new music since ‘Don’t You Want Me’ a year earlier; few records would come out of that comparison well.
Where ‘Don’t You Want Me’ was hook after hook after hook, little of ‘Mirror Man’ is memorable. The girls are relegated to Motown-style oohs and aahs, the verses are an amorphous blur of vague lyrics, and I don’t feel particularly interested in who or what the mirror man may be. (Apparently it’s about Adam Ant.) Next single ‘Fascination’ would be a return to the band’s classic Dare sound.
