"Filling Up with Heaven" is a song by English synth-pop band the Human League, released as the third and final single from their seventh full-length studio album, Octopus (1995). It was jointly written by lead singer Philip Oakey and producer Ian Stanley (formerly of Tears for Fears). The song was released on 5 June 1995 by East West Records in a variety of vinyl and CD single formats. These included various third-party remixes of "Filling Up with Heaven" and "John Cleese; Is He Funny?", including mixes by Hardfloor.
After the success of the previous two singles it was expected to equal the chart position of "Tell Me When" and "One Man in My Heart". But unlike the two previous singles it was not play listed by BBC Radio 1 and received minimal national airplay, affecting sales. The single eventually peaked at number 36 in the UK singles chart, spending a total of two weeks in the charts.[2]
Critical reception
In his weekly UK chart commentary, James Masterton wrote, "The latest single from Octopus sounds almost as if it could have come from their early 80s heyday, a loosely structured song, playing on the juxtaposition of Phil Oakey's voice with those of Joanne Catherall and Suzanne Sulley. Very new romantic and so somehow a bit dated, hence possibly this rather lowly chart entry."[3] Jennifer Nine from Melody Maker described the song as "shiny", with "the girls' no baby no like silvery icing on Oakey's lines, crowbarred, as always, into awkward scansion. (Until he gives up and just goes hey hey hey, thrillingly.)"[4]
Pan-European magazine Music & Media commented, "Oakey and the girls seem to be on a trip through outer space. Bombarded with more bleeps than in Star Wars, in our control room on planet earth we can see that they're still into melodies."[5] A reviewer from Music Week gave the song three out of five, describing it as a "strong" third single from the album, "if not a break from the successful formula".[6] Amy Raphael from NME was negative, saying, "The League haven't really changed that much over the past 15 years but we have and, where their simplicity was once appealing, it now renders them bland. Which won't stop it from being a hit. Unfortunately."[7]
Music video
Susan Ann Sulley in the music video for "Filling Up with Heaven"
The accompanying music video for "Filling Up with Heaven" was filmed on a low budget and in a minimalist studio (London's Limehouse Studios), unlike the other music videos for Octopus which were higher end. With rich saturated background colours. It features a series of sweeping steadicam shots of Philip Oakey, with a mainly seated Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall. It is the only one of the Human League's music videos which Sulley has a long blonde pony tail hairstyle, for the previous two she has short hair, suggesting that she had hair extensions for the video.
For the instrumental sections a continual sweeping loop of Neil Sutton playing keyboards is featured. Post production the video was intentionally stylized by deeply enriching the colours and reducing the pixel resolution, giving a digital smudge effect (as illustrated).
A licensing fee dispute between East West and Virgin Records would prevent the video from being featured on the 2003 Very Best of The Human LeagueDVD. However, in 2016, a remastered version of the video was featured on a DVD included with the deluxe version of the box set A Very British Synthesizer Group.
Track listings
CD 1 1995, East West (YZ944CD1)
"Filling Up with Heaven"
"Filling Up with Heaven" (Neil Mclellan vocal mix)
"John Cleese; Is He Funny?" (ULA remix)
"John Cleese; Is He Funny?" (Self Preservation Society house mix)
