It was released on 27 November as the fourth single from their third studio album, Dare The band's best known and most commercially successful song, it was the best selling UK single of , [ 5 ] that year's Christmas number one , and has since sold over 1,, copies in the UK, making it the 23rd-most successful single in UK Singles Chart history. The lyrics were inspired after the Human League lead singer Philip Oakey read a photo-story in a teen-girl's magazine.
Though the song had been conceived and recorded in the studio as a male solo, Oakey was inspired by the film A Star Is Born and decided to turn the song into a conflicting duet with one of the band's two teenage female vocalists. Susan Ann Sulley was then asked to take on the role. Until then, she and the other female vocalist, Joanne Catherall , had only been assigned backing vocals; Sulley says she was chosen only through "luck of the draw". Musicians Jo Callis and Philip Adrian Wright created a synthesizer score to accompany the lyrics that was much harsher than the version that was actually released.
Initial versions of the song were recorded but Virgin Records -appointed producer Martin Rushent was unhappy with them. He and Callis remixed the track, giving it a softer, and in Oakey's opinion, " poppy " sound. Oakey hated the new version and thought it would be the weakest track on Dare , resulting in one of his infamous rows with Rushent. With a hit album and three hit singles in a row, Virgin's chief executive Simon Draper decided to release one more single from the album before the end of His choice, "Don't You Want Me", instantly caused a row with Oakey, who did not want another single to be released because he was convinced that "the public were now sick of hearing" the band and the choice of the "poor quality filler track" would almost certainly be a disaster, wrecking the group's new-found popularity.
The band felt the track was "our sort of Des O'Connor song". The Human League often added cryptic references to their productions and the record sleeve of "Don't You Want Me" featured the suffix of "". In a contemporary review, Record World praised its "throbbing synthesized beat and sharp hook.
Today, the song is widely considered a classic of its era. In a retrospective review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine , senior editor for AllMusic , described the song as "a devastating chronicle of a frayed romance wrapped in the greatest pop hooks and production of its year.
