For some reason, The Human League were never very good at striking while the iron was hot. Over three years passed between 1981's DARE! and its follow-up HYSTERIA, and even when the band scored an unexpected hit with the single "Human" from 1986's CRASH, the band didn't capitalize on this good fortune for four years.
By the time 1990's ROMANTIC? was released, synth-pop was long dead and gone as a style, and so the album recasts singers Phil Oakey, Joanne Catherall and Susanne Sulley as a mainstream pop band with guitar-and-keyboard songs. The results aren't bad at all, and some tracks, like the single "Heart Like a Wheel" (not the Kate and Anna McGarrigle song), are excellent. The hints of acid house which color a few tracks, most notably "Mr. Moon and Mr. Sun," sound a bit dated in retrospect, and the presence of several producers gives ROMANTIC? an uneven flow, but it's a fine dance-pop record.