Songfacts®:

• This piece of mechanized Motown features the uncredited vocals of Carol Kenyon. The R&B session singer also provided lead vocals on Paul Hardcastle's UK Top 10 single "Don't Waste My Time" and backing vocals on the Pink Floyd album The Division Bell.
• Heaven 17 were a synthpop group formed by former Human League members Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware (both keyboards) with Glenn Gregory (vocals). They were named after the band in Anthony Burgess' novel and Stanley Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange. This song was the trio's biggest hit, though they achieved two other Top 20 placings in the UK singles chart, with "Come Live With Me" (#5) and "Crushed by the Wheels of Industry" (#17). However Heaven 17 were more of an album band, and their debut set Penthouse And Pavement spent 76 weeks in the UK album chart between 1981 and 1983. Ware together with Marsh later helped relaunch Tina Turner's career and also produced for Terence Trent D'Arby, Alison Moyet and Erasure.
• Martyn Ware said in Q magazine February 2009 that this song was designed to, "sound like sex, building up until the final explosive moment. We had a battle with the label to get it released."
• In 1992 a remix by Brothers in Rhythm returned this song to the UK charts, this time peaking at #4.
• This featured in the 1996 movie Trainspotting.
• The Luxury Gap was a concept album about '80s consumerism.
• In 2024, Martyn Ware had an anything-but-tempting offer for the inclusion of "Temptation" in the Grand Theft Auto VI video game. Ware took to Twitter to share the surprising proposal from Rockstar Games.
  
  "Naturally excited about the immense wealth that was about to head my way, I scrolled to the bottom of the email," he quipped.
  
  The punchline? The offer was $7,500 for a total buyout of any future royalties from the game - forever. To put it in perspective, Ware added, "Grand Theft Auto VI grossed, wait for it... $8.6 BILLION."
  
  His final thoughts on the matter? "Ah, but think of the exposure... Go f--k yourself."