I realize it is still winter for a couple more weeks, but it is starting to feel like spring is around the corner. It could be the anticipation of a vaccinated world, or maybe just the effect of a longer day, but I’ll take it. OK – here’s some music.
Disc 1455 is…. The Pleasure Principle
Artist: Gary Numan
Year of Release: 1979
What’s up with the Cover? Gary Numan looks askance at a glowing red pyramid. This cover invites us to wonder what exactly Mr. Numan is thinking. My best guess is “I should never have opened my neighbour’s Amazon package” or maybe, “This new intercom system is starting to make me wonder if we should have sold the firm to the undying pharaoh Nephren-Ka”.
How I Came To Know It: I know the album’s hit single, but it would never have occurred to me to check into Gary Numan if it weren’t for my buddy Nick. Nick is a big Gary Numan fan. You can tell a big fan because when you ask them which album is the best, they can never pick just one. When I told Nick I picked this album up, he was happy, but immediately said, “you need to get Replicas as well”. See? Big fan.
How It Stacks Up: Numan is still making music (he has 22 studio albums and another on the way this May). Despite this and ongoing exhortations from my mates, to date this is my only Gary Numan album. This means for now it can’t stack up.
Ratings: 4 stars
A quick scan of the bands I’ve reviewed so far will tell you that Gary Numan’s synthesizer New Wave weirdness is not my usual jam. But great music is always my jam, and this stuff is as wonderful as it is weird.
“The Pleasure Principle” is otherworldly. The synthesizers scream artificiality, and Numan’s vocals are deliberately robotic. Despite this, the album feels deep and emotional. There are a few reasons for this.
The first is that while these songs are reinforced behind a wall of fuzzy synth, at their core they are sneaky melodic. Sure it is played on synths, but a lot of these songs would sound just as dope on an electric guitar in a traditional rock arrangement. Some, like “M.E.” would even be great as acoustic folk – my mind even filled in violin for some of the synth bits from time to time. Good songs have good bones, even when those bones are made of metal and plastic, as they are here.
The second reason is Numan’s vocal performance. He has a quavering vibrato and stilted delivery to underscore the technology-forward sound and themes of the songs, but the human in him shines through. Or not human exactly, but more an AI that has learned to love. Kind of like the terminator in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which befriends John Connor, and saves his life, only to bid him a tearful “hasta la vista” and fall into a vat of molten metal. But I digress…
Lastly, I was surprised and impressed with the Tubeway Army drummer Cedric Sharpley. New Wave is not my go-to for great drummers. I tend to hate that artificial tinny sound that they default to, and the excessive use of drum machine over actual drums. Sharpley is a revelation, and the secret weapon that elevates this record above and beyond any style bias I might have had. His work on tracks like “Observer” and “Films” helps make the songs. He’s precise but intricate, dropping creative beats that fit right into the “we are all clones” vibe of the tunes but with a kernel of humanity at their centre. Sharpley died tragically of a heart attack in 2012, but he left us an amazing performance here that will ensure he lives forever.
I would be remiss not to mention the album’s big hit, “Cars” which is the only Gary Numan song a lot of people will know (certainly true for me for many years). “Cars” is a love song about our fascination with the automobile, but also an exploration of how part of that love is their ability to give us a “separateness” that we move through the world in. On a personal note, I recently bought a car and I can confirm that yes, it is a lot of fun driving to this song. The roar of the engine fits in nicely, like Numan planned it that way.
My copy of “The Pleasure Principle” is (of course) on compact disc, and it features a gratuitous seven bonus tracks. This pushes the album to a bloated 17 songs, and 68 minutes, some of which are just instrumental mood pieces. It is hard to complain, though, because the bonus tracks are all good. For example, if you ever want to experience the terror of a haunted insane asylum, I recommend “Asylum” which does it as well as any horror movie could. He even does a cover of “On Broadway” which is the first time I have appreciated that song. I think I would have liked these extra tracks less if I had the original studio albums they come from, but since that isn’t the case (yet) they were a welcome addition.
I feel like I’ve tried other Gary Numan albums before and moved on without buying, but listening to the brilliance of “The Pleasure Principle” I am motivated to dive in once again.
Best tracks: Metal, Films, M.E., Observer, Conversation, Cars
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