He'd also been on synths in several 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' TV performances 🙂 And Flangers are cool indeed! 🤩 One of the reasons I also like 'Primary' by The Cure 😊
Please Please react to Systems of Romance by the original Ultravox line up , groundbreaking to say the least and very much the core inspiration for Gary Numans work.
Numan was only 21 when he released this. I love the riffs he uses - simple enough, but very catchy and huge sounding. He is currently on tour, in his sixties. Why get a human, when you've got Gary Numan... BTW -- you only accept PayPal for your patreons? The site got too complex for this old brain of mine. I'll try again.
Excellent that you are reacting to The Pleasure Principle, JP! There are many great tracks on this record, and you are correct that "Airlane" sets the tone for the following tunes and the album. Looking forward to checking out tomorrow's reaction. Thanks.
First cassette I ever bought! Starting boarding school in Australia 1979, this was my refuge from isolation, boredom and bullying. I still have that cassette. I saw Gary in concert a few years ago and hoped to get him to autograph it, but didn’t catch him. Maybe next time.
We saw Mr. N last year. It was a Monday night, the show had been delayed by COVID, and we were pretty tired-since we’re in our 60s! But MAN are we glad we went. Terrific performance, fascinating interpretations of his own material-there was an air of Nine Inch Nails about it. If you get a chance to see him live, DO IT.
Seen him live a few times and I couldn't agree more! If you get a chance to see him live, you should. You can tell he still loves what he does, even after all these years, and he keeps everything fresh.
I have the 12" vinyl sleeve of The Pleasure Principle signed by Chris Payne, he played the keyboards on this fantastic instrumental opener off The Pleasure Principle. Great choice sir! - C. '23
Great instrumental opener that sets things to come. The Pleasure Principle is from my point of view Gary Numan's best album and it remains my favorite (maybe also because it was the first Numan album I had when it came out and there is this nostalgic aspect that plays a role in it. who knows...). I really like the rhythm section of Paul Gardiner on bass and Cedric Sharpley on drums, which between them gives a less synthetic and more human rendering. About Cedric Sharpley, did you know that he played in the progressive rock band Druid which released two albums Toward The Sun (1975) and Fluid Druid (1976). Maybe something to explore one day....😉
@@pentagrammaton6793 I had this pair on one CD in the 90s but I don't think I have the CD anymore, I'll have to look... I don't remember much. My old age is playing tricks on me!!!🙄😉
Airwaves - Thomas Dolby The Air That I Breathe - The Hollies Aerosmith ROCKS They're all on the List- i just know it. U gotta finish Fair Warning by Van Halen too, please. This? Cars was Exciting at the time.Does Cars follow on from this I wonder? It sounds like a Cars prelude. The mechanical robotic sound and humanoid image scared me a bit when he hit the Hit Parade. So I kept him at arms length. (JP, i filmed a Doll by Doll video for u on Twitter. Ignore it if u wish but thank u for always Keepin the Just JP Music Palette a Broad One.)
Cyberfunk. Perfectly categorized Justin. Maybe not my favorite but I like this album a lot and many others as well. Guess I'm a true numanoid. I hope you will become one too :)
A bit of info you may already know but may not from that Wikipedia article: John Peel was a top British radio DJ and always promoted innovative new tracks. His show was the place to listen for the latest intriguing trends in music. Many bands recorded "John Peel sessions", a large number of which have since been released as EPs. Numan's first couple of albums were strong, but then he got into a bit of a rut before coming back with a darker, more industrial sound that wasn't chart friendly but was very influential for bands like Nine Inch Nails.
Gary Numan was so inivative and one of the first to really use synthesizers. How about trying my favorite album from a band called "Fashion". The album was called "Fabrique". Speacially loved track 4, "Dressed to kill" but all are excellent. Think you might like it. They were among the pioneers of Synthesizers and were extremely underrated, so much so that the lead singer left after this album and the band never reached these dizzy heights again! Enjoy.
Numan figured out early on you can add all the synths you want but you need REAL drums and bass or it'll suck. You can synth those now and sound great but back then real rhythm section or it'll sound like a video game.
Hmmm…this was all the rage in 79/80. By ‘81 everyone had moved onto something else. Trouble is, you listen to the first track and you think Wow that’s fantastic. Then track 2 sounds exactly the same…and track 3 is more of the same and track 4 is…you get the picture… And his voice…talk about Marmite. John Foxx seemed so much more deep, varied and intriguing than Numan’s Bowie with a synthisms. Sorry Gary. A couple of great tracks and then set the controls for the heart of ‘repeat’ 😴
You're not entirely wrong with what you're saying there, and the non-changing soundscape is one of the reasons why I like only a few of the album's songs, too.
@@michaelcapewell4811 - To be fair, though: He did eventually try new things and modify his sound accordingly, albeit with much lesser success. One can also not discount the fact that his popularity eventually returned many years later, too. His more recent stuff isn't really my cuppa (Too dark for me), but it's very cool all the same that he's still going and also not just relying on his old material like sooo many other bands of his era that also are still around now. And oh my, Adam & the Ants! 😃 I liked them when I was 10 (in 1980) and still like them today 😁
I am SOOO happy that you are reacting to this entire album, 'cause the entire thing is entirely excellent! "Replicas" is equally consistent in its quality of songs, sounds, moods and production. The third in this series, "Telekon", is half-excellent and half dead in the water boring. Ona reviewer at the time accused "Telekon" of suffering from a energy shortage --- a clever thing to write about electronic Sci-Fi music.
If you want to follow that up with some metal that brings in the Bhagavad Gita and some Indian sounds, *Rudra* might be just the bomb, with *Hymns From the Blazing Chariot* ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MVvDOTxEb_Q.html
Or some longer-format *Uriah Heep* with some progressive tendencies. (If not that, it's "art rock" I suppose). *Shadows of Grief* ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oUTtXecKCeQ.html )
And then there's a *Shaheer Shaheed* cover of *All About Eve* , that _SteveVaiHimself_ commented favorably on. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-s8Bjue98GLk.html