Gary Numan--Cult Hero or Crap?

Been blasting in cars

That Numan interview is really good, he's such a self-effacing musician.

Any suggestions for tunes to check out on his later records with Ade Fenton that are discussed in the Tape Op magazine articles?

in my experience all his stuff is worth the dig, especially in the age of youtube/spotify -- Warriors is great to my ear, the bass is all slinky/warbly/possibly fretless? I suspect so stuff that I really like. if you were around for Cars the first go-round, it's a little hard to square the Numan of Telekon/Pleasure Principle with how much he grew musically, & I think this is down to how little he grew vocally. He has the same vocal style he had in the Tubeway Army all the way through, to my ear...but as a musician, as a songwriter, he goes through truly daring changes from album to album -- New Anger is one thing, The Fury quite another, and so on & on. But there, at the center always because it's so distinctive, is the same sound. So the ear tends to find that as a focus, but to me these days the vocal lines are more -- decorative? While musically, I'm still finding new things to like on so many of his records.

If you end up going all in, the live album from the New Anger tour, The Skin Mechanic, is especially good imo.

Ah yes the live version of Young Heart is pretty special. I think New Anger / Metal Rhythm is unjustly overlooked with some great stuff on it. Don't Call My Name sounds like it could slot neatly into a David Lynch soundtrack and Voix should've been a single.

I like all of the Beggars Banquet albums (yes, including Warriors which I hated for a long time until I finally managed to adjust to what Gary was doing on that record) - I like Metal Rhythm a lot and find it to be a very underrated record. Then of his recent phase: Sacrifice, Pure and Splinter. All the others I just cherry pick one or two tracks from.

Ah yes, and Dead Son Rising - love that one too. In hindsight, the recent one (Savage) was underwhelming.

I didn’t know until today that Tape Op has a digital subscription! So that’s happening for me today.

My Numan thing has been to slowly creep forward with a new point on the timeline every few years. For decades Tubeway Army/Replicas/PP was the corpus for me, then I got with Telekon in the 00s, that was a very easy and thrilling add; Dance I digested in the 10s and I don’t think I’d have been able to grok it if I hadn’t gotten into Japan in the meantime. This past year I finally got I, Assassin and I’m still coming to terms with it tbh. I like its soundworld a lot but I do find at this point that his choruses are too often stamped from the “We Are Glass” template of long breathed whole note and half note melodies with portamento-ing monosynth.

when in the right mood, I really enjoy Pure.
I have a 2cd live set from that era, Scarred.
because they released a LOT of live albums, and they were selling them off at Fopp for £3 each, and I just picked one randomly.

So many great tunes, and I ask: what was his presence -- college radio and otherwise -- in America 1979-1981?

Can only speak for commercial radio, it was just "Cars" over here, and it was inescapable in early 1980.

can I just say what a fucking phenomenal tune "Complex" is

still yet to find anything that makes me feel like that song does

"Muzig vor gameleons... muzig vor gameleons..."

Despite attempts to change his signature sound with fretless bass and terrible sax playing and whatever, his stuff is so samey - I mean I like it, but listening to a whole batch of it you very quickly notice its limitations. Of course, the music's all written around his extremely limited vocal range, which doesn't help.

limitations are good

LOL @ his US chart record, "Cars" got to #9 and "I Die: You Die" climbed all the way to #102. I didn't even know there was a #102.

haha yeah wait how low does that chart go

"debuting at #572, it's..."

I Die: You Die is better than Cars

And it goes to 200, no?

Excuse me, "I Die: Yo Die". His singles are great.

those limitations have defined his career from the start, someone (maybe on here?) mentioned that The Pleasure Principle was like 10 different takes on the same tune and that's really stuck with me, actually makes me like the album more

I was really into Pure (his 2000 album) for a while until I realized that he was doing the same trick on nearly every track, you could drop in any chorus on any tune at it would still work

his latest two do seem to mix it up a bit more for what that's worth