You can watch the humans: the best of Gary Numan 1979-1982

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Three consecutive #1 albums in England? Feh. How did the Numanonid army frighten Americans? Enough to make “Cars” a top ten — less unlikely than you think during the New Wave-dominated climate of 1979-1980 — but insufficient to start nothing more than a well-placed cult. Nothing to sneeze at, let me add. Glance at the week when “Cars” entered that top ten. On one side: “Ride Like the Wind.” On the other? “Against the Wind”? What are cars for but to ride against the wind? (Don’t even ask about Dr. Hook and Ambrosia). We have evidence young Trent Reznor and Dave Grohl were listening; how many other fans bought Telekon and I, Assassin?

To argue Gary Numan was a “minor” artist is to slash away at the definition of words. He released two excellent albums that changed the direction of pop music, by which I mean its sonic emphasis and point of view. If he ran out of tricks on on his Polymoogs, hundreds of guitar bands did too. He took sci-fi seriously. His songs accepted queer experiences without shame: the steady tread of “Down in the Park” may’ve convinced young George Michael about the pleasure — the pleasure principle — of tricking in public bathrooms. And for all the blather about WHOA SYNTHESIZERS some of Tubeway Army/Numan’s fiercest performances required guitars: “The Machman” should’ve inspired a legion of power chorders, and “We Are Glass” chug-chug-chugs like Iggy and Neu! on the J.G. Ballard train.

Anyway, Marcello Carlin and Tom Ewing have written better than I have about his UK appeal. Here’s the list:

1. Down in the Park
2. We Are Glass
3. Are ‘Friends’ Electric?
4. Metal
5. Jo the Waiter
6. My Love is a Liquid
7. Cars
8. I Dream of Wires
9. The Machman
10. Telekon
11. Me! I Disconnect from You
12. Complex
13. Music for Chameleons
14. Stormtrooper in Drag
15. I Die: You Die
16. Cry the Clock Said
17. We Take Mystery to Bed
18. Remind Me to Smile
19. My Shadow in Vain
20. M.E.

4 thoughts on “You can watch the humans: the best of Gary Numan 1979-1982”

  1. Glad to see the never tiring “We Are Glass” in #2 position. I actually managed to hear an airing on “Are ‘Friends’ Electric” on the FM Rock® I was listening to. With increasing boredom after 18 months, I’d add, but I’d only graduated from Top 40 in 1978. That was all it took. My friends and I knew we’d heard what we needed and became early adopters. Then he popped out “Cars” and attained a kind of immortality. Of course, by 1980 we finally heard Ultravox and that led to the irrelevance of Numan in our world as we learned about John Foxx. I’d only ever heard the name of that band when Numan cited them in interviews for a year or so.

    By 1982 that was it for Numan for a few years. His 1983 album I skipped and it was as ghastly as I’d feared upon hearing it in the Japanese boxed set of Beggars Banquet material I bought in 1990. But as the Ultravox story became moribund by the mid-80s, it occurred to glance over at what Numan was releasing at that time and I have great fondness for his first three self-released albums that gave up the kind of tech-rock that Ultravox were abandoning for… Celtic Music [?].

    After an increasingly sketchy run on I.R.S. Records in the late 80s, I thought Numan [importantly] rediscovered his guitar mojo on “Sacrifice” but he followed that up with a tepid series of faux-NIN efforts that bored to this day. I understand that having Trent Reznor [rolls eyes] throw you a little commercial oxygen at the time of his chart ascendence and after over a decade in the wilderness, might feel good. But that doesn’t make it right. Numan’s pivot for the Kerrrang! crowd ultimately lost me as a fan.

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