449. The Pleasure Principle - Gary Numan

When I was about fifteen I was quite into electronic rock music, and decided to research the artists who influenced bands like Nine Inch Nails and Tool. I picked up a best of Gary Numan and the Tubeway Army CD for about two quid, and listened to it at most once. The cut glass synths and weird electronic voice sounded a million miles away from what I liked, and so that particular exercise in musical history and discovery died a death. Revisiting an album proper by Numan felt like a chance for me to right this wrong, and give him a fair hearing.

The Pleasure Principle was Gary Numan's first album under his own, the first two having been under the name the Tubeway Army. The album was heavily influenced by other electronic artists at the time, notably Kraftwerk, Eno and Bowie, and was unashamed about his plagiarism. The album spawned two successful singles in Complex and Cars, the latter of which went on to be a US number one. Indeed, it was this track that enabled Numan to follow up holding the UK number one album and single slot for the second time in ten months, following his previous success with Replicas and Are 'Friends' Electric? This dual success put the record label Beggars' Banquet firmly on the map, and it is still going to this day as a collection of independent British labels. The album's cover art is based on a Magritte painting called Pleasure Principle - clever Numan.

Airlane is a well layered and textured instrumental opener that would have worked particularly well as the theme tune for Knightmare. Metal is an exceptional song, and one I knew from the Nine Inch Nails cover. It has a great squelchy bassline, and some really insistent percussion; all military precision and coldness. At the same time it is telling a story somewhere between Pinocchio and Blade Runner, yet using a Moog to provide the required emotions rather than the vocals. Complex meanders without meaning, whereas Films at least has some decent string backing. M.E. sounded instantly familiar as the guitars were sampled for Basement Jaxx's Where's your Head at? As good a sound as it is, Jaxx do much more with it to my ears than Numan does, especially as his song fades into high pitched electronic swirling. Tracks is a song with a bit more of a varied profile to it, rising to something of a crescendo that gives it a more human feel than many others on the album. Cars is the best known song off the album, and is a belter, although having heard it about twelve times this week its novelty does wear off somewhat. Engineers is a decently rousing ending, but to be frank, by this time it's all starting to merge a bit.

There are songs off this album that I really enjoyed, but there were too many that just did nothing for me. The cold, teutonic sound still sounds futuristic, and obviously a lot of thought has gone into the production of the record. Listening to it several times in a week though, tracks just seemed to merge in a slightly muddled mixture of high pitched synths, efficient drumming, mournful vocalsa and the occasional violin. Numan had obviously got an efficient formula that served him well, but a large number of permutations on a theme left me thinking that the fifteen year old me didn't have too much to apologise for having abandoned his greatest hits.

Chloe's rating: 5

Chloe's favourite track: 4. Films

Olly's rating: 5

Olly's favourite track: 2. Metal

Next week we have 409. Live and Dangerous by Thin Lizzy. I'm not normally a fan of live albums, and this run of late 70s albums could start to drag. Bodes well.