[kj] [OT] Gary Numan

[Darren A. Peace]

Oo. Just had this press release. It’s one of the first albums I actually
bought, so I’m excited, given what the did with “Replicas”, but I’m posting
it here mainly because Brenda will like the last paragraph.

 

Darren

Hungerford, UK

 

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Gary Numan Album: The Pleasure Principle (30th Anniversary Edition) Release
Date: September 28, 2009 08 Jul 09

 

Label: Beggars Banquet  Live Dates: The Pleasure Principle Tour 2009 Nov 17,
Brighton Dome; 18 Southampton University; 19 Cardiff Sub 29; 20 Sheffield
Corporation; 21 Manchester Academy; 23 Cork Pavillion; 24 Dublin Tripod; 25
Leeds Academy; 26 Edinburgh Picturehouse; 27 Glasgow ABC; 28 Sunderland The
Campus; 29 Norwich UEA; 30 Wolverhampton Civic; Dec 1.

Cambridge Junction; 2 Nottingham Rock City; 3 London Indigo

 

Gary Numan's classic, influential album, The Pleasure Principle is being
re-released as a double CD edition (featuring demos and B-sides on the bonus
disc) 30 years after it debuted at Number 1 in the UK charts. The singer's
single from the album, 'Cars' also climbed to the top of the charts, an
achievement he's celebrating with a 16 date UK tour starting in mid
November.

 

The Pleasure Principle was the point where Numan became a huge international
solo star, reaching the Top 10 in the States with 'Cars' and Top 20 with the
album. Given the conservative nature of the music scene in America at that
time and the fact that the LP didn't even feature any guitars, let alone
conventional song structures ('Cars' doesn't even have a chorus), this is
one of those special moments in pop music when a new idea breaks through all
the boundaries. The Pleasure Principle pioneered electronic pop music on a
new scale, becoming a much bigger hit worldwide than Kraftwerk or anything
from the Bowie/Eno 'Berlin' trilogy. And the fact that it was so different
and had such a major impact in America (crystallised when Numan performed
'Cars' and 'Praying To The Aliens' in front of 40 million people on the
Saturday Night Live Show) means that there's a direct link from The Pleasure
Principle to the new musical forms that were born in the USA over the next
decade - namel  y hip hop, industrial and techno.

 

As the NME recently noted, 'every hip-hop production titan ever – notably Dr
Dre – has nicked the opening beats from the track 'Films'. The likes of
Timbaland and The Neptunes' minimal pop – comprised of just exquisitely
produced drums and simplistic synthlines – are heralded as been futuristic
genius in the 21st century; The Pleasure Principle shows that Gary Numan was
doing the same thing 30 years previously. His influence on hip-hop, while
rarely recognised, is enormous. His influence on electronic music in general
is unparalleled.' When GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan's covered 'Films'

last year, he was actually taking hip hop back to its roots as the track
features one of the original break breats (in fact it features on the hugely
influential, Ultimate Breaks & Beats compilation series) . Former Sex
Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren recalls his first encounter with hip hop in
the early '80s: 'I remember hearing Gary Numan's 'Cars' and looking at this
madly volatile black crowd in

  the middle of the South Bronx – my first visit to witness a party that I
was invited to by Afrika Bambaataa. I, a naïve white honky, thought that it
was in some apartment building, but it turned out to be this massive debris
site and there in the middle of it was these guys telling their stories,
freestyle, to Gary Numan's 'Cars'. My thoughts were interupted when waves
parted in the crowd like the Red Sea and there, in a pool of light on the
floor, came characters who started to spin and break dance.

I'd never seen anything quite like it, I thought it was amazing.'

 

In industrial music both Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson have namechecked
Numan as a significant influence, with the former currently performing the
track 'Metal' on his tour. 'After hearing 'Cars' I knew I wanted to make
music with synthesizers,' says Reznor. 'The Pleasure Principle is fucking
great because it's so cold sounding.' Meanwhile, techno pioneers ranging
from Carl Craig to Juan Atkins were grabbed by this strange, futuristic
music, creating a relationship between Numan and dance music that has
spawned the likes of the Basement Jaxx's 'Where's Your Head At' (samples
'M.E.' from The Pleasure Principle) and the 'Cars'-mutating 'Koochy' by
Armand Van Helden. As the newly reformed Devo recently commented, The
Pleasure Principle is, 'so original and cool and ground breaking and in a
way classic. Like, it still sounds great today .

. .

 

-Ends-

 

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