Gary Numan

Pleasure Principle is the album most Americans equate with this New Wave innovator, specifically the song "Cars," which was a moderate hit on the radio and, more significantly, a heavily-rotated video on the then-fledgling MTV network. Nobody plays New Wave robo-funk like Numan, and his early records remain, to this day, archetypal post-Bowie synth rock.

In Gary Numan's world, every day is Doomsday, and he's the sole survivor. Living in a
germ-free plastic room with blinking neon, no shadows and a mirror instead of a window,
Numan creates duplicate models of himself–in the mirror, on film, from metal – for
companionship. (His first record was called Replicas.) All of the singer's songs are
monologues addressed from him to them, and sometimes from them to him. "I cou... More >

Once again, metal machine music goes easy-listening. But last time the commander-in-chief of the tubeway army was singing about furtive sex, policemen, and isolation, while this time he's singing about robots, engineers, and isolation. In such a slight artist, these things make all the difference. (Grade - B)