Living Ornaments '79 and '80
Living Ornaments'79 and'80 is a box set by English musician Gary Numan, released in April 1981. The box-set contains the two live albums Living Ornaments'79 and Living Ornaments'80 which were released separately in April 1981. Although Living Ornaments'79 and Living Ornaments'80 only reached numbers 47 and 39 on the UK Albums Chart the box set reached number two. All track written by Gary Numan. "Airlane" – 3:12 "Cars" – 3:20 "We Are So Fragile" – 2:33 "Films" – 3:45 "Something's in the House" – 4:08 "My Shadow in Vain" – 2:50 "Conversation" – 7:45 "The Dream Police" – 4:12 "Metal" – 3:25 "This Wreckage" – 5:20 "I Die: You Die" – 3:38 "M. E." – 4:27 "Everyday I Die" – 4:22 "Down in the Park" – 5:55 Remind Me to Smile – 3:40 The Joy Circuit – 5:47 Tracks – 2:43 Are'Friends' Electric? – 5:30 We Are Glass – 4:32 Gary Numan – vocals, synthesizer, mixer Rrussell Bell – guitar Billy Currie – keyboards Robert Ellis – photographer Paul Gardiner – bass Peter Gilbert – photographer Will Gosling – assistant mixer Roger Mason – keyboards Chris Payne – keyboards, viola Cedric Sharpley – drums Tim Summerhayes – engineer Phil Thornalley – assistant engineer Living Ornaments'79 And'80 at Discogs LIVING ORNAMENTS 79 AND 80 LP numanme.co.uk
Warriors (Gary Numan album)
Warriors is the fifth solo studio album by English musician Gary Numan released in September 1983. It was his last studio album released on Beggars Banquet Records. Gary Numan returned to England in May 1983 to record the album, he had written most of the album's material in late 1982-early 1983, while he was living in Jersey, Channel Islands. While Numan was working on the early Warriors material, Beggars Banquet suggested that, for the first time during his career, he should use a co-producer instead of producing the album by himself. Numan was not keen at first, but WEA managing director Mike Heap promised him "a unlimited promotional budget" on the album if he signed up a producer. Numan decided to recruit guitarist Bill Nelson for the job, as he was an admirer of Nelson's band, Be-Bop Deluxe. Numan claimed that Nelson was his "favourite guitar player, bar none." For Numan, Mike Heap was fired and the record company was no longer willing to cover all the costs for Numan's album. It was stated sometime after the release of the album WEA had, in fact, told Numan that he was reaching sales of 60,000 units, and, satisfactory to them.
Numan remarked, "When the new people came in, I was as far from a priority act as it was possible to be. I felt as though they'd cut me down at the knees and it was the last time I got excited about a promise in the music business."Numan claimed that Warriors pointed the way for his artistic decline throughout the 80s: For the recording of the album, Numan retained drummer Cedric Sharpley, keyboardist Chris Payne, guitarist Russell Bell, all of whom had played on his albums and tours since 1979. Pino Palladino, the bassist on Numan's previous album I, was unable to return for Warriors. At Palladino's suggestion, Numan recruited Joe Hubbard as a replacement. Bill Nelson played guitars during the recording of Warriors, giving them more prominence than they had been allowed on I, Assassin. Numan asked Dick Morrissey to be the saxophone player on the album, as he admired his work on the Blade Runner film score. Numan described Morrissey as "brilliant, a musical genius. First take, not a single note wrong."
Morrissey would contribute to five Numan albums, from 1983 to 1991. Female backing vocals were introduced to the Numan sound on Warriors, provided by Tracey Ackerman. Numan and Bill Nelson quarrelled during the Warriors recording sessions. Numan recalled: The relationship between Numan and Nelson deteriorated to the point that Numan "would go out and play pool" while Nelson worked in the studio. Numan disliked Nelson's mix of Warriors, so he remixed the album and made changes to the track listing: both "My Car Slides" and "Poetry and Power" were relegated to B-side status, "Sister Surprise" and "The Tick Tock Man" were completely re-recorded. Nelson asked not to be credited on the final album. Numan conceded that Nelson "did a lot of inventive things on which, because of our differences, I failed to appreciate at the time. To be with him in a room when he was playing guitar was an honour. I would just sit back and listen and all my antagonism would float away."Numan floated prospective titles for the new album amongst his fanbase.
Fans were given the opportunity to vote for one of three potential album titles - This Prison Moon and Power, Glasshouse. Numan overruled the fans' preference of This Prison Moon and chose Warriors as the album's title. Numan's image for the Warriors album and live tour was influenced by the film Mad Max 2. Many parts of the actual costume came from a sex shop in London; the title track was released as the first single from the album in August 1983, reaching #20 in the UK charts. Numan claimed that the single's chart performance was "killed" because it was released as a picture disc, the week it was released, the chart compilers decided that picture discs were ineligible and didn't count their sales; the single peaked at #12 before the picture disc sales were stripped The album itself was released the following month, reaching number 12 on the UK charts, although four places lower than Numan's previous album, it did sell more than I, Assassin with over 60,000 units worldwide. So, it was Numan's first studio album not to be released in the US, was only available there as an import.
The album spent six weeks in the UK charts, despite its low chart placement, it gathered some of the best reviews Numan had had in the UK music press. In October, a shorter, re-recorded version of "Sister Surprise" was released as the second and final single off the album, it charted at #32, making it the lowest-charting Numan solo single up to that point. Due to Numan's dissatisfaction with Beggars Banquet who were now just the middle men between Numan and WEA and other major record companies in general, he decided to form his own record label, Numa Records, in late 1983. Numan released his next three studio albums through Numa Records. Warriors was supported by a 40-date UK tour from September to October 1983; these were Numan's first live dates in the UK since his Wembley farewell conc
The Pleasure Principle (Gary Numan album)
The Pleasure Principle is the debut solo studio album by English musician Gary Numan. Released about six months after Replicas, the second album with his band Tubeway Army, The Pleasure Principle peaked at number 1 in the United Kingdom; the Pleasure Principle has been described as featuring new wave throughout. Numan abandoned electric guitar on the album; this change, coupled with frequent use of synthetic percussion, produced the most purely electronic and robotic sound of his career. In addition to the Minimoog synthesizer employed on his previous album, Numan made liberal use of the Polymoog keyboard its distinctive "Vox Humana" preset. Other production tricks included copious amounts of flanging and reverb, plus the unusual move of including solo viola and violin parts in the arrangements. Numan was influenced by Kraftwerk. Notable tracks included "Airlane", the lead-off instrumental. S. hip hop scene. E.", told from the perspective of the last machine on Earth. "Cars" reached number 9 in the U.
S. and number 1 in Canada, helping make The Pleasure Principle Numan's strongest stateside showing, but lack of a strong commercial follow-up resulted in him being tagged as a one-hit wonder there. Numan toured throughout the world in support of the album with a huge stage set including banks of neon lights and twin pyramids which moved across the stage via radio control; the live show was captured on record on video as The Touring Principle. The support act on the UK leg of the tour was Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. An expanded version of Living Ornaments'79 was issued on CD in 2005, the final show of The Touring Principle was captured on the CD Engineers in 2008. Numan performed a special gig dedicated to the album at Manchester Academy on 21 November 2009, similar to Numan's previous tours for Replicas and Telekon. Numan had been scheduled to play the 2010 Coachella Festival in Indio, California but was forced to cancel, due to the Icelandic volcano eruption that disrupted air travel.
To make up for this, Numan embarked upon a 16-date mini-tour of the U. S. that August, in which he performed The Pleasure Principle in its entirety. Of the bonus tracks included on CD reissues, "Random" and "Oceans" were instrumental outtakes from The Pleasure Principle sessions issued on vinyl with other unreleased tracks in 1985, while "Asylum" was the instrumental B-side of the "Cars" vinyl single; the live versions of "Me! I Disconnect From You" and "Bombers", which appeared as B-sides of "Complex", were recorded on tour and made available in their original context on the expanded Living Ornaments'79 CD, along with "Remember I Was Vapour" and "On Broadway"; the latter two tracks were first released as a promotional single shipped with early pressings of the album Telekon in 1980. AllMusic's Greg Prato rated The Pleasure Principle 4.5 of 5 stars. He explained that "there is not a single weak moment on the disc" and that "the quality of the songs gets stronger and stronger as the album progresses".
He concluded: "If you had to own just one Gary Numan album, The Pleasure Principle would be it." Robert Christgau rated the album a B, saying that it was where "metal machine music goes easy-listening." He stated, "This time he's singing about robots and isolation. In such a slight artist, these things make all the difference." All songs written except where noted. CD bonus tracks"Random" – 3:49 "Oceans" – 3:03 "Asylum" – 2:31 "Me! I Disconnect from You" – 3:06 "Bombers" – 5:46 "Remember I Was Vapour"* – 4:46 "On Broadway" – 4:48 To coincide with The Pleasure Principle 30th Anniversary Tour, a special edition of the album was released on 21 September 2009. Disc one"Airlane" "Metal" "Complex" "Films" "M. E." "Tracks" "Observer" "Conversation" "Cars" "Engineers"Disc two"Airlane" "Metal" "Complex" "Films" "M. E." "Tracks" "Observer" "Conversation" "Cars" "Engineers" "Random" "Oceans" "Asylum" "Photograph" "Gymnopedie No. 1" "Conversation" "M. E."Disc three "Down in the Park" "On Broadway" "Everyday I Die" "Remember I Was Vapour" "Bombers" "Me!
I Disconnect from You" "Conversation" "Metal" "Down in the Park" "Airlane" "Cars" "We Are So Fragile" "Films" "Something'
Pure (Gary Numan album)
Pure is the fourteenth solo studio album by English musician Gary Numan, released in November 2000 by Eagle Records. Lyrically, Pure was seen as continuing the composer’s attacks on Christian dogma but in a somewhat more personal fashion than on Exile; the recording featured an expanded group of collaborators after the one-man efforts of Sacrifice and Exile. The Sulpher team of Rob Holliday and Monti contributed guitar and drums as well as keyboards and additional production; the opening/title song was typical of most tracks on the album, beginning with ethereal strings and piano effects that gave way to an industrial metal guitar riff before breaking into a thunderous chorus. It was described by Numan as an attempt to explore the mind of a murderer. "Walking With Shadows" started with a scenario similar to the early Tubeway Army song "The Life Machine", that of a man in a coma, but one who, rather than wishing to return to his loved ones, wanted his loved ones to join him. "My Jesus", "Listen to My Voice" and "Rip" expanded upon the atheistic/heretical themes that were introduced on Sacrifice and which dominated Exile.
"I Can’t Breathe" inhabited a world similar to Sacrifice’s "Deadliner", that of a waking nightmare. "Fallen" was the composer's first instrumental in a number of full of distorted effects. "A Prayer for the Unborn" and "Little Invitro" were gentler numbers inspired by personal tragedy the recent miscarriages suffered by Numan's wife Gemma and the couple's many unsuccessful IVF attempts up until that time. Pure's style was compared to that of other industrial rock acts, such as Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson, who had themselves acknowledged Numan's earlier influence on their own music. Whilst some critics and fans professed themselves weary of a third record obsessed with religious themes, others such as The Sunday Times described Pure as Numan’s best album since his classic 1979/80 period. Numan toured extensively in support of the new album, captured in the Scarred live recording issued in 2003. A number of the tracks were remixed for the Hybrid collection, released the same year. Unlike the three previous albums, no'Extended' version of Pure was officially made available, though a bootleg of dubious authenticity exists.
However, a 2CD numbered limited edition'Tour Edition' was released in 2001, containing a poster and a bonus CD with screensaver, live tracks and two remixes. The album artwork was extensively re-worked; the only single, "Rip", was released 18 months after the album. In the United States, "Listen to my Voice" was a radio hit, reaching No.13 on the R&R Alternative Charts. Pure received mixed to positive reviews. Writing in NME in October 2000, music journalist Noel Gardner described the album as "Pure... ends up a mere testament to Numan's bloated vanity. Darryl Sterdan, when reviewing the album for Canoe.ca, described Numan's vocal and lyrical approach as "whispering like Manson and yelping like Reznor about pain and sacrifice". Sterdan went on to say, "Numan admits these brooding electro-goth pouts were influenced by U. S. electro-metal. He gets one point for honesty, but none for originality or timeliness -- Rip and Fallen sound like the cliche dreck Trentoids were churning out en masse in'96.
It didn't work and it doesn't work now. For a guy like Numan who can do so much better." The album was more positively assessed in Kerrang:"This veteran artist has released a superbly dark and dysfunctional industrial album that will electrocute you. My Jesus and Rip are just two of many tracks that spiral with synth-based dementia before immersing you in elegant waves of distortion. If you like your melancholia dense and dynamic, you won't want Pure to end, and no way will you believe it's a Gary Numan album. Venturing into darker pastures than Depeche Mode dared, Pure lives out a post-modern nightmare of Blade Runner fashioned alienation, it would be selling Numan short to call Pure pregnant with menace". Writing in The Guardian, Maddy Costa described Numan as sounding like Manson and Reznor, but noted that "nobody quite emulates him". Liana Jonas, reviewing the album for Allmusic, says, "Pure is good, dark mood music, seasoned with menacing basslines, electronic crashes and spikes, slow-grinding guitars.
It's an effective pairing -- ghostly voice coupled with industrialized music. PopMatters review of the album written by Wilson Neate said, "Pure is Gary Numan's richest, most powerful and most aggressive work in years."Pure made a limited impression on the UK Albums Chart where it reached number 58, staying on the charts for one week. In 2013, Pure was reappraised by Jamie Halliday of Audio Antihero Records in a "Paint It Back" retrospective article for the GoldFlakePaint music site, praising the album and calling it Numan's "21st century masterpiece." All songs written except where noted. All timings are approximate and will vary with different equipment. "Pure" – 5:08 "Walking With Shadows" – 5:52 "Rip" – 5:06 "One Perfect Lie" – 4:35 "My Jesus" – 5:45 "Fallen" – 2:31 "Listen to My Voice" – 5:12 "A Prayer for the Unborn" – 5:43 "Torn" – 5:10 "Little Invitro" – 4:28 "I Can't Breathe" – 5:45 CD One Same track listing as original release. CD Two "Pure" - 6:43 "My Jesus" - 5:52 "Rip" - 5:09 "Cars" - 3:22 "Replicas" - 5:13 "A Prayer For The Unborn" - 8:35 "Listen To My Voice" - 8:01 The live tracks appeared on the'Sca
The Plan (Tubeway Army album)
The Plan is an archival compilation album of early demo recordings by British new wave band Tubeway Army, released in 1984. While the demos on The Plan were recorded in 1977 and 1978, they remained unreleased until September 1984 when Numan's former label, Beggars Banquet Records, issued them a year after Numan left the label. In the intervening seven years since recording the demos, Numan's career had scaled great heights of commercial success and waned, his most successful material had been similar in basic form and structure to the demos on The Plan, but had showcased a new synthesizer-based instrumentation instead of his previous punk rock sound. In the album's liner notes, Numan states that these songs were deliberately written and recorded in the then-popular punk rock style with the express aim of securing a record deal; some of the songs on the album formed the basis for songs that would be released on Tubeway Army's debut album in 1978, subsequently rearranged and augmented with the synthesizer-based rock sound which would become the Tubeway Army/Numan trademark.
The Plan went on reaching # 29 on the UK album chart. Two months after The Plan's release, Numan issued Berserker, his first album through his own record label, Numa Records. Chart-wise, The Plan outperformed the latter reaching # 45 on the UK album chart. All CD releases of The Plan include a wealth of bonus tracks, such as Tubeway Army's debut single "That's Too Bad" and an early version of the Tubeway Army album track "The Life Machine." All tracks written by Gary Numan. In 1993, Beggars Banquet issued a digitally remastered version of the album on CD, featuring 10 bonus tracks and a different running order; this release was packaged with Tubeway Army's 1979 album Replicas and was part of a series of double CDs, each of which paired two of Numan's albums together, with bonus tracks and new liner notes. In 1999, Beggars Banquet reissued the CD as a stand-alone release, newly remastered, with the further addition of two bonus tracks. Allmusic Paul Goodwin. Electric Pioneer: An Armchair Guide To Gary Numan
Metal Rhythm
Metal Rhythm is the ninth solo studio album by English musician Gary Numan released in September 1988 by I. R. S. Records. Gary Numan's previous three studio albums had been released on Numa Records. However, the disappointing sales of those albums led to Numan closing down the label and signing to I. R. S. Records. Most of the album had, in fact, been recorded before Numan signed with the record label. I. R. S; therefore had little opportunity to make changes to the recorded material, but the label was still able to exert influence on the album's release. Numan wanted to call the album Cold Metal Rhythm after its song of the same name, but I. R. S. Believed that the shortened title sounded less negative and more commercial. Musically, Metal Rhythm represented a move by Numan into a more commercial sound, although it preserved continuity with Numan's previous albums. Metal Rhythm made liberal use of female backing vocals, which Numan had incorporated into his four previous albums; the album's sense of aggression is present lyrically as well as musically.
In the songs "This is Emotion", "New Anger" and "Devious", Numan lashes out at the emotional desolation and manipulative personalities he had encountered throughout his career, "Respect" is rumoured to be about Numan's falling out with Hohokam, a band signed to Numa Records and Numan's support act during the 1984 Berserker tour. Numan himself remarked: Metal Rhythm was released in September 1988 and although its edgy, industrial-funk sound met with favour from fans and some positive reviews in the UK music press, it sold poorly; the album charted at No. 48, while its singles, "New Anger" and "America", charted at No. 49 respectively. Numan recalled: For its American release, against Numan's wishes, the record label changed the album's title to New Anger, changed the artwork colour shade from black to blue, remixed several of its tracks and replaced two tracks with tracks recorded for Numan's 1984 album Berserker. Numan would only release two more albums with I. R. S. – The Skin Mechanic, a live album from the Metal Rhythm tour, the studio album Outland – before quitting the label and reactivating Numa Records.
Numan supported Metal Rhythm with an 18-date UK live tour from which the live album The Skin Mechanic was released in 1989. Culled from two shows at the Dominion Theatre, London in September 1988, The Skin Mechanic charted at UK No. 55, was followed by a 1990 video release of the tour. All tracks written by Gary Numan. All timings are approximate and will vary with different equipment. "This Is Emotion" – 4:05 "Hunger" – 4:30 "New Anger" – 3:22 "Devious" – 4:19 "America" – 3:32 "Voix" – 5:00 "Respect" – 4:10 "Young Heart" – 5:04 "Cold Metal Rhythm" – 4:28 "Don't Call My Name" – 3:42 "This Is Emotion" – 4:05 "Hunger" – 4:30 "New Anger" – 3:22 "Devious" – 4:19 "America" – 3:32 "Voix" – 5:00 "Respect" – 4:10 "Young Heart" – 5:04 "Cold Metal Rhythm" – 4:28 "Don't Call My Name" – 3:42 "I Don't Believe" – 3:22 "Children" – 3:10 "My Dying Machine" – 6:33 "Devious" – 3:37 "America" – 2:50 "Devious" – 3:37 "America" – 3:32 "Cold Metal Rhythm" – 4:28 "This Is Emotion" – 4:05 "Don't Call My Name" – 3:42 "Voix" – 5:00 "Respect" – 4:10 "New Anger" – 3:22 "My Dying Machine" – 6:33 "A Child with the Ghost" – 4:04"A Child with the Ghost" was released on Gary Numan's 1984 Berserker album, as was the original version of "My Dying Machine" "America" was released as a single on both vinyl and CD.
The CD version contains three bonus live tracks – "Respect" and "New Anger" being recorded on the Metal Rhythm tour at the Dominion Theatre, London on 28 September 1988 and "Call Out the Dogs" recorded on the Exhibition tour at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 25 September 1987. Adapted from the Metal Rhythm liner notes. Gary Numan – vocals.
I, Assassin
I, Assassin is the fourth solo studio album by English musician Gary Numan. Released in 1982, it reached no. 8 on the UK charts. Three songs. Numan's previous album, was an experimental effort that explored and incorporated different musical elements such as jazz. I, Assassin operates in a similar vein. Although the fretless bass and some of the jazz elements of Dance are still in place, Numan went further with I, exploring funk music and blending it together with heavier percussion and his own familiar electronic sound. Numan recalled that an important factor during the album's recording was the contribution made by fretless bassist Pino Palladino: At the time I, Assassin was released, Numan believed it was the best album he had made. Although it was unsurprisingly slated by the majority of the British music press, the album did garner some praise. Numan was given credit for changing his sound by shifting from synth-heavy music to a more bass-led, electro-dance approach. Numan argued that he wanted to shift away from a lot of electronic artists during this period because he felt they were stuck in an interchangeable and simplistic rut that they could never break.
Numan was interested in experimenting with other genres. For the album's cover sleeve, Numan retained the "Fedora" hat from Dance, with the trenchcoat and alley background representing I, Assassin's 1930s gangster motif; the album cover of I, Assassin was influenced by that of Frank Sinatra's 1954 album Songs for Young Lovers. Before the release of I, Numan left Britain to live as a tax exile in the United States, he supported the new album with an 18-date concert tour in America in October-November 1982. No official live videos have been released from Numan's 1982 tour. Numan recorded a second video for "We Take Mystery" during his stay in Los Angeles, before heading to live in Jersey where he began writing the material for his next album, Warriors. I, Assassin was released on vinyl album and cassette in 1982, it was released on CD in 1993, as a double CD packaged with Numan's 1980 album Telekon. I, Assassin was released on CD by itself in 2002. Both CD releases contain seven bonus tracks. All songs are written by Gary Numan.
"White Boys and Heroes" – 6:23 "War Songs" – 5:05 "A Dream of Siam" – 6:13 "Music for Chameleons" – 6:06 "This Is My House" – 4:52 "I, Assassin" – 5:26 "The 1930s Rust" – 3:55 "We Take Mystery" – 6:10 "War Games" – 3:55 "Glitter and Ash" – 4:42 "The Image Is" – 5:55 "This House Is Cold" – 5:27 "Noise Noise" – 3:49 "We Take Mystery" – 5:58 "Bridge? What Bridge?" – 4:22Note The track "Bridge? What Bridge?" was a B-side track for the 12" single of "Music For Chameleons", is an improvisational piece and includes Mick Khan and Michelle Adams as backing vocalists,she was the dancer in the Music for chameleons and White Boys and heroes. Therasa Bazzar backing vocals, Van Day handclaps, to the song "Noise Noise", the B-side of "Music For Chameleons". Gary Numan - vocals, guitar, producer Roger Mason - Synthesizers Pino Palladino - Fretless bass, guitar Chris Slade - drums, percussion John Webb - Percussion Mike - Saxophone, harmonica Michelle Adams Backing Vocalist on Bridge? What bridge Mick khan Backing Vocalist on Bridge?
What bridge Nick Smith - Engineer Numan, Gary. Praying to the Aliens. Andre Deutsch Ltd. ISBN 0-233-99205-7. Allmusic
