The Pleasure Principle – GARY NUMAN***

Airlane/Metal/Complex/Films/ME/Tracks/Observer/Conversation/Cars/Engineers

The Pleasure Principle was the first album credited personally to the electronic musician Gary Numan, although he had previously traded as Tubeway Army, enjoying a UK No. 1 hit with Are Friends Electric. Cars also topped the UK singles chart and Complex reached No. 6. (US:16 UK:1)

“Gary confirmed his place as one of the first robotic solo artists by making this really cool and original synth pop album.”

“On The Pleasure Principle, Numan does away with guitar entirely, replacing them with synthesizers and on some tracks electric violin. This makes for a less diverse album, but Numan's quirky songwriting remains intact. This was a highly innovative and influential album, paving the way for other artists with its space age sounds.”

“The best-known song from this is obviously Cars, but the rest of the album is amazingly consistent. Some may find his approach a little too cold and minimalist.”

“Nearly all of the songs venture down the same path with little if any deviations, explorations, excursions or emotional memories, where the melodies are completely evasive and Gary Numan comes off as some sort of sonic computer engineer.”

“I was disappointed at the lack of variety. I enjoyed the synth tones of Cars, but it just seems like the entire album uses those exact same tones just swapped around.”

“Excluding the dull and over lengthy Conversation, every track sounds quite good, but as a whole the album becomes a little boring because the songs are very similar to each other. The feel of innovation is somehow completely missing.”

“There are a number of Numan classics in addition to Cars, some of them still regularly performed live. Films, for instance, is a funky, menacing number. Metal is a live staple, covered and remixed numerous times and still working. Conversation is another rambling, robot-inspired number with a long synth breakdown at the end.”

“As with the previous album, you’re in android territory here. Nearly all the songs are from the view of a robot or a human caught in a robotic world or mindset. Even Cars, the world-wide hit, sounds like a product of an android’s fevered mind. It’s wonderfully impersonal music, though I have to say, it’s a lot warmer than its predecessor. The ballad Complex sounds more human.”