|
Post by King Nhoj on Apr 25, 2005 10:43:20 GMT -5
Had the misfortune of watcing a Gary Numan DVD on Friday night, I have several friends who are huge Numan fans. I hadn't seen Numan on TV for years apart from TOTP and Cars during the late 90's, this gig was filmed at the Manchester Academy 2003, my god who does he think he is!?! head banging away like an idiot, I was in stitches!!!! of course my friends were doing there level best to convince me he's cool and all that, I was having none of it. After all this time Gary Numan remains one of the true clowns of pop, I thought he was a clown back in 1979, nothings changed!!! Made me smile though!!
|
|
nnnumb
Punter
Popjustice Almighty
Damon who?
Posts: 762
|
Post by nnnumb on Apr 25, 2005 12:32:25 GMT -5
I've always thought he was a knob, and all the nonsense that Numan fans (Numanoids - Ha!) spout about him being the first Techno star... Do they not remember Kraftwerk, Bowie, Eno, etc.
Having said that though, he did make some cracking singles.
|
|
|
Post by King Nhoj on Apr 25, 2005 13:38:58 GMT -5
Don't get me wrong singles like Are Friends Electric and I Die You Die are fine songs but it's his image that lets him down. I'll never forget the time he dressed up as a mad max lookalike for one of his albums - Warriors. Apart from that he's a knob, this DVD I watched proved that beyond doubt. You can watch him as he stands over a moving light trying to look hard, absolutely priceless!!
|
|
beNcooKe
Punter
a friend for dinner
Posts: 506
|
Post by beNcooKe on Apr 26, 2005 5:32:38 GMT -5
I really dont think he belongs in the clowns of pop area. He has had a few misguided image situations and creatively his music took a slide towards the late 80s and early 1990s (The Fury - Outland albums I think). But his current output I think is really good industrial music.
He has done three proper albums with a metal/industrial/gothy thing in the last 10 years and I think he does it very well. (Sacrifice, Exile, Pure) Especially on his Exile Album which has some great tunes. Exile deals with the possibility that we got the idea of God wrong and that really he's made us all for his enjoyment and loves cocking us about. Its like an alternative bible. Theres a bit about an angel of God pissing on the virgin Mary - All this coming from a musician who doesnt drink and hasnt touched drugs.
Back to image things - I think all good artists go through an image that flirts with bondage clothes, for better or worse it just happens. Warriors is a bit of a rubbish album, the title track is cool the the rest sounds thin.
For me the Berserker Image hits the spot: Blue hair and white skin, lovely. The music on the album was good too using a PPG wave synth to sample doors slamming, chains dropping and anything that moves.
He is, I think, given too much credit for using synthesisers on his albums. Although he uses them extensivly it wasnt really until Berserker that it got particularly experimental and by then his popularity was waining. His Album 'The Pleasure Principle' was good at the time for having no guitars on it at all and all the drums were synthetic too. He still used electric Bass though. There were a lot more experimental people really becoming godfathers for the genre, but he still has a place for contributing to synth popularity.
Read his book 'Praying to the aliens', it has some very good accounts of what not to do in the music industry and covers things such as his record company collapse, being arrested as a spy in india, plane crashes, gun owning and bankruptcy.
Hmm I know too many random facts...
|
|
|
Post by drbastard on Apr 26, 2005 7:00:27 GMT -5
I love his music but I hate him. Simple!
|
|
|
Post by King Nhoj on Apr 26, 2005 9:02:00 GMT -5
I really dont think he belongs in the clowns of pop area. He has had a few misguided image situations and creatively his music took a slide towards the late 80s and early 1990s (The Fury - Outland albums I think). But his current output I think is really good industrial music. He has done three proper albums with a metal/industrial/gothy thing in the last 10 years and I think he does it very well. (Sacrifice, Exile, Pure) Especially on his Exile Album which has some great tunes. Exile deals with the possibility that we got the idea of God wrong and that really he's made us all for his enjoyment and loves cocking us about. Its like an alternative bible. Theres a bit about an angel of God pissing on the virgin Mary - All this coming from a musician who doesnt drink and hasnt touched drugs. Back to image things - I think all good artists go through an image that flirts with bondage clothes, for better or worse it just happens. Warriors is a bit of a rubbish album, the title track is cool the the rest sounds thin. For me the Berserker Image hits the spot: Blue hair and white skin, lovely. The music on the album was good too using a PPG wave synth to sample doors slamming, chains dropping and anything that moves. He is, I think, given too much credit for using synthesisers on his albums. Although he uses them extensivly it wasnt really until Berserker that it got particularly experimental and by then his popularity was waining. His Album 'The Pleasure Principle' was good at the time for having no guitars on it at all and all the drums were synthetic too. He still used electric Bass though. There were a lot more experimental people really becoming godfathers for the genre, but he still has a place for contributing to synth popularity.
Read his book 'Praying to the aliens', it has some very good accounts of what not to do in the music industry and covers things such as his record company collapse, being arrested as a spy in india, plane crashes, gun owning and bankruptcy.
Hmm I know too many random facts...Never got the industrial thing with Numan, Nine Inch Nails were doing what Numan did on Pure years ago, Exile is far to repetitive and quite frankly childish, all those god bashing lyrics from someone who doesn't believe, very strange. Numans best works are Replicas, Pleasure Principle & Telekon, his latest stuff is just tuneless dirge that other electronic/industrial acts produced years ago.
|
|
beNcooKe
Punter
a friend for dinner
Posts: 506
|
Post by beNcooKe on Apr 26, 2005 9:08:58 GMT -5
I find Telekon really hard to listen to all the way through, find I have to keep skipping tracks on a bit and I find some tracks sound a bit filler like.
He's not saying he invented industrial music at all so I don't see the problem with him making it; we have the debate like this in pop whenever a popstar picks up a synthesiser and makes anything that harks back to old style synth pop.
I especially like the layers he builds up with his voice on Absolution from the exile album.
|
|
|
Post by King Nhoj on Apr 26, 2005 11:51:34 GMT -5
Absolution is puke inducing "I would climb a tall mountain just to be with you" dear god I think I AM going to chunder.
Telekon is a great album, the title track 's naff but songs like Aircrash Bureau do it for me and I'm not a bonefide Numan fan. I started this thread because I still think he looks like a complete tit!!!
|
|
beNcooKe
Punter
a friend for dinner
Posts: 506
|
Post by beNcooKe on Apr 26, 2005 14:22:29 GMT -5
ha ha looks wise he often wears a little too much cheap mock gothery. The shiney black PVC trench coat he sometimes wears live is a total mistake.
|
|
|
Post by audrey potnoodlehorne on May 3, 2005 15:09:14 GMT -5
He always strikes me as rather shy and sweet. The inexplicable image situation is what makes Numan so loveable. Numan without the ill-thought-out fashion directions would be like Bryan Adams without a demin two-piece. Add to this, his love of speciality cheese, propellers and marrying his fans and he's pop royalty. I think his mum made all his early stagewear. Hat's off to that!
|
|
beNcooKe
Punter
a friend for dinner
Posts: 506
|
Post by beNcooKe on May 4, 2005 3:04:54 GMT -5
That's true, Beryl helped alot with his stuff.
I remember reading in an interview or in his book about the Telekon album that the silver tube he holds on some of the single covers is actualy part of his mum's vacuum cleaner. How sweet.
|
|
|
Post by RandomlyMelodic on May 16, 2005 7:09:42 GMT -5
Oh, dear Gary Numan. You entertain me so. I once was reading through the linernotes and looking at the pictures of his album (the one with Cars.. Pleasure Principle I believe) and just seeing him with his little pyramids and reading about him explaining how we're all robots or some rubbish, and that made my day. He's quite creepy but it's okay because we love him.
|
|
|
Post by Kittens-In-A-Hoodie on May 20, 2005 16:27:11 GMT -5
He's not saying he invented industrial music at all.... Although, in many respects he'd be right to suggest that he did. Numan is acknowledged as a major influence by Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson, and he's been ploughing the electro/goth/industrial furrow pretty solidly for decades now. He was always a bit naff, a bit too English to be taken entirely seriously (think of him an the electro Cliff) but his contribution to the popularising of electronic pop music should never be underestimated.
|
|
beNcooKe
Punter
a friend for dinner
Posts: 506
|
Post by beNcooKe on May 21, 2005 3:04:28 GMT -5
absolutely. i do love the bloke and can't wait for his jagged halo album to come out.
I went to a gig on monday for Siobhan Fahey (ex bananarama, the brains in shakespeares sister) and met Gemma Webb, Numan's wife and had a really funny chat. She said they are aiming to have the album ready for September.
She really is one of the funniest, cheeriest people I've met.
|
|