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The Pleasure Principle

Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle Audio CD

A fair review of the Gary Numan "The Pleasure Principle" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Gary Numan reviews here, or go back to the Gary Numan tabs.

Band: Gary Numan
Title: The Pleasure Principle
Rating:

Release Date: 1998-06-23
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Airlane [Instrumental] 2: Metal 3: Complex 4: Films 5: M.E. 6: Tracks 7: Observer 8: Conversation 9: Cars 10: Engineers 11: Random [*][Instrumental] 12: Oceans [*][Instrumental] 13: Asylum [*][Instrumental] 14: Me! I Disconnect from You [Live][*] 15: Bombers [Live][*] 16: Remember I Was Vapour [Live][*] 17: On Broadway [Live][*]

Numan Missteps But Gets A Hit Anyhow
The peppy instro "Airlane" starts things off well enough but the plodding mid-tempos of the rest of the tracks seriously sap the energy level here with their bland sameness. On his third real album in sequence, Numan eschews guitars completely and that gives this release a monochromatic coloration. Then "Conversation" hits and all bets are off. Extending the previous song format for a long six minutes just about puts me past the breaking point!

The sole US hit single "Cars" then came as a breath of fresh air - 30 years ago, but let's admit it. This catchy song even back in the day was a good 30 seconds too long and by now you've heard it enough to never have to hear it again. Then "Engineers" hits its groove and brings the album to a passable end. The bonus tracks provide some juice. "Random" is based on the random waveform generator on a Moog synthesizer and works well enough. The most intriguing track here is his rare cover of "On Broadway" from "Living Ornaments '79. " It features a massively co-opted Billy (Ultravox) Currie on viola solo in between Ultravox mark I hitting the skids and their phoenix-like ascendancy which saw them displacing their clone Numan on the charts for a good four years - a rare example of pure karma.

This album, for its lack of variety in arrangement and tempo, is a simply chore to listen to. He's done worse, for sure, but this was an early indication that it would not be all skittles & beer with Mr. Numan. All of that optimism and goodwill from "Replicas" starts to ebb here.

the Pain Principle

Fat and futile, Numan represents in a single human form, everything that's wrong, and ever has been wrong with popular music. In the mighty history of rock music and all its joys and glories, there has never been any-one as completely out of touch and hapless as Gary Numan. Clunk-headed and entirely cretinous (whether crashing his plane in India and getting arrested for spying, or marrying his stalker), he is a career loser. Lacking soul, warmth or even - God help us - humanity, his miserable drones reveal better than any review the true depths of defeat and hopelessness he plumbs.

His contemporaries thrashed him outta sight: OMD, Eyeless in Gaza, Trio, even gimpy cruds like Blancmange kicked his rump effortlessly - but then they all had tunes, a modicum of self-effacement and weren't solemnly and indignantly pretending they were 'futuristic'.
Futuristic!? This stuff set music back 20 years - it was as if punk had never happened. Dressed in what looked like a DS9 leisure suit and with a voice so nasal it made Kenneth Williams sound like James Earl Jones, Gazza went on and on and on. . . . croaking incessantly about sub-Arthur C Clarke themes like alienation in (gulp!) the 'modern' world; dehumanising mechanization; space (the final frontier etc. . not the stuff between his ears!); bio-chemistry and the like - you get the picture.
Write down the most boring, nerdy topics you can think of and within an hour you'll have a pretty comprehensive and astute summation of 'The Pleasure Principle'.

Ever the space-cadet with the intellectual capacity of a weather-balloon, Gazza would have us believe he's some kind of proto-new wave Mr Spock, but in reality, he's more aligned with Kowalski out of 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'; bashed with a spanner every week but relentlessly returning to stupidly get bashed again.

You can be too serious about this electro stuff. It had a bad rep as cloying and un-emotive, but others managed it ok. It was only Gazza who made himself a Holy Show with his Billy Idol snarl and short-circuited robo-dancing.

Begrudgingly; 'Complex' has the foetus of a good tune, soon lasered away by the unnecessarily brutal 'Metal'; smothered to death by Gazza's parachute in the guise of the hideous 'Random' and wait 'til you hear the live version of 'Me, I Disconnect From You' - a fun-packed extravaganza of doom and horror guaranteed to forever shift your aunt (y'know, the rich one, the one leaving all her money to the Battersea Dogs Home and none to you!) when she decides to descend on your parlour, tea, and scones.

Get those samples going, you don't need to hear the full album to experience the despondency and it's saying something when your brave-heart reviewer had to physically stop his ears oscillating, such was the feeling of discomfort and unease brought about by a cover version of 'On Broadway' - the final cankerous catastrophe.

This review could apply to any of Gary Numan's albums as they're all as bad as each other.

Principally pleasing
Themes of alienation, dehumanization, machination, and other not so funny "-ations" penetrate the slick, synthesized hooks and live drumming throughout the album. Although not painted in colors as vibrant or cohesive as those of his previous album, Replicas, The Pleasure Principle still holds up as a steadfast highlight of Gary Numan's prolific career, sporting his trademark of introverted and occasionally sociopathic lyrics, all of them bearing the unselfconscious quirks recurrent in the majority of 70's synthpop. In one of its particularly high points, "Metal", Numan confides a state of utter submission ("We're in the building/where they make us grow") while the mood turns reclusive and resentful in "M. E. " ("I turn off the pain/like I turned off you all"). In the melodically infectious and subsequent hit, "Cars", not a bit of resistance remains against total isolation ("I can lock all my doors/it's the only way to live"). Asperger's syndrome aside, though, the album remains one of Gary Numan's best works and an ideal starting point for the uninitiated.

Solid Synth Pop
Heavy synthesizers, euro-rock from the end of the 70s. Short and sweet, this is a really nice album. Sounds dated and experimental but great if you can get into that sound. I always enjoy listening to this one. (But most of my friends and associates do not!) .

My pick for best synth album of all time
It is a great retro ride into the dark heart of cold war synth pop and nobody has ever done it better than this. Forget the hit single, forget everything you may have heard about Numan's career after the release of this epic and just jump into it.
5 stars!.

You can see a complete list of all Gary Numan discography, or go back to the Gary Numan tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.