Gary Numan - Telekon
#379
by Timothy Sprague
September 5 1980
Gary Numan
Telekon
Genre: New Wave
Allen’s Rating: 5 out of 5
Timothy’s Rating: 3 out of 5
Allen’s Highlights:
This Wreckage
I Die: You Die
I’m an Agent
Remember I Was Vapour
Please Push No More
Timothy’s Highlights:
I Dream of Wires
This Wreckage
by Timothy Sprague
It is astonishing to my American ears that this album debuted at number one in the UK upon its release in September, 1980. And it was Gary Numan’s third number one album! While Kenny Rogers ruled the airwaves in the US, our friends across the pond were inhabiting a whole new landscape. Notwithstanding, Gary’s previous album The Pleasure Principle scored a huge hit with Cars. I wore the hell out of that cassette in 7th grade but, over the years, mainly thought of Numan as a guy who listened to Bowie’s Berlin period and said, “I can do that!”
I had plunked down my hard-earned paper route money at the Hanover Mall for his 1981 followup to Telekon, Dance and was rather disappointed. (She’ll take a slow car to Chiiiinaaa… ugh.) If Telekon had been in the bin my opinion of his work probably would not have have suffered so much damage, but that was all they had that day and I wasn’t going home without some Gary Numan. Unfortunately, it wasn’t his best work. Beyond that, I didn’t give much thought to the rest of his albums until 2013, when he released Splinter, aided by Trent Reznor. Which was great!
So, I listened to Telekon and here is what I think…. Man, I was being really unkind with my Bowie clone criticism. The influence is clear but Numan added a lot of his own style and it’s pretty unfair to single him out when almost the entire New Wave movement was influenced by Bowie. The bass and guitar parts add a funky human element to the ethereal synthesizer sound and alien robot vocals. Gary is also a very good songwriter. He eloquently captures the Blade Runner zeitgeist of the times on tunes like The Aircrash Bureau, I Dream of Wires and Remember I Was Vapour. Side note: Gary now lives a few miles from me in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. His house in Northridge has a creepy castle look to it but I have only seen pictures. On a hot July day while I write this, I picture going over to his place for a barbecue. No doubt he requires many extra layers of sunblock before going in the pool. Hope to see him out and about at the supermarket one day.
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