A return to Gary Anthony James Webb, better known to you and me as Gary Numan.
Attempting a career-spanning retrospective, especially when you've allowed yourself between 45 minutes and an hour, is clearly a fool's errand. Luckily, I am a card-carrying cretin and this was no obstacle. So, here it is, 11 songs and 48 minutes of the (nu)man's work, from 1978 to 2017 (I haven't yet heard Gary's most recent album, Intruder, released in 2021).
The selection starts off with Faces, which was the B-side of the first Gary Numan single I bought - and an unlikely choice perhaps - I Can't Stop from June 1986. I liked it enough to buy the 10" and 12" singles, different mixes on the A-side but exactly the same B-side on both. Apart from a bit of vocodered vocal at the start which is probably Gary, the rest of the song drops in samples that appear to have been taped off of the telly. I don't know if it's more to do with familiarity but I've always had a soft spot for Faces.
I didn't get the earlier Gary Numan albums until well over a decade later. Up to then, I had a C90 crammed with choice picks ripped from my brother's copy of the 2CD Beggars Banquet compilation Exhibition, which came out in 1987.
Gary left Beggars Banquet in 1983 and released music on his own Numa label, apart from a couple of albums on I.R.S. in 1989 and 1991. From an ignorant person's perspective (yep, me again), the decade from 1984 to 1995 was something of a wilderness period. My only memories were the more distracting and less kind newpaper inches about Gary's flying (or landing) a plane, hair transplant surgery and support for the Tories and Margaret Thatcher, none of which did him any favours.
I generally haven't read much about Gary Numan's life but he has been quoted as saying that his "career was in tatters" by the early 1990s. Less surprisingly in retrospect, given the influence that they've had on his subsequent music but salvation came in the form of Depeche Mode's 1993 album Songs Of Faith And Devotion. A present from his wife, the album literally changed Gary's life, reigniting his love of music and setting him on a new course. Gary expands on this a bit more in a 2013 edition of What's In My Bag?
Admittedly, you have to dig deep at times but there are some gems to be found in this period, including Empty Bed, Empty Heart, the B-side of 1984 single Berserker, and the title track of eighth album Strange Charm from 1986.
I only started to catch up with Numan's later output in the last decade. Sacrifice, released a year after Songs Of Faith And Devotion, was the "rebirth" album, a heavier, darker sound, consolidated on (lucky) 13th album, Exile. Again, no great surprise to find that another of Gary's What's In My Bag? picks is Nine Inch Nails. The stop-start dynamics, orchestral synths, merciless beats and lyrics that range from the deeply personal to the grand themes of God and The Devil. It sounds little like the super-smooth plastic soul sound of the previous decade, yet there is a thread that follows back to Gary's earlier attempts at a singular, angular sound through electronics and lyrical themes of alienation and isolation.
I thought that this selection may sound like the aural equivalent of a crazy quilt, bits stitched together but horribly mismatched. Yet, Everything Comes Down To This from 2013 seems comfortably sandwiched between two tracks from 1986, and the closing trio of Empty Bed, Empty Heart (1984), Pray For The Pain You Serve (2017) and The Joy Circuit (1980) seems a perfect complement and belies the nearly four decade gap between the songs.
Whilst my go-to albums will always be Replicas, The Pleasure Principle and Telekon (and the Living Ornaments live collection, whilst we're at it), there's much to enjoy in Gary Numan's subsequent work, up to and including his 21st century albums. This selection might send you off down a rabbit hole of your own.
1) Faces (1986)
2) Everything Comes Down To This (2013)
3) Strange Charm (1986)
4) When The Sky Bleeds (Sasha Raskin & Dolgof Remix) (2012)
5) Cars (DJ Coldheart's Mix) (2010)
6) Complex (Demo Version) (1978)
7) War Songs (1982)
8) Innocence Bleeding (Album Version) (1997)
9) Empty Bed, Empty Heart (1984)
10) Pray For The Pain You Serve (2017)
11) The Joy Circuit (1980)
1980: Telekon: 11
1982: I, Assassin: 7
1984: Berserker EP: 9
1986: I Can't Stop EP: 1
1986: Strange Charm: 3
1997: Exile: 8
2009: The Pleasure Principle (30th Anniversary Edition 3x CD): 6
2010: Cars EP (bootleg MP3): 5
2012: When The Sky Bleeds EP: 4
2013: Splinter: Songs From A Broken Mind: 2
2017: Savage: Songs From A Broken World: 10
If that's not enough Numan for you, head back to my previous post in August 2023 for nearly an hour more of Gary goodness.
