My First Pop/Popular Single and LP

[Radio64]

Hi Radio64,

Regarding Telekon - there's the rub indeed. It was the second (and last) Gary Numan album I bought - and listening to it I felt it wasn't a patch on the Pleasure Principle. Whether or not Numan was a pioneer of electronic music in the UK I wouldn't be able to say - but circa 1981 he had certainly became less cool at school where hipsters / nerds and the like listened to Bowie, Human League, Depeche Mode and New Order - and by 1983 Numan's time had in many respects come and gone...

My nominee for electronic music pioneers / prophets without honour in the UK would have to go to Cabaret Voltaire who had been toiling at the coal face since 1974. They produced a great deal but there are four of their studio albums released between 1983 and 1987 which though uneven I often return to ( The Crackdown, Microphonies, "The Covenant, Sword & Arm of The Lord" ; and Code) The same , alas, I cannot say for Gary Numan ...

Best Wishes,

Tevot

Tevot,
I can well understand Telekon being your last GN album purchase, as it was with many. I stretched it to 1981's Dance which had a very sophisticated "Japan" feel to it (thanks also to the late Mick Karn playing bass on many of the tracks). But back to 1980 .. GN had moved away from the minimalism of TPP to a richer sound, also bringing the (gasp!) electric guitars back into the studio. The opening "This Wreckage" was effectively his no-more-live-concerts-I'm-afraid-folks manifesto but having got that out of the way we are presented with a richer pallet of sounds and textures more befitting of Numan and friends as musicians and composers of fine songs, such as "The Aircrash Bureau", "Sleep By Windows" and "I'm an Agent".
Notable also are the non-album singles "We Are Glass" and "I Die:You Die", the latter his not totally convincing lash-out at the music press who had already decided to "turn on me".
Over on the B sides, his foray into "the classics" with Satie's "Trois Gymnopedies" was brave enough and tastefully executed, yet I'll never be convinced he played the pionaoforte so well on the Piano version of Down in the Park!
Yes, Numan did soon become "uncool" shortly after for various reasons (one of them being his apparent sympathy for PM M. Thatcher) yet his legacy in these early albums is clear enough. And yes, the rest is rubbish. I remember seeing him live on the peroxide 'n' slap bass "Warriors" Tour (circa 1983) and thinking 'oh my God what's happened??'..

Good shout on the Cabs who, on the other hand maintained artist integrity over the years, especially in the early 80s which was full of so many electronic-pitfalls. You may have seen this recently published retrospective - see it reviewed also here in The Quietus.
Steve Mallinder has recently been collaborating with analogue supremo Benge on this.

[MrGongGong]

I was about 13 at the time - and as Jim Diamond once observed ... "I should have known better..."

Or

I shot a known bear ?

[cloughie]

Or

I shot a known bear ?

Like Metallica?

[gradus]

Side Saddle/Russ Conway
Smoke gets in your eyes/The Platters
I still have the records whereas, to my regret, I have lost the large collection of 45's that were later used for mobile disco purposes.

[Radio64]

.. I have lost the large collection of 45's that were later used for mobile disco purposes.

mobile disco! bet there were a few gems in there....