Electronic

442. Gary Numan – Cars (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Four days after Tubeway Army went to number 1 with the influential new wave sound of Are ‘Friends’ Electric?, singer-songwriter and producer Gary Numan had dropped the band name and recorded a John Peel session as a solo artist. His next single, Cars, was a stone cold electro-pop classic and a deserved second chart-topper.

Before

Numan was already working on his debut solo LP, The Pleasure Principle, when Tubeway Army promoted Are ‘Friends’ Electric? on Top of the Pops. Paul Gardiner remained on bass, but Cedric Sharpley was the drummer and their ranks were bolstered by Ultravox keyboardist Billy Currie (his band were on hiatus) on violin and Chris Payne on keyboards. This line-up were now, in effect, just Numan’s backing band.

The Pleasure Principle was recorded in London’s Marcus Music Studio and saw Numan drop guitars altogether in favour of an almost entirely electronic array of instruments, with most sounds emanating from a Minimoog and Polymoog, played by either himself or Payne. As with Tubeway Army’s Replicas album, most of his lyrics were sci-fi based, focusing on subject matters including the last machine left on Earth.

A more contemporary and down-to-earth lyrical concept was Cars, which Numan later claimed was written before Are ‘Friends’ Electric? and his first attempt at a straightforward pop song. The lyrics were inspired by a road rage incident, in which the singer claimed he was in a traffic jam in London when people in the car in front got out and tried to pull him from his car and attack him. Numan locked the doors and managed to get away by driving on the pavement.

In addition to vocals and synths, Numan provided synthetic percussion alongside Sharpley’s drums and percussion. Gardiner and Payne were also involved but Currie wasn’t. The Minimoog was mostly used to augment that classic bass riff, while the Polymoog provided the icy synthetic string accompaniment.

Review

Numan later described Cars as ‘pretty average’ but it’s one of the best number 1s of 1979. Musically, like Are ‘Friends’ Electric?, it’s incredibly simple, but that’s part of the charm and why the public took to it so well and it’s still so fondly remembered. That riff is of course the main weapon to hook listeners in, but I love the proto-New Romantic Polymoog sound that heralds the early-80s pop production sound.

It’s fascinating to hear Numan come at cars from a different angle to Kraftwerk, who of course were a huge influence on Numan. Whereas the German electronic pioneers had written Autobahn as a lengthy love song to driving on the motorway, Cars is short and to the point. Numan sees his vehicle as sanctuary from the outside world, locking himself away from human contact.

‘Here in my car,
I feel safest of all,
I can lock all my doors,
It’s the only way to live,
In cars’

As someone with Asperger’s, it’s fair to say Numan is probably writing about himself here. However, as the song progresses (and there’s actually few lyrics here at all – the second half of the song is instrumental), Numan realises he actually does need companionship: ‘Will you visit me please/If I open my door’. The door is literally left open as the song plays out.

Looking at the song another way, it’s perhaps a take on a near-future. Numan plays up his android persona with that Bowie-like vocal technique, giving the impression of a human stripped of emotion, driving round a dystopian landscape in which people no longer interact.

Of course, most people lost likely just liked it because it was really memorable and a song about cars is somewhat of a novelty, and guaranteed to be used on a million TV shows whenever a song about cars is needed, because why not, it’s the song Cars?

In the video, Numan and co play up the Kraftwerk similarities even more. Starting with Numan standing alone on a pyramid stage (in a nod to the artwork for The Pleasure Principle, in which Numan stares at a small pyramid on a desk), he’s then joined by the rest of his band, who all stand emotionless, joining Numan in acting like robots. Ruining this somewhat is Sharpley, who is in classic rock drummer mode, seemingly playing a totally different song to everyone else. Then, there’s five Numans holding imaginary steering wheels as on the single’s sleeve, stood on a giant Polymoog. It’s a fun, cool study in new wave electronic cool.

After

Released on 21 August, a month later Cars was in pole position in the UK. It did very well elsewhere too, earning him his first (and, alas, only) US hit, peaking at nine. The Pleasure Principle went to number 1 in the UK album chart, and the next single, Complex, reached six.

The following year came the album Telekon, featuring a larger array of synths but returning guitars to the mix. It spawned two top 10 singles – We Are Glass (five) and I Die: You Die (six). Never much of a fan of touring back then, he announced his retirement from performing live and said goodbye with live shows at Wembley Arena. Soon after came a new album, Dance in which Numan began to move away from the electro-pop sound, just as it exploded across the charts courtesy of the New Romantic movement. It featured Queen drummer Roger Taylor. It’s one single, She’s Got Claws, went to six.

As up-and-comers such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, The Human League and Duran Duran started notching up hits, Numan’s commercial fortunes declined. Although the 1982 album I, Assassin included the excellent funk sound of Music for Chameleons (as mimed to by Steve Coogan in I’m Alan Partridge) and We Take Mystery (To Bed), the latter was his last top 10 single to date, peaking at nine.

1983 album Warriors saw Numan explore jazz-funk further and he announced his return to touring. It was his last LP for Beggar’s Banquet and he released several on his own label, Numa. Berserker (1984) featured samplers for the first time but was his least successful release at that point. The Fury didn’t do much better a year later but Strange Charm in 1986 did at least feature two top 30 singles – This Is Love (28) and I Can’t Stop (27). However, it was the last release on Numa.

In 1987 Beggar’s Banquet released a remix of Cars to promote a greatest hits compilation. The E Reg Model remix is pretty good – I don’t know who’s behind the production but there’s some nice touches added and it avoids the trap of many mid-80s remixes of veering off into bombastic production. It deservedly reached 16.

Numan signed with IRS but they angered him by changing the 1988 album Metal Rhythm to New Anger and remixing it against his wishes. After 1991’s Outland he reactivated Numa but Machine + Soul marked a low ebb, released mainly to try and pay off debts. With moral support from his future wife Gemma, Numan decided to give up on trying to rekindle his pop career and instead begin writing more personally. The result, Sacrifice, proved timely. Released in 1994, he played all the instruments himself and created a dark, industrial sound, just as bands he had influenced, like Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson, began to gain popularity.

Numan shut down his label permanently as his critical stock began to rise once more. A third remix of Cars (this one was known as ‘The Premier Mix’; there had been an unnamed one in 1993) charted in 1996 after its use on an advert for Carling Premier. Similar in sound to the ‘E Reg’ version, it earned Numan his first top 20 song in nine years, motoring to 17. The albums Exile (1997) and Pure (2000) were lavished with critical praise and Rip, from the latter, reached 29 in 2002.

With Scottish industrial singer Rico, he scored a number 13 hit in 2003. Quite a remarkable comeback. He also provided vocals for dance music duo Plump DJs that year. With money coming in once more, Numan launched Mortal Records and released Jagged in 2006, accompanied by a successful tour. Two years later, to commemorate his 30th year in music, he toured the Tubeway Army LP Replicas (1979) in its entirety.

In 2011 Numan released Dead Son Rising and collaborated with US experimental rock outfit Battles. Two years later came the eagerly awaited Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind), which became his bestselling album in 30 years, only to be overtaken by the sequel, a concept album about a post-apocalyptic world caused by global warming. Savage (Songs from a Broken World) was his most popular release since Telekon.

Numan’s 21st and latest album, Intruder, was released in 2021. Over the decades he’s gone from being reviled by some, and/or a figure of fun (he’s said in recent years how announcing his support for Margaret Thatcher did lasting damage) to a respected figure in music. And rightly so, because his two number 1s are brilliant.

The Outro

Now 63, he won’t ever be admired to the level of David Bowie and Kraftwerk, who he was often accused of ripping off, but he’s stuck it out and influenced many through the years. And all along, his hardcore devotees, the Numanoids, have stuck with him through thick and thin.

The Info

Written & produced by

Gary Numan

Weeks at number 1

1 (22-28 September)

Trivia

Births

22 September: Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey
28 September: Gymnast Annika Reeder

Deaths

27 September: Comedian Gracie Fields/Wings guitarist Jimmy McCulloch

Meanwhile…

25 September: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opens the new Central Milton Keynes Shopping Centre. The then-largest indoor shopping centre in Britain had taken six years to build.

439. Tubeway Army – Are ‘Friends’ Electric? (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Derided by detractors as a David Bowie and Kraftwerk wannabe, Gary Numan in fact had two startlingly good number 1s in 1979 and helped point the direction of pop into the 80s.

Before

Gary Anthony James Webb was born 8 March 1958 in Hammersmith, London. A shy, only child, Webb’s parents adopted his father’s nephew John when he was seven. Later, John would serve in Numan’s backing band.

Webb attended schools in Stanwell and Ashford in Surrey, then Slough, Berkshire, followed by Brooklands Technical College in Weybridge, Surrey. As a teenager he joined the Air Training Corps and then tried his hand as a forklift truck driver, an air conditioning ventilator fitter and accounts clerk.

More important to him than these jobs was his hobby – music. When he was 15, Webb’s father had bought him a Gibson Les Paul guitar. He would play in various bands and would often scour the ads in Melody Maker for opportunities. Among the bands he auditioned for were a group of unknowns calling themselves The Jam.

As a teen, Webb had seen a child psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with Asperger’s and put him on medication. This added to his detached, robotic persona when he became famous, and explained his awkwardness in interviews.

As punk broke out in 1976, Webb wanted in on the action. Many groups of disaffected youths were sprouting up singing songs of alienation, which appealed to the awkward young Londoner. He joined Mean Street, then The Lasers as their guitarist, which is where he met bassist Paul Gardiner. Soon, the duo and drummer Bob Simmonds became Tubeway Army. Simmonds didn’t last long and was replaced by Webb’s uncle Jess Lidyard. The trio took on a pseudonym each – Webb became Valerian, Gardiner became Scarlett and Lidyard was Rael.

Tubeway Army became a fixture on the London punk scene, with Webb taking charge of songwriting and vocals. In March 1978 they recorded an album’s worth of demos (released in 1984 as The Plan), which earned them a recording contract with Beggars Banquet Records. On the day debut single That’s Too Bad was released, Webb quit his job in a warehouse.

He may have thought he’d done so too soon when neither this spiky single or its follow-up, the more rock-based Bombers (featuring Sean Burke on guitar and Barry Benn on drums), dented the charts. In July, between the release of these two singles, Tubeway Army quit live shows after violence flared at a shared gig with The Skids. Numan decided they should be a studio-only project.

With Lidyard back in the fold they recorded their eponymous debut. Punk influences remained but there was also a progression towards their future new wave sound. Importantly, the pseudonyms were dropped, and Webb was now Gary Numan, after being inspired by a Yellow Pages advert for a plumber called Arthur Neumann. Numan had come across a Minimoog synthesiser during recording sessions, and this, together with lyrics influenced by sci-fi writers JG Ballard and Philip K Dick, showed where Tubeway Army were headed next.

Numan had grown tired of punk and wanted to release this first album under his own name, but his label refused. No singles came from it and Numan quickly moved on to the next album. Recorded December 1978-February 1979 Replicas was musically influenced by Ultravox, Low-era Bowie and Kraftwerk. It was a loose concept album inspired by Dick’s classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The Machmen were androids with cloned human skin, taking orders from the Grey Men and keeping humans in check. The first single from Replicas, Down in the Park, wasn’t a hit, but has proved to be a fan favourite and influenced many rock, Goth and techno acts to come.

Around this time, Numan had his first taste of the mainstream recording Don’t Be a Dummy for a freaky advert for Lee Cooper jeans. I’m glad I was only a few months old when this was shown on TV, as it would have scared the shit out of me.

Replicas was released 4 April 1979, and Are ‘Friends’ Electric? on 4 May. It was originally two separate songs – most likely the verses, written on an old out-of-tune piano, and the spoken word sections. As usual, Gardiner and Lidyard featured as a traditional rhythm section, but Numan was at the forefront with a selection of synths. There was a Minimoog, a Polymoog, an ARP Odyssey and an RMI Electrapiano. Together, they created an unusual, magnificent sound. It was at once the sound of a gigantic, lumbering machine, destroying anything in its path, and a clumsy, knackered old robot that was breaking down. Numan also added heavily flanged guitar parts. A demo version is available, sounding pretty much the same as the single, but with a more awkward vocal from Numan, in a lower key.

Review

By not being as musically gifted as Bowie, nor as refined as Kraftwerk, Numan created something influenced by them, yet totally new. It’s such an odd number 1, even for the time it was released. As the decade came to an end and Thatcherism began its iron grip, there was clearly an air of nihilism and fear for the future in the air, with Are ‘Friends’ Electric? and Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) topping the charts. Yes, new wave was more chart-friendly than punk, but it maintained its predecessor’s edge. There’s an argument here for this perhaps being the first New Romantic number 1.

Tubeway Army looked ahead to what may be in store for civilisation. The lyrics to Are ‘Friends’ Electric?, as with most of those on Replicas, came from short stories Numan had written about how he predicted London would be in 30 years time. The ‘friends’ in question here are robots that resemble humans (Numan?) that come to your door offering various services. Among them are prostitutes.

Numan’s lyrics here are often forgotten compared to the futuristic sound, but they are great. They’re dark, desperate and mysterious. I love the scene the first verse sets, and you can easily imagine it at the start of a novel:

‘It’s cold outside,
And the paint’s peeling off of my walls,
There’s a man outside
In a long coat, grey hat, smoking a cigarette’

His vocal performance mirrors that of the synths, awkward, primitive, and the Cockney tones make the resemblance to Bowie very clear. The spoken word sections are probably the weakest link in that sense, somewhat buried in the mix, which is frustrating as they suggest a more emotional Numan, describing a romance that ended badly. The first section ends with ‘I don’t think it meant anything to you’ and the second, ‘You see it meant everything to me’.

Or is he describing the encounter with the ‘friend’. It’s unusual for a number 1 to only mention the song’s title once, and it appears in the final chorus. Did the singer not realise ‘friends’ are not human? It only seems to have become apparent when it broke down. At what point did it malfunction? Hope it wasn’t in the middle of the act…

Despite being over five minutes long, Are ‘Friends’ Electric? doesn’t outstay its welcome. I could listen to a version twice the length. I want to know what happens next to Numan, and that piano riff is so good I’ll never tire of it. The fact it lasted at number 1 for a month suggests this wasn’t an oddity that ended up at the top by accident, and again, I’d put that down to the riff. Strip away all the futurism and it’s still just very catchy.

After

Also helping Are ‘Friends’ Electric? was Beggars Banquet’s decision to release a picture disc featuring Numan’s scary android visage peering out at the listener. Picture discs were still unusual in 1979, but became more popular from here on in. Tubeway Army’s performances on The Old Grey Whistle Test and Top of the Pops vindicated their frontman’s belief he was the star, with an emotionless Numan front and centre. This was the last release by Tubeway Army.

The Outro

22 years later, producer Richard X had begun releasing mash-ups under the name Girls on Top. One of the first was We Don’t Give a Damn About Our Friends, which combined the music from Are ‘Friends’ Electric? with US R’n’B singer Adina Howard’s 1995 hit Freak Like Me. Island Records loved it and wanted their girl trio Sugababes to record it. Richard X produced the new version in his flat in Tooting giving it more of a pop sheen but retaining the rawness. Released in 2002, the excellent Freak Like Me became Sugababes’ first number 1. Numan preferred it to Are ‘Friends’ Electric?.

Trivia

Writer & producer

Gary Numan

Weeks at number 1

4 (30 June-27 July)

Trivia

Births

25 July: Snooker player Allister Carter

Deaths

16 July: Countertenor Alfred Deller

Meanwhile…

5 July: The Queen attended the millennium celebrations of the Isle of Man’s Parliament, Tynwald.

12 July: Kiribai became independent of the UK.

17 July: Middle-distance runner Sebastian Coe broke his first world record, for running a mile in Oslo.

23 July: The Conservative government announced £4 billion worth of public spending cuts.

26 July: The new Education Act repealed the 1976 Act and allowed local education authorities to retain selective secondary schools.