The Pleasure Principle

Sometimes I have a tendency to think of the boilerplate "'80s" sound as having just emerged from a vacuum somewhere, and this listen served as a helpful reminder that that sort of thing is rooted in some very cool ideas. After freeing his brand of new wave from the tyranny of the electric guitar, Gary Numan ventured out into The Pleasure Principle. The music here is chilly, groovy synth pop/New Wave that, miraculously, doesn't sound dated. Gary Numan's vision of futuristic groovin' robot music is internally consistent enough, and well produced enough that it pretty effortlessly sucked me, as a listener, into its world, even 45 years later. The synth work's clunkiness even works, the songwriting incorporates enough post punk angularity that it manages to sound pretty natural and intentional in this context. His vocals also help sell it, Gary Numan is remarkably expressive for how deadpan he is playing it, and he slots wonderfully into the space he has created. On top of this, we have a pretty great tracklist here, really consistent honestly. Some favorites are Metal, Films, M.E., Conversation, Engineers, and ultra-hit Cars (which for a long time made me associate Gary Numan with the band The Cars, which is brain poison that I have only *just* escaped). This is absolutely worth a listen, some really sick, unique new wave, with a great palette and really consistent songs.

Het hele album heb ik het nummer Cars van Fear Factory in mijn hoofd. De associatie wordt hoe langer, hoe sterker. Het nummer Observer mist enkel nog de tekst. Totdat ik opeens "Here in my car..." voorbij hoor komen. Even kijken. Yep dit nummer heet 'Cars'. Blijkbaar een dikke cover van Fear Factory. Ik lag blijkbaar onder een steen. Want het nummer van Gary is ruim 110 miljoen maal geluisterd en dus niet iets onbekends...

Dat ik het hele album al die associatie heb, zegt wel iets. Gary past voor het hele album één muzikaal concept toe. Negatiever geformuleerd. Het is wel een wat eentonig album.

Vanuit het gezin komt de opmerking dat déze techno nog wel leuk is. Techno lijkt mij niet het juiste genre. Maar het zegt wederom iets over het repeterende, eentonige karakter.

Nou heb ik zelf vaak weinig moeite met een eentonige basis, als er maar andere elementen zijn, die voldoende variatie brengen. En die zijn er voldoende. Waarbij de Kraftwerkachtige synth zelden zo'n grote toegevoegde waarde heeft gehad. Ik had dus ook geen moeite dit album af te luisteren. Maar kan ik de eentonigheid nog eens opzetten? Een paar dagen later maar eens testen. Ja hoor, geen punt. 4 sterren dus!

Well, that wasn't uninteresting. But I won't be looking for it or listening to it again. 3/5

I wasn't expecting this to be so good. This needs relistening though, which will probably happen soon. This album gave me this darkish new wave sound, kinda old Duran Duran vibe. Great record.

Really fun new wave sound. I'd never heard this before, other than 'Cars'. I was drumming along all the way through.

You’re alright, robot man.

Straddles the line between being poppy and avant-garde really well. It's a regular new wave album at heart, but the wacky noises used for instrumentation throughout keep it from being stale and boring. Cars is an all time classic and I found myself enjoying a lot of the tracks here. Maybe not quite the greatest album ever made but it's a fun listen nonetheless.

Not only is he a pop star, right, he's got a pilot's licence. Imagine that! Gorgeous synth tones, lots of catchy riffs and hooks, and a robotic but charismatic vocal style that fits with the drum machine rhythms. If I was a glammed up business guy I'd also be suspiciously intrigued by the glowing triangle on my desk.

This can be best described as: Cars! and nine other songs that kinda sound like Cars. And that’s not a bad thing. This sort of 70’s/80’s futurism is fascinating as it both firmly plants it in time, yet also still sounds far off and alien. Favorites were Metal, Tracks, and Cars.

This is turning out to be a great week!
One of my favorite albums as a teenager. Really novel, Gary Numan's quasi-robotic voice and the mass of synths is the perfect vehicle for the angst and alienation of the time. Cars never gets old. I love it all.

I’m at a 4.

I’m just really impressed at where this is for 1979. It is electronica, but it’s electronica done in a way that feels like a direct throughline to the more club-oriented & dance-y rock stuff that Daft Punk and others would really define as their own. Even past that though, it’s just remarkable synth work, done in a way that clearly affected the rest of the 80s, and opened up a whole new Moog-driven world that everyone would take advantage of, especially hip-hop when the time came for it – every track here feels like it’s a few notes away from being “Push It”.

As far as the science fiction thematics, I think it works as an obvious framing device for this soundscape. Given the contexts of the time (i.e., Star Wars, Star Trek, Close Encounters, etc), it’s a bit stereotypical, but it’s the easiest way to connect to an audience. There’s some solid lyrical work here, but it never goes into anything deeper than vaguely thought-provoking broad strokes, and I do think that’s a bit of a missed opportunity. Lots of world-building, but never an actual real story, save for “Metal”, which I think really worked.

Musically… yeah, this is definitely outclassed by a lot of its peers, and there’s significant “first minute is the whole song” moments throughout this whole thing. Lots of repetitive melodies, and eventually, this synth work does lose a bit of its luster. It hit me by around Track 6 or 7, and then REALLY hit by Track 8 – you can only get away with long synth notes moving up and down while some cool percussion goes on for so long. It is definitely a long experience, even at 41 minutes, but these are all individually solid / good / great tracks, so I’ve got no real complaints, save for “Conversation” being endlessly long at 7 minutes.

With all of that said, I just admire this too much for it to drop any lower than a 3.5 for me, and I feel good about giving it a 4. Yes, it’s repetitive, but I haven’t heard anything from the late 70s using synthesizers this effectively, at least in this vaguely synthpop-esque / trance-y style. One could point to Kraftwerk, and that’s fair enough, but I think Kraftwerk used their synths to create a more calming soundscape reminiscent of a nice happy train ride or drive on a highway, not a mildly existential robot society seemingly devoid of humanity, save for a handful of people. I think it’s a good album, and it really clicked with a lot of my sensibilities. Hence, the 4.

"Cars" is a great tune, but the rest is a bit middling and the overall style isn't my favorite.

3/5

One of my favorite new wave albums. It’s just so dancey and fun. My son is obsessed with Cars too (for obvious reasons).

Music, if all humanity was stripped away from the music. But without Gary, we'd never have the likes of Thomas Dolby, so....

I enjoyed this album on the whole. It's a shame all the songs sounded the same though

On a side note, I never realised Basement Jaxx used a sample of a Gary Numan song!

3 ⭐️

Synth pop muy top para la época. Le he tenido que dar dos vueltas pero me lo he pasado bien oyéndolo, recomendado para los panitas que le gusten cosas del estilo.

Canción destacada: Cars

Lyrically, this is a bit conspiratorial and paranoid, all to do with a 'them' one would confront in a Pynchon novel, or a 'we' we don't really know: 'Don't let them see / Don't let them know' (from 'Films'); 'All that we are / Is all that we need to be' (from 'Engineers'). Musically, I get it, but I'm not sure I like it or that it gives me P-L-E-A-S-U-R-E. On principle tho, I can't say it's bad. Some genuine darlings: 'Complex,' 'Tracks.' Numan's voice gets stale, however, and it's all shot thru with a false sense of profundity. 'You are not reg-u-lar' (from 'Conversations'). The problem is this album is reg-u-lar. But not an everyday people kind of regular. That kind, I'm all about.

Не мій жанр, хоча я й розумію чому цей реліз у цьому списку.

I prefer Kraftwerk.
I just can't get into New Wave

3.1