GARY NUMAN TOUR

 GARY NUMAN Live Dates: The Pleasure Principle Tour 2009  Nov 17, Brighton Dome; 18 Southampton University; 19 Cardiff Sub 29; 20 Sheffield Corporation; 21 Manchester Academy; 23 Cork Pavillion; 24 Dublin Tripod; 25 Leeds Academy; 26 Edinburgh Picturehouse; 27 Glasgow ABC; 28 Sunderland The Campus; 29 Norwich UEA; 30 Wolverhampton Wulfren H; Dec 1. Cambridge Junction; 2 Nottingham Rock City; 3 London Indigo 02.  'This album is perfect, with the killer single 'Cars' augmented by the alienated groove of 'Metal', the haunting 'Conversation' and the cyber stomp of Films'.  9/10 CLASSIC ROCK  The glacial cool of 'Metal' and the earth-shattering awesomeness of 'Car's seismically changed the wHy the world viewed electronic music.' 9/10 ROCK SOUND  Gary Numan's classic, influential album, The Pleasure Principle is being re-released as a double CD edition (featuring demos and B-sides on the bonus disc) 30 years after it debuted at Number 1 in the UK charts. The singer's single from the album, 'Cars' also climbed to the top of the charts, an achievement he's celebrating with a 16 date UK tour starting on 17 November.    'Numan's reputation has been restored lately. He's finally been recognised as an important and influential figure. Numan's importance lies in his ability to slap an earth-quaking hook on top of his glacial synths ('Cars' being the definitive example), and therefore join the dots between Kraftwerk, Bowie and Eno on one side and the rise of synth-pop, techno and industrial music on the other.' THE SUNDAY TIMES (MUST HAVE RE-ISSUE OF THE WEEK)   'What makes it so successful is its perfect fusion of electronics with more traditional elements as in the beautiful melody of 'Complex' - the first ballad of electronica, a weave of violin, viola and Moog - or 'Films', its propulsive drum and electric bass figures set against washes of bleak synthetics. Much sampled, much admired, it is an album full of astonishing ideas.' 5/5 MOJO    'Practically opening the door, making the bed sheets and brewing the coffee for Depeche Mode, it features 'Cars' - which we all know, and 'M.E.' - which we also know because it's the signature riff from Basement Jaxx's 'Where's Your Head At'. An utter thrill.' 5/5 ART ROCKER    'For once, here's a much-hyped album which deserves the hype. Gary Numan's third record was the Year Zero of big-selling synth-pop, though 'pop' is far too light a word for a sound that scared the crap out of spotty teenagers worldwide. The Pleasure Principle left people chilled to the core with its deathly-cold combination of Moog bass, digital bass and Numan's numb, robotic vocals. After listening to 'Cars', 'Films', 'Metal' or 'Engineers', you could well believe that guitar music was finished for ever. There's not a duff track on here. Highly recommended.' 4/5 RECORD COLLECTOR   'Numan's shard of cyborg malaise is 30 years-old; dispassionate hymns from an industrial Brave New World, this is one of the first electronic records to sound digital as opposed to merely synthesized.' 4/5 UNCUT MAGAZINE    'It's often forgotten that this was electronic music's commercial breakthrough. The singularity of tone-dystopian sci-fi and icy-synths still emanates Ballard-esque alienation, especially on deadpan single 'Cars'.' 4/5 Q MAGAZINE    'Numan's huge influence still remains. If you don't already own this album, there's no better time to grab a copy.' FUTURE MUSIC   The Pleasure Principle was the point where Numan became a huge international solo star, reaching the Top 10 in the States with 'Cars' and Top 20 with the album. Given the conservative nature of the music scene in America at that time and the fact that the LP didn't even feature any guitars, let alone conventional song structures ('Cars' doesn't even have a chorus), this is one of those special moments in pop music when a new idea breaks through all the boundaries. The Pleasure Principle pioneered electronic pop music on a new scale, becoming a much bigger hit worldwide than Kraftwerk or anything from the Bowie/Eno 'Berlin' trilogy. And the fact that it was so different and had such a major impact in America (crystallised when Numan performed 'Cars' and 'Praying To The Aliens' in front of 40 million people on the Saturday Night Live Show) means that there's a direct link from The Pleasure Principle to the new musical forms that were born in the USA over the next decade - namely hip hop, industrial and techno.  As the NME recently noted, 'every hip-hop production titan ever – notably Dr Dre – has nicked the opening beats from the track 'Films'. The likes of Timbaland and The Neptunes' minimal pop – comprised of just exquisitely produced drums and simplistic synthlines – are heralded as been futuristic genius in the 21st century; The Pleasure Principle shows that Gary Numan was doing the same thing 30 years previously. His influence on hip-hop, while rarely recognised, is enormous. His influence on electronic music in general is unparalleled.' When GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan's covered 'Films' last year, he was actually taking hip hop back to its roots as the track features one of the original break breats (in fact it features on the hugely influential, Ultimate Breaks & Beats compilation series) . Former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren recalls his first encounter with hip hop in the early '80s: 'I remember hearing Gary Numan's 'Cars' and looking at this madly volatile black crowd in the middle of the South Bronx – my first visit to witness a party that I was invited to by Afrika Bambaataa. I, a naïve white honky, thought that it was in some apartment building, but it turned out to be this massive debris site and there in the middle of it was these guys telling their stories, freestyle, to Gary Numan's 'Cars'. My thoughts were interupted when waves parted in the crowd like the Red Sea and there, in a pool of light on the floor, came characters who started to spin and break dance. I'd never seen anything quite like it, I thought it was amazing.'  In industrial music both Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson have namechecked Numan as a significant influence, with the former currently performing the track 'Metal' on his tour. 'After hearing 'Cars' I knew I wanted to make music with synthesizers,' says Reznor. 'The Pleasure Principle is fucking great because it's so cold sounding.' Meanwhile, techno pioneers ranging from Carl Craig to Juan Atkins were grabbed by this strange, futuristic music, creating a relationship between Numan and dance music that has spawned the likes of the Basement Jaxx's 'Where's Your Head At' (samples 'M.E.' from The Pleasure Principle) and the 'Cars'-mutating 'Koochy' by Armand Van Helden. As the newly reformed Devo recently commented, The Pleasure Principle is, 'so original and cool and ground breaking and in a way classic. Like, it still sounds great today . . . like nothing sounds like that today.'  
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