Customer Reviews

Pleasure Principle (30th Ann.)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's amazing how much emotion Gary Numan was able to evoke with an album so dominated by electronic instruments. Numan produced a number of great albums in his heyday (I'm not a big fan of his recent, dark material), but the Pleasure Principle--with its Magritte take-off cover--has best withstood the test of time for me. Replicas comes close, but I think this is Gary at his best.

Cars became a hit here and in the UK, but the rest of the cuts are every bit as strong. And there's a sensitivity on display behind the andriod cool that makes this music far more than the sum of its parts. Couple that with an excellent rhythm section, great keyboard textures, and first-rate arrangements, and you have an album that never seems to wear out its welcome.

Gary Numan's voice can tend to become grating on some of his albums, but not this one.

Numan's _The Pleasure Principle_ has a variety of tunes, all of them disturbingly pleasant, depicting dystopian science-fiction futures. Instrumentation is "normal rock band" without guitar and with a domineering Moog synthesizer. Numan sings like a machine. Some of this stuff is kind of bland, and all of it seems to blend together in one great robotics of music. Keep in mind that the '70s was still part of the Golden Age of science fiction, and you'll be fine listening to this. A minor, not a major, classic.

This is one of my favorite album because it creates an incredible atmosphere loaded with brooding imagery. Gary's music would be perfect for a film like Ridley's Scott - Alien or Blade Runner. A good director could make a wonderful film based on the album and the album before this one. The album is stark but very beautiful and powerful.

Gary received constant criticism from the music critics and some pop fans with comments like "Bowie does it better" or other swipes. Mr. Numan had three top ten albums in a row in England by the time he was about 20 years old. I recall David Bowie's early albums not as influential as Gary Numan's albums.

On reflection I think Gary has some truly great songs that have been hugely influential on many groups and styles of music. I think David Bowie has not been as influential as Gary. Many point to Bowie's Low and Heroes albums as a better version of electronic music or an improved Numan. Mr. Bowie was fortunate enough to have a powerful collaborator on both albums in Brian Eno. Mr. Eno and Mr. Bowie at that point were also experienced hands in the music business while Gary was an inexperienced youngster. I view Heroes and Low to be more Eno than Bowie albums anyway.

The Pleasure Principle has some truly great songs. Probably the most powerful song on the album or CD is Films. I would rate Films and Down in the Park as Gary's two best songs. Bowie best? Space Oddity and Ashes to Ashe and I prefer Mr. Numan's anthems.

I was fortunate to see Gary in a smallish club during his U.S. tour in 1999/2000 time frame. His music is was incredibly powerful and chills went down my spine when he launched into Films and Down in the Park. The show was great and Gary met with fans after the gig.

Gary was Goth before Goth. Gary was way ahead of everybody in electronic music with the exception of Kraftwerk. Sure there were other synth groups but Kraftwerk and Numan influenced almost everyone including rap and hip hop artists plus grunge era groups.

synthetics and live strings mix up the atmosphere in this hard driving soundtrack for the replicants that roam this planet.

just in case one were to get melancholy about lifes challenges or weepy about love lost, gary numan sets one straight with the mantra: 'i'm still confusing love with need."

cars is a great track, but my personal favorite is METAL. "plug me in , turn me on, Now everything is MOVING...." at that moment, mr. numan sends everything in his mix into a flanger/phaser/replicantbooster and sends your listening space into orbit.....yesyesyes.

over twenty years old this cd is and it stands up to the smeared pap that passes for emuzik today. just a few moogs, a few guys who can play their instruments, no computers, and an active imagination is all one needs...tell that to listeners today!

Its very simple. Before this album, there was nothing. Like a universe that explodes from a single sub-atomic particle, this album spawned everything that "synthesized" alternative rock has evolved into. You must put this album in perspective with the time it emerged to appreciate the pure elegance of this work. Completely synthesized (sans drums), melodic, dark, cold, androgenous masterpieces - all. Every Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, (pick your favorite synth band and insert it here) owes its inspiration from this recording. Sure there was Brian Eno, David Bowie, OMD, and others - but nothing as fresh as "Cars", "Films", "Complex".....If you like Gary Numan, you must own this album.

Gary Numan is a far better composer that he is a lyric writer; although he does have moments of lyric brilliance (in "Metal" for example, and in some of his songs on his previous recording "Replicas").

Given the limitations of electronic music in the late 70's, it's truly amazing how well his sound has aged (it still sounds as fresh as it did then). I rank him among the Godfathers of modern electronic pop music (which includes Brian Eno, Devo and Kraftwork).

The repeated motifs of alienation on this record (given 20 years of distance) begin wearing out pretty fast (David Bowie did it much better with "Low" and "Heroes" since he's a better lyric writer).

I have to admit, even when I heard some of this stuff in the mid 80's, I thought it was so over the top (as far as lyrics) that I kept thinking of that old Ed Wood movie "Plan Nine From Outer Space" (is it supposed to be funny, or is it really serious?).

Tales of alien sex and Elvis Cyborgs could use "The Pleasure principle" as a soundtrack.

CARS, Numan's best known song, is on here. And while this is a good CD, it lacks the imagination and brilliance of "Replicas", and sounds a bit dated by comparison "It's So 1980's" as my little sister says.

Well maybe so, but the 1980's weren't all bad: Thatcher was ending decades of socialist poverty & misery in the UK, while Reagan was laying the foundations for the greatest economic prosperity the world had ever known in America. And music was going really high tech.

Gary Numan was on the vanguard of a truly new age in popular music: where software and producers ruled, and 'artists' were simply employees.

THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE: A very good CD, but not a brilliant one. 'Cars': a song you simply must have and hear once in a while.

Gary Numan is one of the most prolific artists of all time. The Pleasure Principle is the only one I don't think stands the test of time. His earlier two albums, though a little naive at times, surpassed this album. Cars caught us all off guard in '79 and it certainly introduced me to his talent. Observer stands out over the original album tracks, though it's similar in feel to Cars. Conversation is the most tedious track Gary ever released. Thank god On Broadway is on this, but it SHOULD have been added to Telekon as it was a giveaway single in the original vinyl release. The b-sides are all excellant and creepy, especially Assylum. I, Assassin is supposed to be released later this year. If you're new to Numan's work, start with I, Assassin, Exile, Sacrifice or Dance. I have all his work. The Pleasure Principle is my least favorite of his albums.

I remember i used to have this on vinyl and i wore this album out so bad that you couldn't even hear anything, that's how good this album is. Back in the early 90's i tried to find this album on cd and one store told me that this album was out of print and i felt so bad that i would never even get a chance to own this album again. But in April of 2000 i found a remastered/re-package with a bunch of bonus tracks on it, that i would pay any price to get this and it well worth the money. This is Gary's second album released in September of 1979, songs like "Cars", "Film" and "Airplane" stood the test of time for it's genre. Plus you get some bonus tracks featuring b-sides and some killer live tracks like "Bombers" (simple, but excellent) and a cover of the oldie song "On Broadway". This an excellent album, i'm glad that they have re-released it for a whole new generation to hear of what Gary Numan was made of. Get this, it's an all time classic for it's genre.

As *the* classic early Gary Numan synth record, the genius of 'The Pleasure Principle' is that, instead of attempting to forge a new musical language with electronics, Numan took synths, put them through a distortion pedal, and used them to replicate guitars. Loud, crunchy guitars. At the time, it sounded alien and wierd, and nowadays it still sounds strange - Numan existed off to the side of pop fashion, and the use of proper drums and a normal electric bass stand out in an age of cheesy drum machines.

Most of the songs are simple, riff-based affairs - 'Cars' sets the pattern, with tracks such as 'Observer' and 'Conversation' seeming like variations on a theme. 'Metal' is a great lost single, a bouncy tale of paranoia and alienation, and 'Airlane' sounds like a demented disco track. Alone of the songs, 'Complex' has a proper tune, and is an almost-entirely instrumental ballad.

'Films' has a strangely funky drum-loop, 'M.E.' is the most obviously punk song of the lot, 'Tracks' sounds the least unusual, and 'Engineers' is deadly dull, but then again all albums have to have a clunker. From a technical point of view, this is the first and last word in Polymoog usage, and the inside cover artwork is atrocious.

This was an odd point in Numan's career - after the success of 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' and 'Replicas' he was still seen as being a one-off fluke, and by the time of 'Telekon', a year later, he didn't want to be a star anymore.