In early September 1980, Gary Numan released ‘Telekon’, his fourth album and the third and final installment on what became a kind of ‘Machine Music’ trilogy (having been preceded by ‘Replicas’ and ‘The Pleasure Principle’).
By the autumn of 1980, Numan it could well be said was spent. Since the unexpected success (‘too long to make the cut’) of ‘Are 'Friends' Electric?’ in May 1979, propelled to Number 1 in the UK singles chart and pile-driven into the record buying public’s consciousness by two remarkable TV debut appearances (‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ and ‘Top of the Pops’), Numan had not stopped.
An industry rapidly took shape around this new musical phenomenon which took the bewildered 21 year old and his band along with it at a pace over which he had little, if any, control. Constant touring (two world tours in the space of 18 months) and an intense pressure to repeat and repeat again the success of ‘Are 'Friends' Electric?’ took its toll and led him to take decisions that he was to subsequently regret. To Numan’s credit, he was indeed able to maintain the momentum of ‘Are 'Friends' Electric?, with ‘Replicas’, from which the single was taken, reaching the Number 1 slot in July. ‘Cars’ and ‘The Pleasure Principle’ following later in the year performed in similar fashion.
All well and good for the record company executive and young fan alike, but for the musician it was a different story entirely. This young, vulnerable and industry naïve individual (he has stated on many occasions that prior to those TV appearances his only interviewers had been the kids behind DIY xeroxed fanzines popularised by punk) learned in a quick and hard manner that the rock ‘n’ roll star existence enjoyed by his confessed heroes Bolan and Bowie also carried a significant downside. And the caffeine in Gary’s Coca Cola wasn’t a patch on the coping substances that Dave and Marc were using!
Gary Numan’s relationship with the music press, or perhaps more accurately the music press’s relationship with him was also toxic. Intellectual snobbery abounded across the UK’s ‘Big 4’ music weeklies. In the ‘70’s and ‘80’s these newspapers had huge circulations and, such was their clout, they could make or break an artist through their reviews, interviews, editorials and letters pages. The New Musical Express (NME), being the most overtly political of the press quartet, treated Numan with contempt from the very outset. On the rare occasions that he was afforded some column inches the reportage was mostly negative. Now, her whist declaring myself to be a huge fan of Numan, some of the press hostility came as no great surprise at the time. The times were hard, unemployment was rife, heavy industry in the country was decimated and the National Front made the streets unsafe. For these reasons, the NME (and their print companions) considered that the music and opinions of bands like The Clash, Gang of Four and The Specials were far more important than the thoughts of a ‘pop star’ who in interviews made no bones about the extent to which he enjoyed the trappings that came with rock ‘n’ roll stardom. Back in ‘79/’80 Gary Numan was like a lamb to the slaughtermen of the music press. And he paid a heavy price as a result. Compare and contrast the excruciating awkwardness of any early interview with the assuredness of interviews conducted within the last 10 years or so. The latter represents a confidence that comes from 40 years plus in a brutal business, coupled with a better self-understanding of how hehimself is hard wired.
In his candid views on his appreciation of fast cars and big pads, he was once again ahead of his time. The release of The Clash’s call to arms in the form of ‘Guns of Brixton’ to Duran Duran’s ‘Rio’, a song that arguably heralded in the ‘Yuppie’ era, were separated in time by little over two years! Had Numan broken through a couple of years latter, the press may have treated him a little differently... but we can never know.
However, evil NME aside, even Record Mirror, with a previous supportive track record when it came to Gary’s career, turned. Chris Westwood’s review of ‘Telekon’, reproduced below, is perhaps the worst album review I have ever read!
A review that appeared in the 18th September 1980 issue of Smash Hits was somewhat more positive, although it can hardly be described as glowing.
What then of ‘Telekon’? Perhaps the first thing to say about it is the extent to which it departs from the previous year’s runaway success that was ‘The Pleasure Principle’, an album which in turn contrasts with its predecessor, ‘Replicas’, in that it is sharp, bright and generally up-tempo. It was also devoid of guitars, a decision that Numan later perceived to be a musical error and one which he was at some pains to redress in the recording of ‘Telekon’ which saw a solid reappearance of his beloved sun burst Les Paul. The name was a fusion of the paranormal phenomena of telepathy (direct thought transference between individuals without the involvement of the normal channels of communication) and telekinesis (the ability to move objects with the power of thought alone without physical intervention), but the title bears little relevance to the subjects explored on the album itself.
‘Telekon’ with its complex arrangements of overlaid synthesizers is at once dark, brooding and rather claustrophobic, the perfect creation from the mind of a man overwhelmed by his situation, the positives of fame blunted by huge negatives. Opening with the gargantuan, thunderous bars of ‘This Wreckage’, Numan dives straight into the overriding dual themes carried by the album of personal damage and departure (the Japanese for ‘I leave you’ is ‘hidden’ in the lyrics of the track). Elsewhere on the album the lyrical cries for help give way to some beautifully melodic musical passages, for example the sweeping synths that come in towards the end of ‘The Aircrash Bureau’. Brooding replaced with melancholia. On ‘Please Push No More’, Numan expresses his disenchantment with the fame game. Everything that he had ardently wished for and set an unwaivering path towards, since the earliest days of the original Tubeway Army, he had at this point in abundance… and yet it left him wanting none of it. The dream was shattered. ‘Sleep By Windows’ drips with the sense of paranoia. If I remember correctly the song was a response to the young fans who would regularly lay siege to his Surrey mansion in the hope of catching a glimpse of their hero. Thankfully, these lyrical laments on the price of fame are interspersed with material that takes the listener back to more familiar ground i.e. dystopian visions of the future, best described by ‘I Dream of Wires’, arguably the best song on the album.
At the beginning of this post I mentioned that ‘Telekon’ marked an end to Numan’s dominant reliance on synthesizers. Very much at the fore on ‘Telekon’ they are used to great effect to create a rich orchestral feel, in sharp contrast their futuristic deployment on earlier albums. The combination of electronic with traditional instrumentation, the piano arrangement of ‘Down in the Park’ from these sessions as well as the B-side, ‘Photograph’ being good examples, was an indicator of Numan’s future direction….. fretless basses, saxophones and even an harmonica!
The tour, the ‘Teletour’ was itself iconic and for many, myself included, represented the essence of Gary Numan and his musical vision…. whether the music press hacks liked it or not.
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