For most Numan fans the Living Ornaments '79 and '80 album coupling, presenting highlights of the 'Touring Principle' and 'Teletour' shows are the epitome of Numan's first flush of success, a neat precis in vinyl of the 'black' chapter of his career that was finally closed with the 'Farewell' Wembley shows in April 1981.
Given his relationship with the music press it was perhaps a forgone conclusion that Numan's latest contribution to the record collections of a section of the nation's youth would not be greeted with open arms. That fact notwithstanding, Nick Kent's review in the NME (below) seems to be particularly vitriolic. Half the review rails against the way in which the album was to be marketed whilst the second half satifies itself with accusations that an opportunistic Numan took gross advantage of a Bowie sabbatical to fill the charts with sub-Dave tunes.
As to the marketing, I cannot say for sure what personal involvement Gary had in such matters, my instinct would suggest that these matters would more likely be handled by Beggars Banquet, who managed Numan very well as an asset and very much to their commercial advantage, propelling them from a near insignificant independent label to a label with an inpressive roster of signings. Regardless of who dreamt up the strategy far worse marketing schemes were to follow. Just three years later in 1984 Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Two Tribes' single was releases in six different remix formats in a (successful) attempt to circumvent chart return shop restrictions, a year later and Sigue Sigue Sputnik were selling advertising space in between the tracks of their debut album 'Flaunt It'. I wonder what Mr Kent would have made of that.
The Bowie thing is easier to comment upon. Numan has never made any bones about the musicians that have inspired him and influenced his writing be that Ultravox! or Bowie himself. I am not so certain about the 'Joe the Lion' reference, but in other respects Numan, along with any other artist who has enjoyed a hit, can have the accusation of plagarism levelled at them. If I listen to parts of 'Low' I can hear elements that clearly Numan drew on... to concede with Nick Kent on one point, I can even relate to the connection between a sniped of Cat Stevens' 'Matthew & Son' and 'The Joy Circuit'. But everybody has done it, not excepting The Thin White Duke himself! I am a big fan of David Bowie, especially of pre-Ziggy era meterial. Listen to 'Love You 'Til Tuesday' back to back with Anthony Newley's 'Pop Goes The Weazle' and my point will be very evident! Primal Scream did a good trade in sounding like The Stones and Oasis always reminded me of someone else too, but I can quite recall...
Alf Martin's Record Mirror review, is also quite dismissive, but at least in Martin's short analysis of Numan's career to date, he seems to have captured a grain of truth.
For my part, 'Living Ornaments '80' was for many years my favourite albums of all time. Perhaps it has slipped down the rankings over the intervening years, but it is still up there as one of the best live album's and its version of 'Down in the Park' still gives me a spinal shiver 44 years on.
New Musical Express 25th April 1981
GARY NUMAN
Living Ornaments '70 (Beggars Banquet)
Living Ornaments '80 (Beggars Banquet)
SO FAREWELL then, Gary Numan. All good things must come to an end sometime, and ground control is evidently calling your number even as I write, in the same harsh, hollow cadence you yourself have utilised for your sound.
Last year there you were, coasting along in your little bubble, still notching up big commercial coups: 'Telekon', your last studio album, streaked up to No.1, whilst those two singles 'We Are Glass' and 'I Die You Die' shuttled into the Top Five. If only the aptly entitled 'This Wreckage' hadn't failed to even secure a place in the Top Thirty, you'd be exiting this humdrum mortal coil that is the music biz market place with the old log-book completely unblemished.
But then again, by the last days of 1980, there were the likes of Steve Strange, John Foxx, Spandau Ballet and Midge Ure's Ultravox corporate crowding out the same stratosphere you’d once held omnipotent control of. All these new faces, new haircuts, new uniforms - even though stripped of their kilts and fringes they were just a bunch of ungainly, pasty-faced dough-boys.
Worse still, the man you'd chosen to ape, one David Jones of Beckenham, had returned from his sojourns out in left-field to claim his throne, the very chair your bum had been keeping warm in his Nib's absence for – how long is it now? Two years, at least, eh? A good innings for a pretty uninspired bloke with only one good (i.e. commercially viable) idea like - yourself, Gary. What else could you do under the circumstances?
On April 24th, the WEA corporate will release 'Living Ornaments '79' and ' '8O' in three different packages. Your fans – for whom this inspired aural 'au revoir' has been . especially released (it reads here, in this rather shoddy press-release I have before me) - can either buy the two records separately at £4 "or less", or they can buy the pair in a "special box-set" which includes an added two live tracks plus special free single which ... Oh, hold on a tick, the girl from Beggars Banquet just phoned to say that the free single is not to be included. Instead your aficionados will be privileged to receive a "leaflet" (sic) with 'some fab photographs and special info. on the two tours immortalized herein. The boxed set retails at £8 "or less" with the crucial stipulation that all three artefacts will be made available from the WEA pressing plant to shops from April 24th until May 15th. Yes, for only one month will your many fans be able to share in this extravagant finale. Or so it would appear.
In fact, the•latter ploy is the only truly inspired aspect to this whole spurious affair. Retailers have to order in bulk so as to fully accommodate the presumed flood of requests, thus rocketing the three records straight to the top of the album charts. Very canny, Gaz, very sharp. Even Big Brother Bowie hasn't come up with a piece of marketing strategy as wickedly on the ball as 'Living Ornaments 79/80'. The one-month stroke affords your followers the chance to bathe in the privilege of duping themselves into believing the whole ploy is a personal tribute to their fidelity while in reality the whole deal is simply arranged to ensure maximum sales returns.
Ah, if only the music were one fraction as inspired. Listen Gaz, I don't want to rehash all the old criticisms you've awkwardly cringed away from whilst scurrying off all the way to the bank. In fact, I imagine that you're a fairly genuine sort of bloke who genuinely considers your music to be complete evocation of a vision of a future devoid of passion, warmth and all-purpose humanity. Unfortunately, like your detractors, I view your music as being wretchedly one-dimensional, crass sci-fi drivel that would be merely a harmless ear-sore, were it not for the fact that a) your synth-obsessed bombast spotlights,every negative aspect inherent in the very concept and practical appliance of contemporary technology in direct relationship to music, and b) your puerile sub-'Diamond Dogs' scenarios are unwittingly a highly pernicious influence on impressionable types who, if they take this pompous garbage as seriously as you evidently do, are under certain highly dodgy delusions regarding their cultural bearings, simple human values and life 'as she is lived' in general. Listening to all four sides of your parting bouquet, all the old adjectives are summoned forth once more: the eerie synthesisers, the dank, drab metronome of a pulse-beat, your whining vocals, the empty gestures, the numbing bombast. It's unhealthy stuff, Gazza.
A snippet for Gazza fans: the live sound is slightly more fuzzily bombastic throughout both concerts (both recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon in the Septembers of the previous two years), with Numan's voice more strained and awkward than the studio would lead one to believe. ' '79' has Ultravox's Billy Currie in the backing group, though you-can scarcely pinpoint his contributions on stiff, note-for-note reconstructions of 'Cars', 'Metal', 'Dream Police', 'Conversations', 'Films', and other ultra-precious pearls of half-baked pomp like 'We Are So Fragile'.
'80' is a better buy for the poverty-stricken Gazzaphile, with the first side sounding slightly more solidly in synch with the "live" angle (although numbers like 'This Wreckage', ' I Die: You Die' and 'Every Day I Die' are so threadbare as to defy plausible renditions), and side two boasting some actual "punch", the corporation working overtime to•provide tension, verve and a certain ominous extra dimension to 'Remind Me To Smile' (Numan's ‘Joe The Lion' swipe), 'The Joy Circuit' (Gazza lifting Cat Stevens' ancient 'Matthew & Son' motif) and, to a lesser extent, 'We Are Glass'. Also 'Are Friends Electric?' is present and correct here, doled out with stern authority by his adept cronies.
And so it goes, around and around in ever-diminishing po-faced echoes. 'Living Ornaments' is your last twirl with the masses, Gaz. You kept Bowie's throne (luke) warm in his divine absence - just like Steve Harley did way back in '74 and just like Steve Strange is doing now. You should be pleased•- your success was longer-running and more widespread than Harley's was or Strange's will be. Last month's flavours and last year's favoured become this year's stale aromas. Idon't like your music - never did - and find this final salvo as crass as it's loaded with empty gestures.
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