Ok, so here is the first of those albums that I mentioned in the last post. Having said that they are not all Numan albums, I am kicking of with just such an album. 1981's 'Dance' is first up. Oh, and just to say that whilst these albums will be numbered 1 to 30, this is just numbering and not ranking. In actual fact, the entire concept of a Top 30 is a bit of a nonsence really as I am sure that if I were to construct a list on Monday only to repeat the exercise on a Friday, at least 30% of the content would be different... but I guess that is how music takes most people.
So I will be honest here. 'Dance' is not an album that receives heavy rotation on my turntable (no pun intended there). At the time of its release and immediate aftermath, I was starting to discover punk (albeit 5 years or so after the event) and the likes of The Damned and The Stranglers pushed some of Gary's material to one side. Earlier Numan material was in my mind more compatible with me as a punk fan (well, it came from a similar place in time and space).
It's funny though, as and when I do give 'Dance' a run out, it propels me back to that time, even the thoughts and concerns that occupied me at that time, such is the brilliant ability of music to evoke such strong feelings and memories!
In April 1981, Numan drew a line under his black clad, machine rock years with the spectacle of his Wembley Arena 'Farewell' shows. Tired and disallusioned with touring Numan intended to make moves into the new medium of video and to focus on studio recording in place of live performance (well, it worked for The Beatles didn't it?).
The Wembley shows were also a fond adieu to the stalwart musicians that formed the core of the band that he had spent the last three years on the road with, Ced Sharpley, Rrussell Bell, Paul Gardiner and Chris Payne, who less Paul, went on to form Dramatis. Gary gave them a parting gift in the form of 'Love Needs No Disguise' which gave Dramatis a minor hit (on the back of Gary's vocal contribution). The track also featured on a Japanese CD release of the album years later.
For the making of the album, Gary pulled in a number of musician mates to record with, perhaps most notably, given the direction that the music took, Rob Dean and Mick Karn of Japan. Karn's fretless bass is one of the stand out features of 'Dance'. The calibre of the musicians involved in the making of 'Dance' ensured that the overall result was a slick and highly accomplished body of work.
But old prejudices are long enduring and this was the case with the section of the music press (New Musical Express in particular) who were fixated with the image of Numan as the opportunistic Bowie clone last seen fleeing from the HA9 area of London clutching bags of the kids hard earned pocket money. Paul Morely wasn't a fan! But reading through his assessment of the album, one line stuck out for me.
"Noone of any worth will be influenced by Gary Numan, despite his best wishes".
In that assessment Mr Morely was ultimately proven to be way of the mark.
The NME review is harsh but in the discussion of where 1981 left a musician like Numan, now faced with formidable competition, was a fair point to a degree. However, whilst bands like Depeche Mode and Soft Cell clearly drew influence from Numan's early success, other bands, notably The Human League and OMD were at least comtemporanious (if not older) than Tubeway Army (the electronic version). In that sense Gary had had his own stroke of luck (an appearance on OGWT) that enabled him to leapfrog The League and OMD and fast track to huge success. Having achieved that success, holding on to it was always going to be the challenge. As they say 'you're only as good as your last race' and 'when you get to number one, the only way is down' etc etc. From a commercial perspective these turns of phrase certainly carried meaning in terms of his own career.
Here's what the critics had to say.
New Musical Express 5th September 1981
I suspect that at this point in his turbulent relationship with the UK's music press he had abandoned reading his own reviews. If he was still inclined to do so, he may have taken a shred of comfort from the opinion of the reviewer in the more teen orientated 'Smash Hits'.
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