Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Tubeway Army
Replicas
(Beggars Banquet, 1979)
Synth-rock innovator takes skin-crawling alienation to the charts!
A fine album that, even so, is really about one song. UK Number 1 smash Are ‘Friends’ Electric? was recorded in a basement in London’s Chinatown that was accessed through a trap door. But to what psychological sub-stratas did Gary Numan (né Webb) descend when he initiated this majestic, enigmatic sonic event? Written at home on an old upright piano bought by his mother, the self-taught Numan devised an odd set of chords, bum note and all, and ended up bolting it onto another uncompleted song. The motorik, pulsing result, made with band Tubeway Army and the then-cutting edge Minimoog, Polymoog and a Roland SH 2000, is equal parts synth-pop, rock and ballad. It presides over Replicas, a Philip K Dick-inspired sci-fi concept LP where an evil super-computer equates order with liquidating humans and controls an army of sex-robots (the ‘Friends’ of the title) to keep the population passive. Numan, who later revealed he had Asperger’s Syndrome, would go solo and score another chart-topper in 1979 with Cars, and still records and tours today, being hailed as an influence by the likes of Trent Reznor, Dave Grohl and Afrika Bambaataa. In 2002 Sugababes scored a massive hit by re-recording a bootmash that spliced Are ‘Friends’ Electric? with Adina Howard’s rude US hit Freak Like Me, but for sheer immaculate creepiness, nothing beats the original.
Ian Harrison
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 27/11/2008
Further Listening
Gary Numan – The Pleasure Principle (Beggars Banquet, 1979)
John Foxx - Metamatic (Virgin, 1980)
Alan Parsons Project – I, Robot (Arista, 1977)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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-
Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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Fabulous music
Posted by Anonymous at 12:57 PM GMT 27/11/2008 Report Abuse
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