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Gary Numan is a musical pioneer, and his influence on so many artists is unmistakable and grand. Numan's eclectic style connects him with fans of multiple genres including electronic, industrial, indie-rock and metal. He remains an innovator, and he's been name-checked by everyone from Kanye West to Foo Fighters and Queens Of The Stone Age, and an ever-growing list of artists have covered and sampled his music. These range from Basement Jaxx to Damon Albarn, Afrika Bambaataa and Wu Tang Clan's RZA and GZA.
The LP versions of his classic albums Replicas (1979), The Pleasure Principle (1979) and Telekon (1980) have had scattered availability over the years, and Beggar's Banquet is pleased to put them back in print once again. All of the albums are pressed on standard black vinyl and have been cut from high-resolution digital files (96 khz / 24 bit transfers from the analog master tapes) by award-winning engineer John Dent at Loud Mastering. Replicas and The Pleasure Principle are single LPs and Telekon is a double LP.
The Pleasure Principle is Numan's third studio album (and debut under his own name) and marked the point where he became a huge international solo star, reaching the Top 10 in the US with "Cars" and Top 20 with the album itself. Given the conservative nature of the music scene in America at that time and the fact that the LP didn't even feature any guitars, let alone conventional song structures ("Cars" doesn't even have a chorus), this is one of those special moments in pop music when a new idea breaks through all the boundaries.
The Pleasure Principle pioneered electronic pop music on a new scale, becoming a much bigger hit worldwide than Kraftwerk or anything from the Bowie/Eno Berlin trilogy. And the fact that it was so different and had such a major impact in America (crystallized when Numan performed "Cars" and "Praying To The Aliens" in front of 40 million people on Saturday Night Live) meant that there was a direct link from The Pleasure Principle to the new musical forms that were born in the US over the next decade - namely hip hop, industrial and techno.