YOUR GROOVY HOST:
Billy Ingram
Gary Numan's Telekon Album Reviewed
The greatest entertainers of the seventies -
especially those you never heard of!
Gary Numan's Telekon
by Billy Ingram
Gary Numan's Telekon (which came out in 1980) is one of my favorite so called New Wave albums.
It's Numan's disc after the three albums that launched his career, Tubeway Army, Replicas and The Pleasure Principle the latter of which sported the worldwide hit 'Cars' which made it to number one on the US and UK charts.
Those earlier releases are superior to Telekon in most ways, at least that's the conventional wisdom and I agree. There's nothing here to match 'Down in the Park' or 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' from his first three LPs, that's for sure, but several cuts come close like 'Please Push No More,' and 'Remember I was Vapor.'
There are dance tunes like 'I Die: You Die' but I don't remember ever hearing anything but 'Cars' in the clubs back in the day. Gary Numan's lyrics can't be taken seriously, a hodgepodge of nonsensical weavings delivered in a cold, monochromatic wail. The result is detached music that sounds great with the headphones on, at times lumbering, at other moments exuberantly innocent.
Telekon is not Gary Numan's best but I liked the more vulnerable, increasingly confident sound Numan possessed on this quirky album. Still, it failed to yield a hit in the US but did chart three singles in the UK - 'We Are Glass,' 'I Die: You Die,' and 'This Wreckage.'
Here are samples from this album starting with an ad with samples from all the tracks:
'This Wreckage,' one of the better tunes:
'Remember I was Vapor.'
'I Dream of Wires' with other cuts linked to this file:
The music you hear from the 1970s on the radio tends to be the same old tired hit songs they've been playing for decades.
Rarely will an oldies station stray outside of the top ten songs of the decade. That's because there were so darn many - it was the era of the 'one hit wonder.'
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Sonny & Cher's Unreleased 1977 Album
Melissa Manchester's Bright Eyes
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