Replicas "Synchronised Listening"

[pacman]

Given that the all new expanded Pleasure Principle will be arriving (hopefully) on Monday 21st, I think we should give this coming weekend over to the expanded Replicas to ensure continuity.

If everyone agrees, then start posting after you've given it a whirl.

[garycee]

Ok, seeing as no'one else has said anything yet - If you don't mind, I'll take the reigns.

Replicas will always be my favourite album, not just my favourite Gary Numan/Tubeway Army album but my overall favourite album ever. It's not just down to the content but what the whole package does to me (ooer).

To many people, The Pleasure Principle is their favourite album. This may be because it is more electronic and to be honest, it is a close call with Telekon for my personal number 2, but it's Replicas that really does it for me.

I remember being in Basingstoke in 1979 and walking past a record shop called Harlequin Music as an 11 year old. I had heard Are 'friends' Electric? on the radio countless times and also seen Tubeway Army on the TV so it was a bit of a surprise to see that the image on the front cover was the same bloke I had seen on the TV. I think (I maybe wrong) that the record shop had a display for Replicas? I had no money at the time so I used to go into the shop on a regular basis and go through the record racks until I found the album. I would just look at the cover from front to back and found it amazing. It appeared so alien-like to me and so different from anything else that was out there. I had been listening to the music that my parents had listened to for years up until 1979 and that was from the likes of Boney M, Abba, The Beatles etc and then all of a sudden, it seemed like I had my own music, my own band to concentrate on.

For me, Replicas is the whole package. The cover is stunning and I am not just saying that as a Numan fan. It was obviously created to make an impression and to all tell the story of what was inside on the vinyl. I wish that there were more photos available from that session. The idea that Numan was a 'Machman' didn't really register with me until I was a bit older and fully understood the whole idea behind the album. To me, music at that time was just music and I didn't take in the meaning of the lyrics etc until a lot later on. If I liked the sound of it then that was enough. I used to pull out the insert and read the words but to me they were just words.

The reflection in the mirror was quite scary on the cover of the album and I also noticed other litte things like the man in the hat outside 'The Park' which was obviously from Are 'friends' Electric? The eye on the back cover was very cool too and I remember my school mate, Brian holding up two copies of the album when we were in the record shop to make it look like he had 2 massive eyes - That was funny!

In Basingstoke there was also a record stall on the market which sold patches and badges too. I would go down there most saturdays and get whatever Numan badges the bloke had got in. There were always new ones being added to my bomber jacket. Replicas was the first album that I owned. It was purchased for me for christmas by my Nan from the market stall. As soon as I got it I ran upstairs to play it and I went from Side A to Side B all day until the songs were embedded in my head. My copy was actually different to my neighbours and had a green label. I later found out that it was a dutch copy.

My favourites at the time on first listening were opening track Me, I Disconnect from you, Down in The Park, You are in my Vision and The Machman and they still remain my favourites. Replicas is one of those albums that I can play anytime and still enjoy it like it's my first time hearing it. Sometimes you buy an album, play it to death and then put it away for a while and then come back to it at a later date and it sounds cool again. Replicas is cool everytime I listen to it and that's what a good album can do.

Being totally honest though, the original Replicas album, in my opinion and even though it's my favourite album did have a letdown on it and that was the track When The Machines Rock. I never liked it at the time and I'm still not that keen on it now. I remember thinking the same about the track I Nearly Married a Human at the time but over the years I have grown to love it. I actually thought it was a piss take at the time and a bit over the top for a song title even though the whole theme was about machines etc..

When I listen to Replicas, it takes me right back to 1979 instantly. I'm not sure if people will understand this but hopefully they will. It reminds me of certain smells, tv programmes and stuff like oversized cans of coke, space dust, Why Don't You? being on the tv in the summer holidays and programmes like Space 1999 and Dr Who. 1979 was a great year and sometimes I wished that I was a little bit older so I could've really taken in the whole experience a bit more and totally understood the ideas and concepts behind the album Replicas.

Me, I Disconnect from You as the opening track was excellent and instantly catchy for me. The use of synths and guitars really worked and Numan's vocals sounding great.

Are 'friends' Electric simply gets better everytime you hear it. At the time with it being on constantly, I used to skip the track because I wanted to hear stuff that I hadn't heard before. When it comes up on the radio or the jukebox in the pub or even if I play it when I am DJing, it never fails to send the shivers down my spine.

The Machman confused me when I first heard it. When the guitar starts off the song I expected a full on rock track but when those synths come in...lovely!

Praying to the Aliens sounded so futuristic and unlike anything else I had ever heard before and I loved it although it wasn't one of my favourite tracks at the time.

Down in The Park is a true masterpiece in my opinion. It was one of the tracks that I would play over and over again. It was so powerful and the production on it is awesome. The deep, droning synths sound very powerful and thinking about it, Numan must've wrote that song when he was about 20 years old. It remains one of my favourite tracks ever.

You are in my vision could've been a single in my opinion. It has a catchy chorus and could have been another release from the album before they released Cars and I think it may have done well?

The title track Replicas I found a bit boring on first listen and I used to skip it sometimes but again, in later years I grew to love it. I found it quite a scary track if I am honest. I'm not sure why it left that impression on me but it did and I can't think why?

It Must have been years is the rockiest of all the tracks on the album and I liked it. It is the only track on the album that I took notice of the lyrics because they confused me. "The driver wants to touch me, he mentions all the old cop bullshit. I try to back away but he's so strong, I just can't move, maybe I don't want to anyway...." What did that mean? I couldn't work out if it meant that Numan was gay at the time, not that it bothered me but singing those lines out loud confused my parents too! (haha)

When the machines rock was just a filler to me at the time (still is) and I couldn't get to grips with it. I would skip that track because it didn't do anything for me and was a bit of a disappointment to be honest.

I Nearly married a human as I said, sounded a bit comical to me. I found it weird that the second part of the album ended with 2 instrumental tracks. Replicas started off on a winner with track after track of brilliance but then nearing the end of the second side and it kind of eased off. I thought it was a bit of a letdown at the time. Like I said, I've grown to love the track now but at the time I thought the 2 last songs didn't live up to the others on the album.

We are so fragile is possibly the best B-side that Numan has ever made (The Image is comes very close). I remember buying the Are 'friends' Electric? single and flipping from side to side. I also remember hearing We are so fragile on the TV as it was the gymnastics and they used it as the backing track. It's an excellent track and I think Beggars Banquet should've made it the last track on the second side of the album and put When the machines rock on the B-Side of Are 'friends' Electric? Just my opinion. I have played We are so fragile a number of times over the years when I am DJing and people always ask who it is as it surprisingly still sounds fresh.

Do you need the service? Well, at that time I wasn't that keen on this. I thought it went on for too long. It's not one of my favourite tracks and I don't really have any comments on this one. It's ok but nothing special.

I nearly married a human 2 - So Numan divorced human 1 and here he was singing about human 2. It was something a little different from the original but again, at the time nothing special to me but as an 11 year old, I couldn't see it's brilliance back then. Now I can and I appreciate it.

The early versions and re-edits etc that came on the Redux release were very interesting to me. I loved the fact that we were kind of being treated to a 'fly on the wall' experience. Although it can get a bit boring at times listening to different versions of the same track, it is good to listen to how things progress into the final versions and the ones that we were presented with. This is evident with the likes of Are 'friends' Electric? I really rate the different version of Me, I disconnect from you as it sounds more powerful to me. I also like the extra versions of I nearly married a human. I'm not a massive fan of the multiple versions of Replicas but then again, you get to hear how it sounds through the stages until the final version that appeared on the album. I personally think that When the machines rock, with or without vocals, would've been better being missed off the album altogeather.

So, overall Replicas is the mutts nuts in my opinion. It's been said that it (along with the Pleasure Principle) has influenced a lot of bands and artists. Another album that in my opinion, is always overlooked when it comes to polls on 'Best Album Cover Art' etc (How can something like a Roxy Music album with 2 topless women on it or a Pink Floyd album with a pyramid on it or a Nirvana album with a baby underwater and a dollar on a fish hook always rank above the Replicas cover?), ok so I / We are biased...who cares?

If someone said to me that I could only ever have one album in my collection and everything else would have to be destroyed - Well that album would have to be Replicas - A stunning album.

[darthsmaull]

Great post Gary - excellent reading

Paddy - thanks for starting this thread - I was thinking the same as you, but was taken in to A & E with appendicitis on Weds so obviously EVERYTHING went by the wayside.

I got operated on late Thurs/early Fri and was discharged yesterday - great to be out of hospital but I'll be on "light duties" for a while longer.

Anyway, should give me time to listen to Replicas again and think of a few things to write...

[oldcopbullshit]

No need to say anything - Gary sums it up perfectly for me and I agree with pretty much every word.

The best album in the world.

[Kit]

Sept 13, 2009 11:07:45 GMT darthsmaull said:

I was thinking the same as you, but was taken in to A & E with appendicitis on Weds so obviously EVERYTHING went by the wayside.

I got operated on late Thurs/early Fri and was discharged yesterday - great to be out of hospital but I'll be on "light duties" for a while longer.

Good luck with the recovery Bob. Happened to me a few years back now and boy I'd never felt pain like it.

[pacman]

An excellent post by Gary and very hard to top as it reflects very much on my own experiences. I too got Replicas (and The Pleasure Principle) for Christmas that year and I was chomping at the bit. Needless to say I took control of the stereo in the house for about a week solid trying to cram it all in and learn the lyrics too.

I had owned just the AFE and Cars singles at that point, if memory serves, but then went on to collect all the other singles on the strength of my love of both albums.

Highlights for me, on first listening were You are in my vision, MIDFY and The Machman. First impressions left me feeling, DITP was a bit plodding (as was Replicas and INMAH) but I did think When the Machines Rock was poppy-quirky and listenable. I loved the guitar solo in It Must've been years, which surprised me tbh as I wasn't aware at that point that Numan could play that well. Praying to the Aliens and The Machman opened up a whole new range of synth effects to me at that stage also and the latter still remains a firm favourite.

Personally I only got to hear songs like the Crazies, We have a Technical etc when I eventually got around to buying the CD's in the mid-90's. And I have to say Do You Need the Service also remains a firm favourite of mine due to it's up-tempo nature.

All of which, of course leaves me with the one song I haven't mentioned on the album yet - Are 'Friends' Electric. What can I say except that even today, it is hands down my all time favourite Numan song. I don't care what way he plays it, I still love it and I confess that at least once a week I play the German TV version on my pc to get the whole package of look and sound (plus Ced's face crack me up as he looks like he's trying to wrestle his tongue from the centre of a polo mint). In the mid-80's I was lucky enough to appear on Radio 1 on Gary Davis' lunchtime "bit in the middle". I managed to stay on his quiz for the full five day and AFE was one of my tracks played (which was a novelty for Numan in those days). My favourite version is from the Teletour and Wembley shows but I always get a shiver when I hear it - it's just so bloody good and more than that, this was the song that hooked me onto electronic music and Numan for therein after. For that reason alone, it is special.

As regards Replicas Redux, I loved it although I did feel that some tracks were barely distinguishable from the original album. My suspicion is that some 2008 remixing went on instead of alternate mixes from back then but hey-ho, I paid me money. The alternate vocal on AFE stands out and thanks God it was changed for the final album. Different but lacks the power of the finished version. Also, the vocals on When the Machines Rock were very curious, if disjointed but again it's good to hear the work in progress as it is with the other tracks.

So overall, I have to say my third favourite Numan album (behind TPP and Telekon) but the one that opened my eyes to my first taste of fandom and a whole new genre at the time.

Lastly, hope you get well soon Bob and at least you have the new TPP to look forward to soon whilst you're recuperating.

[darthsmaull]

Thanks for the good wishes Paddy - I seem to be mending quite nicely, so should be back to normal fairly quickly hopefully...

[butterfly]

Amazing to hear how closely your experiences of Numan circa 1979 correspond. The only point I would like to add is that I always felt that the guitars gave Replicas an extra sonic dimension, which is missing from much of TPP. Although I love many of the tracks on TPP, I find it rather clinical to listen to all the way through, I find many of the songs have a similar melodic structure (apart from Metal and Complex, you can play the main parts of most of the other tracks on TPP with G,F#, C & D in various combinations. Perhaps the coldness is the point, but I always found the album as a whole a bit sterile.

[mace]

I remember hearing AFE on TOTP in 1979 and liking it, but it didnt really get me until a year later when my best friend was really into Numan, for me that was the moment, I heard Replicas and thought WOW, thats so different, the album grew and grew with me, my friend lost interest.
As for being My Number One favorite, that depends on the moment, with the Replicas Tour I was listening loads, then with Pleasure Princple I listened to that alot, but out of the 2 Replcas just has the edge, it has a slight rough edge that gives it more depth,human error!
And out of all the songs on Replicas, the one I keep humming is "I Nearly Married A Human", weird, but great!

[carole]

Just ordered the CD of this, thanks to this thread, as have most of his early albums on vinyl, a few on CD now and DVDs. Good to see Paul alive again RIP. Cheers = happy times!!!

Listening again now, can't believe they achieved this fab album with ONLY Gary, Paul and Jess!!!!! Thanks again!