I am going to launch a defence of the 'Machine +,Soul ' album: * The title alone is great and encapsulates much of what Numan has always been about. *The sleeve artwork on the *original* album.was very evocative: shadowy greyness and a very badass black leathered Gary in the foreground. * The sound pulls together previously existing strands in his music - electronica, rock and funk - and combimes it into a coherent whole. * There are some fine lyrical lines: ' I' m nervous, she scares me, my one chance is emotion' or ' Listen children, I' ve seen my future, call it the deadline for now'. * The overall ambience of it has an edge of menace ( as good rock should have). Also, it is sexy - something you can' t say about much of his current output! * There is some enjoyable musicianshi on the album, from Kipper and others , of the kind that you can just sit down and lusten to. * The album is energising. (It still puts a rocket up my backside - and I" m pushing sixty!) * The cover of a Prince track shows maturity - and he puts his own spin on it. All in all, this us adult orienrated power pop/ rock with an industrial slant. Fans evaluation of the album has been too much swayed by Gary' s own remarks on it. But we need to remember that he associates it with a particularly low point in his life. ' Machine +,Soul' : listen to it again without prejudice.
Outland isn't a bad album.....some decent songs and lots of interesting production touches/sampling/atmospherics. Machine and Soul is just awful though. I think Metal Rhythm is probably the best of the "wilderness years"(Prince/Janet Jackson-alike) albums.....at least in terms of the actual songs.
@@stevenwood4204 I agree Metal Rhythm is the best from those three albums, it's actually still one of his better albums post 1983. I felt the quality in overall sound lacking between Metal Rhythm and Outland when he started to mix and engineer himself it's the only thing that's improved with his later albums regardless of poor quality of songs.
The 'Metal Rhythm/Outland/ Machine+ Soult triptych has never been surpassed to those of us who became fans during his ' middle years'. Sure he has , before and since, produced material which is more artistically worthy - of the kind that critics tend to like. But hey Numan' s a rock/pop exponent - not Harrison Birtwhistle! Outland has a pleasingly stripped down feel to it. The visuals are low key.There are some great ambient interludes between numbers. Some of the lyrics ars of the kind that can be pondered over. Above all, though - it rocks!
Not sure your narrative is true I speak to a lot of fans who prefer this period to the stale nine inch nails parody material and one dimensional production from Ade Fenton. It’s true at the time fans would rather see the more simplified song writing of Replicas, Telekon, Dance . The issue with the Outland album is it was two years too late by the time it was released and he’s always been behind the times also having no money to have a mixing engineer shows in the horrible sounding mix of the album. The songs though are full of melody and more passion in his vocal style and lyrics than his latest output of the last twenty years he’s become too lazy to do anything about it and instead relying on a nearly three year pre-order campaign to massage chart positions yet in reality he sold more copies of Outland in 1991 than he did for Intruder in the UK where he claims he’s as big now has he was in 1981 which is an untrue statement in 1981 everyone knew who Gary Numan was in 2024 those that knew who he was still think he’s done nothing since the early 80s with the exception of the die hard fans Numan doesn’t have the appeal outside of those fans I suppose the difference is he’s not trying to do either but by doing so hasn’t changed his musical style from wanting to be Trent Reznor for 20 years
@@skinmech4851 I could write a book just replying especifically what you said. Now answering only one of these dozens of nonsense, it is obvious that Numan is selling a lot less albums copies today than he was 35 years ago. He's been having this "problem" since 2006 when Jagged got leaked on his website. Free streaming is the main way for fans and the general public to listen to anyone's music, we're in 2024 and no matter what and how you release music it's gonna be free on internet, so the main alternative for musicians to make money is touring and selling rights, such as Numan does these days. I can't remember the last time I saw someone I know buy any original copy of a record.
not sure he's ever "claimed" to be as big as he was back in '81....... but his last 2 albums reached a higher position in the charts than his '81 album and I can pretty much guarantee that more people saw him on the Intruder Tour than on the Outland Tour. Yes, of course, he's selling less actual albums than he was back then but that says more about the general trend of the music industry / the way people access music these days than it does about Numans' popularity. (@thiagofreigedo998 explains this in their reply) For the record, I quite like "the middle years" stuff ( maybe not whole albums but there are plenty of tracks from this period that i love) but his newer stuff is, in my opinion, far superior to anything he was doing from '83 - '92
@@thiagofreigedo You obviously hang around with too many rogues and pirates there are plenty of people who buy original music you only have to look at the increase in Vinyl sales the past 7 or 8 years in in the US alone in 2023 there were 49 million sales in vinyl alone so that's not right at all, if people want it they'll buy it
At the time I knew Graham (the drummer from Yen), who told me that around this time Numan was listening constantly to Janet Jackson - and it shows!
I love it
Dire
Love this podcast.
I am going to launch a defence of the 'Machine +,Soul ' album:
* The title alone is great and encapsulates much of what Numan has always been about.
*The sleeve artwork on the *original* album.was very evocative: shadowy greyness and a very badass black leathered Gary in the foreground.
* The sound pulls together previously existing strands in his music - electronica, rock and funk - and combimes it into a coherent whole.
* There are some fine lyrical lines: ' I' m nervous, she scares me, my one chance is emotion' or ' Listen children, I' ve seen my future, call it the deadline for now'.
* The overall ambience of it has an edge of menace ( as good rock should have). Also, it is sexy - something you can' t say about much of his current output!
* There is some enjoyable musicianshi on the album, from Kipper and others , of the kind that you can just sit down and lusten to.
* The album is energising. (It still puts a rocket up my backside - and I" m pushing sixty!)
* The cover of a Prince track shows maturity - and he puts his own spin on it.
All in all, this us adult orienrated power pop/ rock with an industrial slant. Fans evaluation of the album has been too much swayed by Gary' s own remarks on it. But we need to remember that he associates it with a particularly low point in his life.
' Machine +,Soul' : listen to it again without prejudice.
I really like Outland and Machine + Soul
Outland isn't a bad album.....some decent songs and lots of interesting production touches/sampling/atmospherics.
Machine and Soul is just awful though.
I think Metal Rhythm is probably the best of the "wilderness years"(Prince/Janet Jackson-alike) albums.....at least in terms of the actual songs.
@@stevenwood4204 I agree Metal Rhythm is the best from those three albums, it's actually still one of his better albums post 1983. I felt the quality in overall sound lacking between Metal Rhythm and Outland when he started to mix and engineer himself it's the only thing that's improved with his later albums regardless of poor quality of songs.
The 'Metal Rhythm/Outland/ Machine+ Soult triptych has never been surpassed to those of us who became fans during his ' middle years'. Sure he has , before and since, produced material which is more artistically worthy - of the kind that critics tend to like. But hey Numan' s a rock/pop exponent - not Harrison Birtwhistle!
Outland has a pleasingly stripped down feel to it. The visuals are low key.There are some great ambient interludes between numbers. Some of the lyrics ars of the kind that can be pondered over. Above all, though - it rocks!
Not sure your narrative is true I speak to a lot of fans who prefer this period to the stale nine inch nails parody material and one dimensional production from Ade Fenton. It’s true at the time fans would rather see the more simplified song writing of Replicas, Telekon, Dance . The issue with the Outland album is it was two years too late by the time it was released and he’s always been behind the times also having no money to have a mixing engineer shows in the horrible sounding mix of the album. The songs though are full of melody and more passion in his vocal style and lyrics than his latest output of the last twenty years he’s become too lazy to do anything about it and instead relying on a nearly three year pre-order campaign to massage chart positions yet in reality he sold more copies of Outland in 1991 than he did for Intruder in the UK where he claims he’s as big now has he was in 1981 which is an untrue statement in 1981 everyone knew who Gary Numan was in 2024 those that knew who he was still think he’s done nothing since the early 80s with the exception of the die hard fans Numan doesn’t have the appeal outside of those fans I suppose the difference is he’s not trying to do either but by doing so hasn’t changed his musical style from wanting to be Trent Reznor for 20 years
Total bullshit
@@thiagofreigedo what’s bullshit about it?
@@skinmech4851 I could write a book just replying especifically what you said. Now answering only one of these dozens of nonsense, it is obvious that Numan is selling a lot less albums copies today than he was 35 years ago. He's been having this "problem" since 2006 when Jagged got leaked on his website. Free streaming is the main way for fans and the general public to listen to anyone's music, we're in 2024 and no matter what and how you release music it's gonna be free on internet, so the main alternative for musicians to make money is touring and selling rights, such as Numan does these days. I can't remember the last time I saw someone I know buy any original copy of a record.
not sure he's ever "claimed" to be as big as he was back in '81....... but his last 2 albums reached a higher position in the charts than his '81 album and I can pretty much guarantee that more people saw him on the Intruder Tour than on the Outland Tour.
Yes, of course, he's selling less actual albums than he was back then but that says more about the general trend of the music industry / the way people access music these days than it does about Numans' popularity. (@thiagofreigedo998 explains this in their reply)
For the record, I quite like "the middle years" stuff ( maybe not whole albums but there are plenty of tracks from this period that i love) but his newer stuff is, in my opinion, far superior to anything he was doing from '83 - '92
@@thiagofreigedo You obviously hang around with too many rogues and pirates there are plenty of people who buy original music you only have to look at the increase in Vinyl sales the past 7 or 8 years in in the US alone in 2023 there were 49 million sales in vinyl alone so that's not right at all, if people want it they'll buy it