Gary Numan – Random & Random 2 – 1997 & 1998
I’ve never covered “tribute” or cover albums before. In 1997 I was in a now defunct record store on la Cienega Blvd in LA. I don’t even know how I ended up in a conversation with the girl working the floor. She was a hard looking, fatigue wearing lesbian (don’t ask how I know that) who recommended this album to me. How she knew I would be interested in Gary Numan or anything Numan-esque is beyond me.
The record is hard to find and I had no idea that there was a sequel, the link to which I’ve included here.
Some of the stuff is terrific. Earl Brutus’ version of “M.E.” with it’s Queen breakdown in the middle for one and An Pier’s sweet “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” for another. Some of it isn’t. But it’s worth grabbing if for the only reason that it makes Numan seem totally relevant again.
Many of the songs on the first volume repeat themselves, the classics like “Me! I disconnect from you” and “We are So Fragile” (The Jesus Jones version being one of my favorites.) and some are downright nearly unrecognizable from the original, like The Orb’s 9 minute techno opus version of “Jo the Waiter”.
Amanda Ghost’s version of “Absolution” from that year’s Exile is lovely followed by a crunchy and great second version of “We are So Fragile” by Bis.
Other versions like Dave Clarke’s “Cars” is basically nothing more than a remix of the original. But Deadsy’s version of “Replicas” builds on the paranoia of the original and mines it for some truly end-of-century persecution psychosis (Deadsy is Gregg Allman’s son Elijah Blue’s band)
Jimi Tenor’s Merry Go Round Calliope of terror version of Down in the Park is inspired, it should be pointed out.
Random Two is a bunch of remixes. I hate remixes.
