Gary Numan – Replicas – 1979
The sound is bigger. The film stock is 70MM. The androids are cleaner.
Replicas.
“Me! I Disconnect from You”, one of my favorite grammatically interesting songs from the set, is driving and cold and everything the late 70s felt like. From Ursula LeGuin’s “The Lathe of Heaven” to, well, anything by Philip Dick, the late 70s is not as often remembered as such a depressingly nihilistic time. It was almost horrible to live through. Now, we remember Star Wars and what they wrought with Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks and all, but by 1978 the hey day of artist running the asylum was ending and mass-marketing Tommy Mottola-ing of pop culture was on the horizon. (Mottola was about 10 years away but it was coming, thanks to Michael Jackson). But it was a dark time. The party was over. Aids was coming. The piper had to be paid.
Before all that and just as the party was ending came Replicas.
Possibly one of the ten best albums of the 70s. Certainly one of the top 50. Absolutely one of the most influential of all time.
Songs like “Are ‘Friends’ Electric and “Down in the Park” have become mainstays of New Wave but there are tracks like “The Machmen” which make the band The Cars seem like bubblegum pop in comparison. (Allegedly, Replicas was based on a book Numan had hoped to write where “Machmen” and others kept the human populace in line. The machmen were androids covered in cloned human skin. Think The Terminator meets A.I. But way ahead of its time.)
The band is crisp, Gardiner and Lidyard’s rhythm section were fine tuned and lay the perfect bed for the Numan vision.
Right in the center of this science fiction and paranoia is, perhaps, the most important song of the New Wave revolution. “Down in the Park” is downright terrifying. The rape machine itself is an image I never lost in my mind’s eye. I’ve always wondered if Down in the Park is written from a Machman’s point of view. If it is, then it’s even more brilliant. The swirling orchestrations, the chant of “Death death death until the sun cries morning”, the entire song, even the hopeful instrumental bridges, all come together to create perhaps the greatest nihilist future song of all.
Even the cover of Replicas is part of the experience. The front cover featuring a trepidatious and even frightened Numan in all black standing near a window, his reflection definitely NOT him. Possibly a Machman version of him. And just below can be seen the neon sign of The Park. It’s as terrifying as the album. And the back cover of just Numan’s eye. The eye was how you could tell Machmen from humans. Machmen had a small bar through theirs. Everything about this album’s concept is well thought out and part of the experience.
Before the album ends with two instrumental tracks, we get “It Must Have Been Years”, a boldly guitar driven song that seems to suggest a climax to the whole proceedings.
I’m not sure we need two instrumental tracks though. One serves as a cinematic device, music over credits perhaps. Two is over staying, after all, it wasn’t like Numan was bereft of material, just take a look at the bonus tracks from the era on the reissue CD. I nearly Married a Human is lovely, but we don’t need it.
Grade: A
ASide: Me! I Disconnect from You, Are ‘Friends’ Electric? Down in the Park
BlindSide: Praying to the Aliens, You are in My Vision, It Must Have Been Years
DownSide: I Nearly Married a Human
