Gary Numan – Telekon – 1980
The first thing you notice on Telekon is how it much it sounds like the New Wave we have come to know and love. Well, that MTV helped shove down our throats. With The Psychedelic Furs, Echo & The Bunneymen, and all that followed, there is a certain sound that brings all that back.
Telekon reeks of that sound.
Only it came out in 1980. A year before MTV ever put that man on the moon. And about 4-5 years before the New Romantics and New Wavers of the era would gain prominence. Not that Gary ever benefitted from that in the US. Here in the states we couldn’t be less interested in Numan and his particular brand of disaffection.
Telekon was the first Gary Numan record I bought on my own. After the introduction to Replicas I went to the record cubicle at the Union Market and bought this spinner. I recall bypassing The Pleasure Principle BECAUSE it had “Cars” on it. I wanted the new stuff. (Of course that would mean that I wouldn’t actually hear TPP in its entirety for almost 3 decades)
Telekon doesn’t really do anything new and for that reason it has been often dismissed as a lesser of the trilogy. It’s not. In fact, in some places, “This Wreckage” for example, it’s even more successful in linking the heavy disassociation and coldness of human distance with melody. “And what if God’s dead? We must have done something wrong.” I mean, come on. You can’t get any bleaker.
Songs like “The Aircrash Bureau” take sci-fi minimalism to a previously unexplored place. Numan is exploring with soundscapes here (and providing a taste of what he will be exploring on his next record). Eventually giving way to lush orchestrations the likes of which you are drawn into and find yourself lost. That’s what happens to me with much of Telekon: I just get lost in it. I think it’s supposed to be that way. In many ways its much less accessible than the previous records. And at times, much more beautiful. Case in point, “I Dream of Wires” a song which was covered by Robert Palmer that same year.
I didn’t think Numan was capable of such a melancholic ballad as “Please Push No More”. Which leads into the violin driven “The Joy Circuit”, the album’s finale. If you have the CD, or reissues, then you are also treated to, among other songs, the single, “I Die, You Die”, perhaps Numan’s 3rd or 4th most well known song.
Telekon is a very rewarding record. It’s darker and more lush than Replicas and not as, believe it or not, hopeful as The Pleasure Principle (which may not have been lyrically uplifting but had some truly lovely melodies), but it’s a welcome addition to those records.
Grade A-
ASide: This Wreckage, We Are Glass
BlindSide: I’m an Agent, Remind Me To Smile, Please Push No More, I Dream of Wires, The Joy Circuit
DownSide:
