L'Amour à la Chaîne pt.21

Greetings Chaîne fans, for link 21 you just need to take the title of the last song 'Metal Horse' and drop the equine noun, and you get...

'Metal'.

By Gary Numan.

Metal is taken from Numan's 1979 The Pleasure Principle album, his 1st 'solo' album after two under the collective Tubeway Army guise. It sees Gazza dropping the guitars completely and embracing full electronic/synthetic instrumentation throughout. And on the cover he appears to be trying to divine 'Pleasure' from a small red pyramid.

Hmmm, nice conceptual cover Gary, wonder where you got the idea from?

According to the wikipedia entry (your only trustworthy site on the interweb kids!*), 'Metal' is sung from the "perspective of an android longing to be human". Which leads me to ponder once again: Is Numan Human?**

Gary Numan - Metal
[you can buy The Pleasure Principle from all yr usual online outlets. Or you can go to a real shop and buy it for real from a real person.]


*joke
**I used to have a badge with a rather crude Numan drawing on it and the legend "Is Numan Human?" in a hi-tech digital typeface

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L'Amour à la Chaîne: what will be the next link in the chain? Join in...
Please leave your suggestions and any reasons in the comments.
Jacques Dutronc - L'Amour à la Chaîne > Françoise Hardy - Je Changerais D'Avis > Les 5 Gentlemen – Cara-Lin > Add N To (X) – Monster Bobby > Serge Gainsbourg – Le Poinçonneur des Lilas > Les Shades – Orage Mécanique > Gillian Hills - Rentre Sans Moi > Zombie Zombie - Psychic Harmonia > Michel Polnareff - Qui a Tué Grand'Maman? > Christine Pilzer - L'Horloge De Grand-Père > Violaine - J'ai Des Problèmes Décidement > Dutronc - Dodecaphonie > Fabienne Delsol - Ce Jour La > Johnny Hallyday - Son Amour Pour Un Jeu > Miss Kittin & The Hacker - L'Homme Dans L'Ombre > Andre Popp - L'Homme Invisible > Future Bible Heroes - Love Is Blue > Sandie Shaw - L'Orage > Ars Post Tergum Introet - Ford Mustang > Simon Bookish - Metal Horse > Gary Numan - Metal > ?

Is Numan Human?

The answer to the question, it seems, is YES.  Unless, that is, he sent one of his androids to talk to Steve Lamacq today.

And the event?  Tubeway Army's Replicas is the 6music 'ClassicalbumoftheDay'. This means that tracks from the record have been peppered throughout today's schedule, and that Lammo got to grill the Numan all about the making of the album.  He was quite candid for an android: talking about getting used sexually by older women and banging out prototype versions of his tunes on an out-of-tune pub piano, plus, his rather ham-fisted first forays into analogue synthesis.

You can listen again via the BBC iPlayer until around 3.59pm next Wednesday 4th April >>>
LISTEN HERE.