Gary Numan – The Pleasure Principle

One of my favorite albums of all time. I when it was released. I was in 7th grade. Now that I have great audio gear I love it even more. This record could be released in 2025 and people would say who is that great band. Timeless album.

If you don't like this album, you should shave your eyebrows off and get a Billy Joel tattoo.

The Pleasure Principle feels modern even today. It transports me back to a time when I had more hope for the future. It is truly groundbreaking when you consider how it shaped the music of the 1980's. A+

This a good pressing of The Pleasure Principle - sounds amazing. A classic!
Cedric Sharpley was a fabulous drummer and perfect for this band.

The review below me could not be more wrong. This record is groundbreaking and an absolute gem.

I actually had to play this album, which I probably never will do again, before I wrote this review, as aside from the hit single “Cars,” there was not a song on this collection that I could .

In essence, the album has not only a frozen feel to it, but seems frozen in time, that being 1979, creating a nearly paranoid atmosphere with its machine-like groundings that refuse to emancipate the music in order to let it soar. Nearly all of the songs venture down the same path with little if any deviations, explorations, excursions or emotional memories, where the melodies are completely evasive and Gary Numan comes off as some sort of sonic computer engineer, rather than a soloing artist or the frontman to an actual band.

Pleasure Principles was an iconic classic for the mere moments it lived, though to my way of thinking, the album was far too confused with its mixed messages, attempting to be both surreal and hedonistic in the same breath (assuming that alien machine people breathe), though no one in the band, least of all Gary Numan seemed rather happy, imaging themselves and their backdrop as grimly menacing and dangerous. Of course Numan rose quickly with his new synth tools, with music that sounded deeply constructed, if not chilled to the bone, a reaction indeed to the boredom of punk, which was becoming merely antics at this stage. Numan’s material bridged the gap between the avant garde and pop music, though those bridges burned quickly, where the power of the avant garde underground was not about to open those doors wide enough to allow any sort of pop culture in. That said, what was laid down here has been extremely influential and is a delight to stumble upon now, though hearing more than a song, for me, becomes taxing and a bit dizzying.

Perhaps Numan and is sound might have made better inroads if it didn’t feel so accident, combing that with the notion that Numan wasn’t able to handle the fame and adulation when he had it, and then was unable to capture that moment again when he wanted it. Regardless, far too many of the songs from this outing sound awkward and shallow, lacking any breathable space, where even after a sold out show, Numan offers listeners nothing to take home with them but a poster, along with a memory that was as tangible as smoke.

*** The Fun Facts: In Freudian psychoanalysis, the ‘pleasure principle’ is the instinctive seeking of pleasure and avoiding of pain to satisfy biological and psychological needs. Specifically, the pleasure principle is the driving force guiding the id, where the id is the disorganized part of the personality structure that contains basic human instinctual drives. Most believe that the id is the only component of one’s personality that is present at birth.

It’s hard to look at this album cover and not instantly be reminded of Led Zeppelin and their 'Object' on the cover of Presence, where perhaps Gary envisioned himself as the little boy in that photo, now all grown up with his own object, though this time, a glowing red pyramid that he claims engages him in conversation.

Review by Jenell Kesler

The drumming by Cedric Sharpley is top notch. He plays what the song needs, with variations in each pattern, and never overplays. And love the liquid bass lines by Paul Gardiner, especially on "Metal" and "Films". The viola/violin by Payne and Currie (and the piano on "Tracks" and "Complex") adds a human touch to the music, a stark contrast to the coldness of the synths and Numan's android persona. The moment "Airlane" kicks in you know you are in for a real treat. This album has aged very well, and it showcases the massive sound of the old Polymoog and ARP synths. I can't believe music press derided Numan so heavily at the time, going by what he has said in his interviews. There is an obvious "man-machine" link from Kraftwerk present in some of Numan's aesthetics, but he was no Bowie clone (a criticism sometimes voiced). Bowie had his electronic phase with the album "Low" and the second side of "Heroes", which are fantastic but share little relation to Numan.

Side note on electronic influence: The 1989 Trax records release "Ride" is really by house music veterans Virgo Four, but released under the name M.E. This may be a dual reference: the names of original Virgo Four Merwyn and Eric, and the track "M.E.", which appeared on The Pleasure Principle.

This LP was a huge influence to so many electronic musicians. "Metal" alone is so dope. It had that funk without really even trying to be funky if that makes any sense. Classic album, hard to believe this was 1979!