Replicas

About

Replicas is an album by the British band Tubeway Army, released in 1979. It was the second and final Tubeway Army LP, following a self-titled debut the previous year. After thi, Tubeway Army frontman Gary Numan would continue to release records under his own name, though the musicians in Tubeway Army would continue to work with him for some time. Replicas was the first album of what Numan later termed the "machine" phase of his career, preceding The Pleasure Principle and Telekon, a collection linked by common themes of a dystopian science fiction future and transmutation of man/machine, coupled with an androgynous image and a synthetic rock sound. Fuelled by a surprise number one hit single, "Are 'Friends' Electric?", the album also reached number one in the UK charts in July 1979 and was certified Gold by the BPI for sales in excess of 100,000 copie. Background Something of a concept album, Replicas was based on a book Numan hoped to complete someday, set in a not-too-distant future metropolis where Machmen (androids with cloned human skin) and other machines keep the general public cowed on orders from the Grey Men (shadowy officials). Whilst the album’s setting and lyrics were directly inspired by the science fiction of Philip K. Dick, particularly his seminal work Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the title was not. Though similar to "Replicants", the term used for androids in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, based on Dick’s book, Scott’s film came out three years after Tubeway Army’s album and Dick never used the word "Replicant" in his original 1968 novel. Recording and music Musically, Numan’s main influence was the commercially unsuccessful John Foxx-led incarnation of Ultravox. Tracks like "Speed of Life" and "Breaking Glass" from David Bowie’s Low have also been cited, as have Kraftwerk’s The Man-Machine, in particular the long and wistful track "Neon Lights". The recording was a development of the sound of the first Tubeway Army album. Whilst tracks like "You Are in My Vision" and "It Must Have Been Years" recalled the earlier album’s guitar-orientated rock, the rest were built solidly around an analog synthesizer, the Minimoog. Along with "Are 'Friends' Electric?", this included "Me! I Disconnect from You", the atmospheric "Down in the Park" (released as a single prior to the album and acquiring cult status though not commercial success), the multi-layered title track and the closing instrumentals "When the Machines Rock" and "I Nearly Married a Human", the latter featuring Numan's first use of a primitive drum machine; it made an appearance the following year in Carl Sagan's TV series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Legacy Replicas' synthesizer sound and occasionally nihilistic lyrics had a major impact on the industrial acts that came to prominence in the mid-nineties such as Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nail, each of whom have covered Numan's songs on record. Both Manson and Foo Fighters released versions of "Down in the Park" whilst "Are 'Friends' Electric?" has been covered by a number of artists and was most notably the basis for Sugababes' number one hit "Freak Like Me" in 2002. Numan has continued to play tracks from Replicas on his live tour, with "Me! I Disconnect from You", "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Down in the Park" being mainstay, whilst "Praying to the Aliens" and "Replicas" have also lately become part of his live repertoire. .

via Last.fm

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