--------------------------------------------------------------------- T H E G A R Y N U M A N D I G E S T (by subscription only - to unsubscribe, see bottom of this message) --------------------------------------------------------------------- (#2001-22) - Topics This Issue: 1) Machine & Soul 2) North American Gary Numan Fan Club 3) Machine and Soul 4) Machine and Soul 5) Machine & Soul 6) My server/Machine + Soul 7) Closet Machinist 8) Administrivia - looks like a few of you have been virused ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 21:19:17 EST From: PeterPanda@aol.com Subject: Machine & Soul It was recently postulated that some who have expressed a dislike of the _Machine & Soul_ album may actually be allowing their opinion of the album to be influenced by the disparaging comments Numan has made about the album in recent years, all in a subconscious desire to remain in step with Numan's beliefs. Speaking only for myself, back when the album was released and Numan was praising it as the best one yet, I had already fired off a very professional letter to him and Beryl (she was running the Fan Club back then) lamenting that Numan was continuing to move away from the sounds and styles that I believe he does best. In this circumstance, I feel vindicated, ex post facto, that Numan has now come out saying many of the things about the album that I did in that letter. I am not a big fan of the album, but please bear in mind, that every Numan album has at least some redeeming elements, although in the case of _Machine & Soul_ they are brief and not particularly memorable. I play the album about once a year, just to stay in touch with that era. I was truly becoming disillusioned until _Sacrifice_ came out and renewed my enthusiasm. In hindsight, had I listened more closely to _The Radial Pair_ CD, I might have picked up on the subtle touches that foreshadowed what would soon after become a major shift in Numan's sound. For me, the albums _Metal Rhythm_, _Outland_, and _Machine & Soul_ each got progressively worse and were it not for the ballads and a few of the more upbeat songs (e.g., the 7" single version of "The Skin Game," "Respect," and a few others), I'd have had very little to enjoy during these years at all. I'm glad that Numan and I seem to agree now on this period of his career. It is also refreshing to me to know that we ostensibly share many other views as well. I have no subconscious desire, however, to have our opinions and positions match as much as possible on any subject whatsoever. That there is a lot of compatibility of views - fantastic - but that's all there is to it. For example, I have never had, nor do I ever expect to have, the same level of fascination Numan has for airplanes. Judging from the comments of many Numan fans at the time of the _Machine & Soul_ release, I highly suspect that they too were unhappy with the album long before Numan finally came out and said as much. Me! I Disconnect From You ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 21:14:34 -0800 (PST) From: Polare Bear Subject: North American Gary Numan Fan Club Hello Numanoids of the World! Jim "The Machman" here in your computer replying to Ziggy's call to support 'Machine & Soul'. True, M&S was a departure, but that helped to make it all the more interesting. And the songs? "The Skin Game" is nothing short of genius. Just listen to the arrangement of the riffs and the passion in Gary's voice. Stunning. Also, I fell in love with Gary's instrumental at the end credits of the movie "The Unborn", and was amazed and thrilled he put words on it and called it "Love Isolation". If I could have changed it though, I would have stuck with the earlier versions of "Cry" and "I Wonder" which appeared on the Machine & Soul CD singles. Also, the Extended Version of "Generator" has it all over the LP version. And the Extended Version of "Cry" is VERY cool as it turns up some brilliant keyboard riffs that are all but hidden on the LP version. So my Top 3 Machine & Soul songs? Hmm, well here ya go Zig: 1) The Skin Game 2) Love Isolation 3) Generator A big throaty shout-out to David R. Banks in Australia all the peeps I had the opportunity to meet on the Pure Tour. You and everyone are invited to the NAGNFC website party for the upcoming December update with tons more exclusive photos, rare audio, more video clips, yet another riveting Pure Tour chapter, another poll, more prizes and plenty more surprises. If someone can bring online party favors and online napkins, I'll bring an online casserole. We already have people signed up to bring online pizza and online spiked punch. Numanishly, Jim "The Machman" Napier NAGNFC North American Gary Numan Fan Club http://themachman.garynuman.info ______________________________________________________________________________ Send a friend your Buddy Card and stay in contact always with Excite Messenger http://messenger.excite.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 01:12:31 -0500 From: "Tim" Subject: Machine and Soul I agree that all one ever seems to hear is how awful M&S was...I liked several of the tracks quite well. I have liked every album Gary put out....at least a few tracks up to every track on the albums (yes, I am a fan from the vinyl days LOL). As for Gary not liking M&S, he surely has his own choice of favorites, and definitely knows which albums he is proud to have written, and which he is not so happy with :-). I guess I just wanted to say, I've never met an album I didn't like :-). Have a good day all! Tim ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 09:25:00 -0000 From: "Peter Martin" Subject: Machine and Soul Ziggy, you are not alone in your opinion - I certainly don't think Machine and Soul is as heinous as some people make out, although you did choose some of my LEAST favourite tracks as your favourites! Perhaps because I like a huge canvas of music (literally, from ABBA to ZZ Top!) that I can get into a lot of different stuff. The album is very samey (but then I just listened to The Fury and that has even less variation) but some of the songs are particularly strong. My top three would be: 1. Love Isolation 2. Machine and Soul 3. The Skin Game Love Isolation??? Yes, I don't care! If that song had been released by some trendy but loathesome "boy band" (Westlife, Five etc) then it would get to number one for a month. It's Gary's best ballad (except perhaps Complex) and demonstrates his versatility both as a song-writer and a singer. It deserves a bit more credit. But I can see why dedicated Numan fans dislike Machine and Soul so much. Peter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 10:00:00 -0000 From: "antonio" Subject: Machine & Soul My opinions on M&S (the Numan album, not the chain of shops) is that it is bitty and doesn't work well as an album. I am someone who _likes_ Gary's mid-period work, especially Metal Rhythm and Outland - if I didn't, I wouldn't have remained a fan throughout those years. Indeed, those years were probably my most productive as a Numan fan, what with organising Numan club nights and following tours as much as I could afford (4 or 5 nghts at most tours throughout the 1986 - 1995 years at least), which is more than I manage these days. As each album came out I played it to death and loved it, not out of loyalty to Numan, but because I liked the albums. Machine and Soul, however, was a low point. It isn't that the songs are all that bad, some are great individually. What needs to be remembered for one is that by the time the album came out, we already had 6 of the 9 songs released. Skin Game, Emotion, Machine and Soul itself, U Got The Look, and Cry and I Wonder (as 'Cry Baby' and 'Wonder Eye' respectively). The next problem was that Cry and I Wonder were, in my opinion and in the opinion of a lot of the people I knew at the time, better in their original versions as b-sides on the Machine and Soul single CD's. Had Gary held back the release of the M&S singles till after the album was released then maybe the album would have been more worth buying, because then there would have been 6 new songs rather than 3 on it. The final problem with the album for me was the three new songs themselves - Poison, Generator and Love Isolation. Poison I quite liked, but Generator is one of those rare occasions where I don't like anything about a Numan track, and Love Isolation is a poor ballad by Numan standards. Add to all this that Emotion and Skin Game were, by the time the album came out, quite old songs. The whole thing just seemed to be an album without anything really special about it - a bunch of tracks we already had, one new song that was quite good, one that was horrible and one that was fairly poor. We all knew that Numan was capable of so much more - his live shows were improving year after year, by the time Machine and Soul came out though the audiences were dwindling, which was a shame because that period was the last time we were going to hear him playing mid-period stuff live - stuff from Warriors right up to Machine and Soul - which he hasn't played (with the exception of the new version of Voix) since Dream Corrosion. Listening to Machine and Soul today, it is easy to say it isn't so bad. It *isn't* a terrible record, but it is still, in my opinion, a weak Numan album. As the Human League said once, 'Your worst is better than their best' - this stands true for Numan, I think - his worst album (in my view) is still better than a lot of other peoples best work... but then I am a biased Numan fan. As for a top 3 songs from that album... if I can be cheeky and use the CD reissue as a guide (so I have more tracks to choose from) I would say: 1 Wonder Eye 2 Cry Baby 3 Skin Game Toni -- And if I die before I wake up I pray the Lord don't smudge my make-up (Marc Almond, 'Saint Judy') -- http://www.califia.org/~toni http://www.kill-by-numbers.net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 11:58:34 -0800 From: Rod Reynolds Subject: My server/Machine + Soul Hi everyone My server has suddenly been rejected by the digest server so I've missed a few weeks worth of info. Thanks to Joey I now have a new numan related email address which is theartdept@garynuman.info but you can still reach me through my regular address which is theartdept@adelphia.net. Both addresses come to the same place, ie my computer, located in cold and rainy (!!) West Hollywood, California. My apologies to anyone who tried to write to me in the past week or two, if so please try again. Any many thanks to Joey who went above and beyond to fix this problem for me. I'm very thankful. Re the Machine + Soul album. This is the one Numan album that even Gary sites as "barely a Numan album". If you've read Praying to the Aliens (which is really a must for Numan fans) you know that this was the worst period of Gary's life, which he freely admits, sometimes even in interviews, and his muse was gone. He actually had the album finished by someone else, and Gary admits even he doesn't care for it much. It has often been mentioned that Gary's work seems to group into trilogys, and the period of New Anger/Metal Rhythm, M+S, Skin Mechanic is the only Numan period I really don't care for. Bye for now Rod Los Angeles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 15:50:11 -0500 From: Michael Tressler Subject: Closet Machinist I also want to "come out of the closet" regarding Machine And Soul. A few months back I was able to purchase the Numa Box Set. Berserker and Fury were new to CD for me and the other three I've never owned in any form (and I call myself a Numan fan?). After reading so much bad press in online music reviews and in the Numan Digest about M&S, I expected a real stinking pile of dung when I first gave the disc a spin. Maybe my expectations were too low, but I found the album to be fun and refreshingly up-beat. And, oh-my-god-he's-going-to-say-it, I actually like U Got The Look, and 1999 as well. I give Gary some credit simply for doing something unexpected on this album. Who would have ever thought we'd get a Numan album containing the lyrics, "Get up--Get up and Dance?" It's no worse than Outland or New Anger, I feel. Hard to make up my mind on three favorites. Skin Game, M&S, Generate, I Wonder, Love Isolation... all very good songs. I'd score it a solid 7 out of 10. On the other Numa Years CDs: Berserker: will rank among my top 5 Numan albums of all time. It just floods my mind with happy memories of the 80's. I can't believe I waited so long to get this album (of course, Numan material in the States in the 80's was very hard to come by). Had the LP in my hands to buy back in '89 but the cover picture was just too goofy so I went with New Anger and The Fury LPs instead. Musically, a fine example of Gary at his best. Great bonus songs too. Score: perfect 10. Fury: I like it better now after hearing it on CD as opposed to a record. Really like the extended Call Out The Dogs. "This Disease" is one of Gary's worst songs ever. More great bonus tunes. Score: 7. Strange Charm: Pretty damn good, except for "Unkown And Hostile". My Breathing sounds somewhat Duran Duran-ish; Strange Charm (the song) like mid-80's Flock of Seagulls. This Is Love is a little boring. Bonus tracks are still pretty good. Score: 7. Sacrifice: On first listen my initial reaction was "i could swear i've been here once or twice before", what with listening to the drum-loops of Exile for a couple of years. Upon listening further though I became utterly astonished at how great this album is. Magic, Question Of Faith, Bleed, Seed Of A Lie... all timeless works of art. Love the bonus tracks too. Again, this one will be among my top 5 favorite Numan albums. Score: 9 (would be a 10 if there was a live drummer on the album). Anyone notice how the end of You Walk In My Soul sounds like the end of Chris DeBurgh's Lady In Red? Sorry for rambling so much. mike ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 16:51:34 -0700 From: "Joey Lindstrom" Subject: Administrivia - looks like a few of you have been virused I'm getting a lot of subscribers to this Digest sending messages back here containing two file attachments, both of which contain viruses. In each case, you have not done this intentionally: in fact, "you" haven't done it at all. The virus infecting your computer has done this of its own accord. Please: check your computers. Install the latest virus-scanning software and scan your system thoroughly. Thanks. / From the desk of Joey Lindstrom / / "Communism doesn't work. It's against the basic law of nature: people / want to own stuff." / --Frank Zappa ------------------------------ End digest@garynuman.info Digest [11/29/2001 18:01] --------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- T H E G A R Y N U M A N D I G E S T is produced, moderated, and distributed by Derek Langsford, Dave Datta, and Joey Lindstrom dlangs@sunstroke.sdsu.edu, davdat@allmusic.com, Joey@GaryNuman.Info ------------------------------------------------------------------- To reply to the messages in this list, email: digest@garynuman.info If you want to be removed, or someone wants to be added, email: listserv@GaryNuman.info and include this line as the first line of your message body: SUBSCRIBE digest@garynuman.info (email address) or UNSUBSCRIBE digest@garynuman.info (email address) (email address is optional but useful if you have multiple addresses) If you want to switch between receiving Digests or individual posts, again send to listserv@GaryNuman.Info and include either of these in your message body: NORMAL digest@garynuman.info or DIGEST digest@garynuman.info ------------------------------------------------------------------ Please note: this mailing list is configured to automatically unsubscribe you if mail to your mailbox goes undeliverable for any reason. 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