Gary Numan (born Gary Anthony James Webb on March 8, 1958) is a British singer, songwriter & electropop pioneer.

Career
Numan rose to prominence at a tail of the 1970s, initially recording under a band title Tubeway Army. Fallowing recording an album's worth of no-see-um demonstration, he was signed by Beggars Banquet Records in 1978 and quickly freed deuce singles, neither of which following. The self-titled, New Wave orientated album later that equivalent month sold out its limited redo & introduced Numan's fascination by owning dystopian science fiction and, more importantly, synthesisers. Just about out of nothing, Tubeway Army reached first inside 1979 by having a right individual "Are 'Friends' Electric?", the parent album Replicas simultaneously climbing to number one in the album charts.

Two or three months late he repeated a deed by having "Cars", which became a top decade hit inside America besides, & a 1979 album The Pleasure Principle, both freed under Numan's have (assumed) title, which he got plucked from either an advertizement in the "Yellow Pages". Topping each only & album stock and index charts at the same time was noteworthy plenty; doing soh twice in the space of sestet months was astonishing. The sell-out tour followed. A Pleasure-unpleasure principle was the rock album using there are no guitars; instead, Numan utilized synthesisers fed across guitar results pedals to achieve the phased, heavy metal tone. Self-self-generated within the two weeks for super little money, A Pleasure-pain principle sounded prefer nothing else, & remains one of Numan's virtually all extremely regarded efforts now.

Numan bore costumes & produce-higher & openly proclaimed his influences: David Bowie, Marc Bolan and contemporary electronic acts such as Ultravox and The Human League. Around interviews he come through when distant, ostentatious & mildly objectionable, attributes which would late become assigned to the modest form of Asperger's Syndrome. Numan's groovy popularity & unembarrassed love of wealth alienated critics & potentially a select few fellow musicians; Yes recorded a sardonic song just about him, "White Car," for their 1980 album Drama, a reaction to his habit of tearing in the area of London in the white Chevrolet Corvette given to him by Beggars Banquet; his one-quondam idol, David Bowie, allegedly got him thrown off an episode of The Kenny Everett Video Show on which both were scheduled to pop up.

Numan bewildered a click. He was the caused, originative, disruptive 21-month-old lone wolf world health organization however swallow his parents. He was non punk. He was non quite New Romantic either, & retrospectives of the time period tended to forget about him and his influence. However in the time period of this period, Numan generated an army of fans calling themselves Numanoids, enough of whom would remain truehearted to carry him through the latter half of the Eighties, after his fortunes began precipitously to fall.

1980s
Inside 1980 Numan once more topped a album stock and index charts by using Telekon, although the pan singles "We Are Glass" and "I Die: You Die" only reached numbers 5 & six, severally. By this period Numan cast of the pressures of fame, & announced his "retirement" from either touring by using the series of expensive, sell-out concerts at Wembley Arena. A guide to retire would exist when short-transient, however would have a fateful result in his career, as Numan observed a fickle popular audience quickly turned their attention to more creative person.

When this decline withinside his career, in 1981, Numan experienced an horrible episode involving his hobby of flight, which briefly put him in the UK news. Attempting the around-the-globe flightly witharound the light aircraft, Numan experienced to produce a emergency landing (reported in the click as an unlimited crash) in India, where he was arrested, & suspected of smuggling & espionage. Contrary to news article at a period, Numan says he was non piloting a plane himself in a period of the landing. In the period of the late 1980s, he got his life threatened in many occasions by a mysterious stalker.

Turning his back in electropop, Numan experimented instead by using jazz, funk and lightweight pop. His career quickly nosedived, eclipsed ab initio by Adam Ant, and late by Duran Duran, Culture Club, and Depeche Mode. He spent the decade within a originative uneasiness, trying to recapture his previous chart glory by owning insignificant albums stylistically derivative of creative person such as Robert Palmer and Prince. From each one album saw the freshly "image", none of which captured a public's imagination to about a equivalent extent when a lonely mechanical man of the late 1970s. His preference for sharply cases & hats seemed faintly ridiculous, when his late adoption of cases & shades seemed opportunist. Numan was there is no elongated the pioneer however the follower. Collaborations by having Bill Sharpe of Shakatak helped little, though one lone a duo recorded, "Change Your Mind", did watch chart action. His have record label, Numa, experienced been launched within the flurry of ideal excitement, however a deficiency of radio play & sales drained away the fortune he experienced amassed in the late 1970s. Per mid Nineties he was sleep in the microscopic semi-detached home, camping the inexpensive hatchback Rover, pondering his future.

1990s
Possibly Numan considers his 1992 Machine & Soul, a misguided attempt at a purely commercial release recorded solely to pay off debts, a career low point. A music was uninspired & a album sold just two or three m copies. By 1994, Numan decided to stop attempting to crack a popular market & concentrate instead in researching other individual interests, including his vocal atheism. His first married woman Gemma encouraged him to strip away a influences of the last years. Numan re-evaluated his career & move into the coarse, additional industrial direction with his songwriting on the album Sacrifice; first, he played nigh all the instruments himself. A move wwhen easily-received, as Numan's harder & darker healthy emerged even as Numan-influenced elastic prefer Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana were enjoying their first rush of fame. Numan's next deuce albums Exile (1997) and Pure (2000) restored Numan's critical reputation; Numan even toured a U.S. around trend lines of Exile, his 1st stateside concerts since a early Eighties.

Resurrection of career
Fallowing years of ridicule in the click, Numan encountered himself an creative person respected by his peers, by having such musicians when Dave Grohl (of Foo Fighters), Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) and Marilyn Manson proclaiming his work an influence & recording cover of old Numan hits. A band Basement Jaxx had a immense hit around 2002 with "Where's Your Head At?", which relied in the sample of Numan's "M.E." - from either A Pleasure Principle - for its hook. A band Fear Factory produced a handle of "Cars" featuring the guest appearance by Numan. Nine Inch Nails covered a song "Metal" in their album "Things Falling Apart". "Cars" remains Numan's virtually all enduring song; it was the hit once againside around 1987 & 1996, in the latter pack thanks to an appearance in an advertizing for Carling.

Around 2003, Numan enjoyed fleeting chart profits again by owning a Gary Numan vs Rico single "Crazier," which was a collaboration between Rico and Gary Numan and reached There is no.Twelve in the U.K. chart. Rico, who is an higher & coming creative person from either Glasgow, too worked on The remix album Hybrid which featured reworkings of older songs around the other contemporary industrial style. Inside 2004 Numan took control of his own business affairs once more, launching the label Human Records & releasing a series of survive DVDs as a precursor to his next studio album, Jagged Halo.

Personal life
Numan married Gemma O'Neil, the clinician & the member of his have fan club. Around 2003, the few experienced their foremost kid, Corvus corax. Numan has besides universally been highly more or less his parents; his fan club & site shop develop been personal businesses which it use at times helped begin. Numan has been diagnosed by using Asperger's syndrome and is one of the few celebrities to have revealed this.

Discography

Singles
''That's As well Badness (1978) - using Tubeway Army Bombers (1978) - by having Tubeway Army Down In The Park (1979) - by using Tubeway Army Are 'Friends' Electric? (1979) - with Tubeway Army Cars (1979) Complex (1979) We Are Glass (1980) I personally Die: Professional people Die (1980) This Wreckage (1980) Stormtrooper Within Drag (1981) - using Tubeway Army co-founder Paul Gardiner She's Had Claws (1981) Love Needs There is no Disguise (1981) - by owning members of previous backing band when Gary Numan & Dramatis Music For Chameleons (1982) I personally Choose Mystery (To Bed) (1982) Whiten Boys & Heroes (1982) Warriors (1983) Sister Surprise (1983) Possessed (1984) Our Death Machine (1984) Vary Your computers Mind (1985) - by owning Bill Sharpe when Sharpe & Numan A Survive EP (1985) - tracks: Come Friends Electric/Berserker/Cars/We Come Glass Your computers Fascination (1985) Call for Out A Dogs (1985) Miracles (1985) This Is Love (1986) I personally May't Prevent (1986) Freshly Tool From either London Town (1986) - sustaining Bill Sharpe when Sharpe & Numan We However Remember (1986) Radio Heart (1987) - by using Radio Heart when Radio Heart Featuring Gary Numan London Days (1987) - sustaining Radio Heart when Radio Heart Featuring Gary Numan Cars (E Reg Model) (1987) - re-mix 100% Nationally (1987) - by using Radio Heart when Radio Heart Featuring Gary Numan Those days are gone Lies (1988) - by having Bill Sharpe when Sharpe & Numan Freshly Anger (1988) Us (1988) I personally'm In Automatic (1989) - by using Bill Sharpe when Sharpe & Numan Heart (1991) The Globe Storm (1991) Emotion (1991) A Skin Game (1992) Cars ('93 Sprint) (1993) - re-mix The Wonder Of Faith (1994) Absolution (1995) Dark Weak - A Survive EP (1995) - tracks: Bleed/Every Day I personally Die/The Dream Police/Listen To The Sirens Dominion Day (1998) RIP (2002) Crazier (2003) - using Rico when Gary Numan vs. Rico

Albums

Non including several compilations, many of which are then unauthorised.

1978 The Plan (early recordings, unreleased until 1984) 1978 Tubeway Army (also referred to as A Blue Album) 1979 Replicas 1979 The Pleasure Principle 1980 Telekon 1980 Living Ornaments '79-'80 (survive recording) 1981 Dance 1982 I, Assassin 1983 Warriors 1984 Berserker (first album in self-owned Numa label) 1984 Live White Noise (live recording) 1985 The Fury 1986 Strange Charm 1987 Exhibition (retrospective compilation from Beggars Banquet times) 1987 Ghost (live recording) 1988 Metal Rhythm (released within the re-sequenced edition in the U.s.a. when Just released Anger) 1989 The Skin Mechanic (live recording) 1989 Automatic (collaboration with Bill Sharpe under a cognomen "Sharpe + Numan") 1990 Outland 1992 Machine + Soul 1994 Dream Corrosion (live recording) 1994 Sacrifice 1995 Dark Light (survive recording) 1995 Human (Gary Numan and Michael R Smith, subservient album) 1997 Dawn (US reissue of Sacrifice; equivalent track list) 1997 Exile 2000 Pure 2002 Exposure (compilation of Beggars Banquet and recent lesson; ii recently recordings + recently track "Exposure") 2003 Scarred (live recording) 2003 Hybrid (remix project featuring Curve, Alan Moulder, Rico & Flood; 3 freshly songs including Andy Gray mix of "Crazier") 2004 Live At Shepherd's Bush Empire (live recording) 2005 Jagged Halo''