Heartland

In the early Nineties, Melody Maker magazine used to run a regular Desert Island Discs-type section called Rebellious Jukebox, in which musicians would choose the twelve songs which had a special personal meaning for them, and explain their reasons. It was often used as a means of shoehorning people into the paper who weren’t necessarily considered relevant any more and couldn’t justify a full feature.

In 1994, I was sent to meet Gary Numan for a Rebellious Jukebox. The interview took place in the lobby of a posh private hotel in central London. (The loud buzzer noise I refer to in the text was another guest wanting to be let in.)

11. THE SISTERS OF MERCY: 'Vision Thing'

"This totally fired my interest in hard, heavy guitars again. I might not look like it today - these are my smart clothes. The Sisters are well cool. But did you find they have so much smoke you can't see the show? I said to my girlfriend, 'I'm a bit f**ked with this, I can't see anything.' And this fan behind me says 'That's their way', a bit threatening. I was, 'Sorry, fair enough!'"

The Quietus

yeah, "the most hated man in pop" loves Sisters!

Why do you say that Gary Numan is "the most hated man in pop"?

markfiend wrote:Why do you say that Gary Numan is "the most hated man in pop"?

because until he became trendy in a post-modern "gotta love your influences" kinda way a few years ago he was almost universally loathed and ridiculed by the music press, the everyday press & the majority of the general public

kudos to him that he kept going throughout all that really.

i was never a fan but i admire him for his persistence and am glad that he's been getting the acknowledgement he deserves the last couple of years... all kinds of current musos have been saying they were inspired by him.

spot778 wrote:

I said to my girlfriend, 'I'm a bit f**ked with this, I can't see anything.' And this fan behind me says 'That's their way', a bit threatening. I was, 'Sorry, fair enough!'"

Sisters fans!

I heard it was his syrup that was the real fan....

Quiff Boy wrote:

markfiend wrote:Why do you say that Gary Numan is "the most hated man in pop"?

because until he became trendy in a post-modern "gotta love your influences" kinda way a few years ago he was almost universally loathed and ridiculed by the music press, the everyday press & the majority of the general public

kudos to him that he kept going throughout all that really.

i was never a fan but i admire him for his persistence and am glad that he's been getting the acknowledgement he deserves the last couple of years... all kinds of current musos have been saying they were inspired by him.

I remember he used to get loads of bad press and then everybody went off him in the mid 80's, and then the press just ignored him completely in the 90's. They got fed up of his pop star image and just the fact that he was so popular, the press was more interested in pre-Live Aid Simple Minds and U2. The recent BBC 4 doc on Electro Music touched on it when he'd mentioned in an early interview that he wasn't interested in being a serious musician, he just wanted to be a famous popstar, much in the way the NME went after Bryan Ferry in the 1970's.

It were the use of 'Cars' on the Carling Premier TV advert back in the late nineties that got people interested again.



Think that image above was part of his much derided 'clown' phase

Playing tomorrow night in Dublin - doing the Pleasure Principle live - great album if anyone is in the area!

Newman got a lot flack for many a reason.

It was he on Top of the Pops when other bands using synths had pretty much been ignored for years prior ...Human League, OMD etc... his credibility was questioned.

Synths were a very hard sell back then

The press were very, very nasty to him.

This was a good doc on the beginings BBC4 had recently.