Gary Numan - Dance POLL

'Cry the Clock Said' easily.

But man, what a great album.

As a confirmed Numanoid throughout 79-80, this album left me mightily confused at the time. Where had the synths gone? Why was the bass so prominent? Why were the songs (those on side one, at least) so long and so devoid of melody? In short, why had Gary forsaken the synth pop that made him a superstar?

Time has been kind to the album but I still think "She's Got Claws" is utter dreck. I also have a high regard for "Cry the Clock Said" but I'm going for "Stories" as being the most memorable pop tune on here.

I've always loved the way 'Cry, The Clock Said' slowly unfurls with its long intro and I'm still kinda surprised that he chose to air it at his "farewell" concerts, because it's a great headphones song but not one that I'd imagine blossoms in a live setting - it's quite sombre and leisurely-paced and definitely far away from the anthemic music Numan made his name with on the three albums prior. I guess the same could be said of quite a lot of the material on this album, though, and it's probably a big reason why Numan hasn't really touched a lot of this material live, as well as the fact that Mick Karn's playing is so integral to the tracks that he plays on that Numan would require a bassist capable of pulling off Karn's basslines down to the letter. Sadly, of course, Mick Karn is no longer with us, but even if he was it's difficult to imagine that Numan and Karn would actually work together again because they pretty much fell out after recording Dance.

For me, this boils down to four possibilities: 'Slowcar To China', 'A Subway Called "You"', 'Boys Like Me' and 'Stories' - I love the whole thing, though, and it's undoubtedly one of my favourite Numan albums, if not my favourite, and like anagram I was also more than a bit confused when I heard this album for the first time, particularly the first side. The second side I found much easier to get into!

Slowcar & Cry the Clock Said are the picks here but "Clock" is so...languid & long & immersive...this is one of his best albums in my opinion, really a lot to sink into, and "Clock" feels like its heart to me.

Yeah, Numan himself has described this album as being a favourite of those that followed his career post-Telekon and the "farewell" concerts, and it's easy to see why - I get the feeling Numan put a hell of a lot into the making of Dance. Lyrically, I definitely think it's one of his better albums, there's a lot of heartbreak and hurt in a lot of these songs - particularly on 'Cry, The Clock Said', which is probably why some folks consider it to be the centrepiece/heart of the record, but also in a way the record kinda reminds me of Replicas lyrically in the sense that the songs take place in some kind of imagined world, even though the emotions behind the songs are very real.

I remember once reading that Numan partly based the material on his feelings towards an ex-girlfriend of his that sold a kiss'n'tell story on him, but interestingly I also once read that the settings for the songs take place in this imagined futuristic world where gender roles are reversed regarding prostitution (i.e. females hiring male prostitutes, rather than the other way around) and said prostitutes keep themselves sane and/or keep the anguish of their situation at bay by dancing. I don't know how true this is, but lyrics like "she'll pay the rent for the use of you tonight" and "there's nothing much to keep us alive but dance" on 'Slowcar To China' alone seem to suggest there's something to this angle.

In fact, just seen this post that was in the Gary Numan Digest back in 1999...

Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 08:12:14 -0800
From: err✧✧✧@earthl✧✧✧.n✧✧
Subject: Possible interpretation for My Brother's Time
To: nu✧✧✧@c✧.u✧✧.e✧✧

I remember Gary saying that Dance was a record based around ideas he had
for a film (story?) in which the world was female-centric, women in
charge being the norm. The prostitutes are all male in this world and
the only form of release for them was to be found in the act of dancing.
Kind of like the opposite of that movie The Handmaid's Tale. So, he's a
tarted up little guy on the cover, with exaggerated pancake makeup,
trying to look winsome.

So maybe there is some truth in it.

Ended up voting for 'Boys Like Me', not only because of its great Karn bassline but I can't help but think it would have made a better single than 'She's Got Claws'

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Just been searching around in order to find out how often this material has actually been performed live:

'Stories' was first performed live on the tour for Telekon.
'Cry, The Clock Said' was performed as part of the "farewell" shows in '81, but not in full (only the intro up to the first verse)
'She's Got Claws' was also performed as part of the "farewell" shows in '81 - they used a backing track with Mick Karn's bassline on it during the performance. The version on Living Ornaments '81 captures Ced Sharpley going out of sync with the bassline at the end of the song. It was also played on the US '82 tour for I, Assassin.
'Crash' was played on the US '82 tour, and also has been performed live in recent years.
'Night Talk' was played live once in 2004 (I think?) but not since.
'Moral' has never been played live as it is on the album, but when the band performed 'Metal' at the Wembley '81 "farewell" shows he sang the lyrics to 'Moral' instead.

'Slowcar To China', 'A Subway Called "You"', 'Boys Like Me', 'My Brother's Time' and 'You Are, You Are', to my knowledge, have never been played live, and even the ones he has played live seem to very, very rarely appear in his sets.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Yay, the thing I voted for won!

Ended up voting for 'Boys Like Me', not only because of its great Karn bassline

Is Mick on that track? According to the notes on Discogs.com, Mick is only on "Slowcar To China", "A Subway Called You", "She's Got Claws" and "My Brother's Time".

Yeah, he is. He's credited on the album on that track, but I think his playing is so unmistakeable it couldn't have been anyone else, really! He plays on all those other songs listed, as well as an early version of 'We Take Mystery (to Bed)' that came out as a B-side.