Gary Numan / Tubeway Army: [The] Premier Hits (1996/2015)

Back in 1996, The Premier Hits was released in various markets on CD. It emerged again in 2008. In 2015, it got the vinyl treatment with three extra tracks. Oddly, it was renamed Premier Hits with no definite article. It's a good collection that covers a lot of ground.

Gary Numan - Tubeway Army: Unreleased Recordings 1978 / 1979, Volume 3 (1985)

Volume three contains the added descriptive subtitle, Unreleased Recordings. This one was released on black and blue vinyl. I have the latter, once again. It contains six tracks.

The Monday Troop
Crime Of Passion
The Life Machine
A Game Called Echo
Random
Oceans

Gary Numan - Tubeway Army: 1978 / 1979 Volume Two (1985)

This seems to be volume two of the original 1978 EP (or 12" single). This disc contains 4 tracks:

Fadeout 1930
The Crazies
Only A Downstat
We Have A Technical

This record was released on black vinyl and on red vinyl. I have the latter.I have to say that I love the sound of these tracks.

Gary Numan / Tubeway Army: The Plan (1984)

This is everything anyone needs to know about The Plan:

The Plan is an archival compilation album of early demo recordings by British new wave band Tubeway Army (the band name originally used by Gary Numan), released in 1984.

While the demos on The Plan were originally recorded in 1977 and 1978, they remained unreleased until September 1984 when Numan's former label, Beggars Banquet Records, issued them a year after Numan left the label. In the intervening seven years since recording the demos, Numan's career had scaled great heights of commercial success and then waned. His most successful material had been similar in basic form and structure to the demos on The Plan, but had showcased a new synthesizer-based instrumentation instead of his previous punk rock sound.

In the album's liner notes, Numan states that these songs were deliberately written and recorded in the then-popular punk rock style with the express aim of securing a record deal. Some of the songs on the album (such as "Friends," "Something's in the House" and "My Shadow in Vain") formed the basis for songs that would eventually be released on Tubeway Army's debut album in 1978, subsequently rearranged and augmented with the synthesizer-based rock sound which would become the Tubeway Army/Numan trademark.

The Plan went on to do moderately well, reaching #29 on the UK album chart. Two months after The Plan's release, Numan issued Berserker, his first album through his own record label, Numa Records. Chart-wise, The Plan outperformed Berserker, the latter reaching #45 on the UK album chart.

All CD releases of The Plan include a wealth of bonus tracks, such as Tubeway Army's debut single "That's Too Bad" and an early version of the Tubeway Army album track "The Life Machine."[source]

My copy is a picture disc, which might compromise the sound somewhat. 

Gary Numan - Tubeway Army: 1978 (1983)

In March of 1983, Numan (or his record company - I really have no idea) released this UK-only  six-track collection, which turned out to be volume one of three. Oddly, Discogs lists this as a compilation, while the four-track volume two and the six-track volume three are listed in the category of Singles and EPs. Who cares, right?

This collection contains:

That's Too Bad
Oh! Didn't I Say
Do You Need The Service?
Bombers
O.D. Receiver
Blue Eyes

I have the black vinyl version, from 1983. A yellow vinyl version came out in 1985. I like these tunes very much.

Tubeway Army [Gary Numan + Tubeway Army]: Replicas (1979)

Depending on which version you have, this record is either credited as Gary Numan + Tubeway Army or simply as Tubeway Army. Mine -- a Canadian pressing -- is the former, probably because it was re-released after Cars had become a big hit in North America, and the record company wanted to ensure that Gary's name was front and centre. Discogs, of course, does what you would expect by now.

Replicas was originally released on April 4, 1979 in the UK, and forms the first part of what Numan calls his Machine Trilogy, which includes The Pleasure Principle and Telekon. There is a real sense of machinery and technology in this record.

I saw him turn on
Like a machine in the park
Saying 'please come with me'
But you've been there before

The transition to synthesizers is well underway here, though there are guitars in the mix. The spacey Numan character, which reminds me a bit of what Bowie attempted on Ziggy Stardust, is in force on tunes like Praying to Aliens. The record contains one of Numan's biggest hits, and a favourite of mine, Are Friends Electric? That's just a fantastic track, easily making it onto any top 25 list of my favourite songs of all time.

There is some suggestive sexual identity content in Praying to Aliens:

Now only boys
That love only boys
...
"Do you ever think of women?"
They broke him down
Into a torn old queen

Down in the Park has to be the most surprising track on the record for me, because it has a very slow pace and it isn't what I would have viewed as a single, though it was the first single from this record. Also, the lyrics are rather dystopian and probably depressing:

Down in the park where the machmen meet
The machines and play 'Kill-by-numbers'
Down in the park with a friend called 'Five'

I was in a car crash or was it the war?
Well, I've never been quite the same
Little white lies like I was there

Come to Zom-Zom's, a place to eat
Like it was built in one day
You can watch the humans try to run

Oh, look, there's a rape machine
I'd go outside if it looked the other way
You wouldn't believe the things they do

Down in the park where the chant is death, death, death
Until' the sun cries mornin'
Down in the park with friends of mine

We are not lovers, we are not romantics
We are here to serve you
A different face but the words never change

I think that song could be made into a movie. Replicas is better than the first record, and it's one of my favourite records from Gary Numan. I'd put this LP in the top three.

Tubeway Army [Gary Numan]: Tubeway Army [First Album] (1978)

So, that's a truly awful photo. Not enough light :(

Station boys keep their hands on steel
Tubeway days now seem quite unreal
It's always so close but never quite arrives

- Listen to the Sirens, Gary Numan

Gary Numan's birth name, according to Wikipedia, is Gary Anthony James Webb. He was born in 1958. I'll take both of these statements as true.

The first pressing of this LP was released on November 24, 1978 in an edition of 5000 copies on blue vinyl and it was just called Tubeway Army, with no mention of Gary Numan on the front cover. Numan was listed on the back cover along with Paul Gardiner and Jess Lidyard. Not surprisingly, copies of this record are now very expensive.

Repressings came out in in 1979 (after the success of Replicas, the second Tubeway Army record), and 1981, and subsequently with different covers, some of which had First Album printed on them while others did not. I have the repressed 1981 edition with a white jacket and First Album printed on the cover. In typical Discogs fashion, that release is listed, not as a self-titled record called Tubeway Army, but as: "Tubeway Army Featuring Gary Numan ‎– First Album." WTF!

I guess one could argue that the record label intended First Album to be the title of the reissue, but I have to believe that it was intended simply as a clue to the record shoppers that this was the first album and that Tubeway Army included the now-famous Gary Numan. I have a hard time believing that the intention was to entitle the record First Album. Beyond the cosmetic differences, the contents are identical.

Gary is, without question, one of the pioneers of synth pop. As Allmusic writes: "his dark, paranoid vision, theatrically icy alien persona, and clinical, robotic sound were echoed strongly in the work of many goth rock and (especially) industrial artists to come." [source] I can agree with that, and it is interesting to note that he is good friends with Trent Reznor, and Reznor has cited him as an influence.

Interestingly, Numan began his career in punk music, and some of these early tunes are collected on the LP The Plan, released in 1984. In the film I Dream of Wires, Numan discusses his chance encounter with a Moog synthesizer, which led to a new direction in his music, though it should be mentioned that there is lots of guitar on this record as it is really still in the punk realm with mostly guitar, bass, and drums, but with some keyboards.

This debut record is quite amazing, though I will confess that I heard the record after I heard Cars, from The Pleasure Principle. I think Allmusic gets it right:

"Numan & the Tubeway Army were one of the first new wave/punk bands (along with Kraftwerk and Devo) to successfully fuse robotic synthesizers with rock & roll. Gary Numan's guitar riffing is more prominent here than on any other of his albums, which gives the tunes a splendid Ziggy Stardust feel at times." [source]

And, it's not just the music. As others have noted, there is a science fiction dystopian element in his lyrics. On this record, there are themes that might have offended back in the day. The track Friends is about male prostitution and Every Day I Die focuses on teenage masturbation:

The problems of need
I need you
Obscene dreams in
Rusty beds
No one came here
Tonight
I pulled on me
I need to

I unstick pages and read
I look at pictures of you
I smell the lust in my hands
Everyday I die

Her favorite trick
Was to suck me inside
Oh so very
Art nouveau
Completely false
Feelings of love I don't
No one knows, but that died
Years ago

I unstick pages and read
I look at pictures of you
I smell the lust in my hands
Everyday I die

The record is uneven, with side one being better than side two, but this is a fascinating record.