Gary Numan’s Fascination: Nostalgia

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than three decades since the release of Gary Numan‘s The Pleasure Principle, the electronic-pop masterpiece that spawned massive hit single “Cars,” one of the defining tracks of the new-wave era. (The song has since been covered and sampled numerous times and been used in countless commercials, movies, TV shows, video games, etc.) To celebrate the highly influential album making in into the Billboard top 20 in 1980 and the recent multi-disc, 30th-anniversary reissue, Numan just kicked off a three-week U.S. tour that features him playing The Pleasure Principle in its entirety, along with songs from his entire career as well as tracks from forthcoming album Splinter. Numan will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.

Numan: I hate it when people want me to play old songs. And yet when I go to see a band I love, I hate it when they don’t play old songs. Total hypocrite. As an artist I have my integrity and career objectives to consider. As I fan I really don’t give a fuck about any of that “artistic integrity” bullshit; I want to hear that big song you had in the ’80s or I want my money back.

I remember when I was very young my Mum and Dad would go to ’60s shows. They would come home and talk about all the bands that they used to love, all playing their old songs again. Even as I small boy I remember thinking how sad that was. People with nothing new to offer, singing old songs from a bygone era to old people who had gone along to try and remember what things were like when they were young. To relive yesteryear.

It gave me a huge chip on my shoulder with all things nostalgic, at least when it comes to music, that has lasted my entire life. I am very uncomfortable with nostalgia. To me “retro” is an offensive word. And yet I know I am wrong and that it’s a problem I need to deal with. To be proud of your back catalogue is quite acceptable, providing you still have an ongoing career that is adding new music to that catalogue. And that’s the difference I think. If all you have is past glories, if all you do is relive yesterday to the few people that remember you and you have nothing new to offer, then I go back to my thoughts as a child and they are not too far from the truth. Namely, it’s sad. However, if your past music is simply one part of a constantly ongoing career then you have nothing to be ashamed of.

Well, that’s what I’m telling myself as I prepare to embark on my first semi-retro tour of North America.

Video after the jump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsEQrqZYuPw