just reading some more of the 'prince in the studio' by jake brown.. and near the end...the engineer told of one of the few times that prince would indulge in some small talk with him during the graffiti bridge sessions...

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'do you like gary numan' ?...prince asked him...'you know, his album replicas never left my turntable...there are people still trying to work out what a genius he was' ....

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well this is certainly news to me....i liked numan's big singles in the late 70s ...need to dig out that album and give it a listen.....i must admit i always thought numan was a david bowie wannabe...

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although i did think that 'are friends electric' was ahead of its time...maybe there is more to him than i thought...

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[Edited 6/16/11 2:16am]

[Edited 6/16/11 2:19am]

I always thought he was kind of a Bowie wannabe, but I've always digged his music though.

blackbob said:

just reading some more of the 'prince in the studio' by jake brown.. and near the end...the engineer told of one of the few times that prince would indulge in some small talk with him during the graffiti bridge sessions...

.

'do you like gary numan' ?...prince asked him...'you know, his album replicas never left my turntable...there are people still trying to work out what a genius he is' ....

.

well this is certainly news to me....i liked numan's big singles in the late 70s ...need to dig out that album and give it a listen.....i must admit i always thought numan was a david bowie wannabe...

.

i always thought 'are friends electric' was ahead of its time...maybe there is more to him than i thought...

.

.

Without Gary numan & his new wave sound .....the new sound from Prince created in the early of 80's with albums like Dirty mind/Controversy/1999 would not have existed...it's so OBVIOUS!!!

[Edited 6/16/11 2:32am]

Totally. You can see it on Contro/1999.

i think you have to go back to kraftwerk as the the real innovators of the sound that gary numan created...i agree that you can hear the influence on early prince albums and..indeed..the minneapolis sound....

.

prince took that sound and mixed it and made it funky...

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i like some of gary numan's work but david bowie and kraftwerk are the real leaders in the late 70s sound gary created imo...

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love2thenines2003 said:

blackbob said:

just reading some more of the 'prince in the studio' by jake brown.. and near the end...the engineer told of one of the few times that prince would indulge in some small talk with him during the graffiti bridge sessions...

.

'do you like gary numan' ?...prince asked him...'you know, his album replicas never left my turntable...there are people still trying to work out what a genius he is' ....

.

well this is certainly news to me....i liked numan's big singles in the late 70s ...need to dig out that album and give it a listen.....i must admit i always thought numan was a david bowie wannabe...

.

i always thought 'are friends electric' was ahead of its time...maybe there is more to him than i thought...

.

.

Without Gary numan & his new wave sound .....the new sound from Prince created in the early of 80's with albums like Dirty mind/Controversy/1999 would not have existed...it's so OBVIOUS!!!

[Edited 6/16/11 2:32am]

i know the new wave sound inspired prince...i just didnt realise that he held gary numan in such high regard...

.

.

The prince sound is heavily influenced by Gary Numan. But Prince imo perfected some of what Gary Numan started doing. Prince even copying his red outfit and way of seducing the camera with makeup and staring eyes. Look at the visual similarity between Cars and Sexuality. Put on the outfit Prince is using in the music video Scandalous.

njin said:

The prince sound is heavily influenced by Gary Numan. But Prince imo perfected some of what Gary Numan started doing. Prince even copying his red outfit and way of seducing the camera with makeup and staring eyes. Look at the visual similarity between Cars and Sexuality. Put on the outfit Prince is using in the music video Scandalous.

One Word ...LISTEN & WATCH...it's so obvious!!

http://www.youtube.com/wa...8&NR=1

[Edited 6/16/11 3:03am]

Dez mentions this in his book I think.

love2thenines2003 said:

njin said:

The prince sound is heavily influenced by Gary Numan. But Prince imo perfected some of what Gary Numan started doing. Prince even copying his red outfit and way of seducing the camera with makeup and staring eyes. Look at the visual similarity between Cars and Sexuality. Put on the outfit Prince is using in the music video Scandalous.

One Word ...LISTEN & WATCH...it's so obvious!!

http://www.youtube.com/wa...8&NR=1

[Edited 6/16/11 3:03am]

i've never really gotten INTO bowie. i know he's this "pioneering legend" and all but save for a few of his big 80s singles here and there, i haven't really heard his stuff. innovation nothwithstanding, i'm hard pressed to believe he had a single as pioneering & catchy as Cars. this is actually the only song i've heard by numan but i'm not surprised there's more where that comes from

love2thenines2003 said:

njin said:

The prince sound is heavily influenced by Gary Numan. But Prince imo perfected some of what Gary Numan started doing. Prince even copying his red outfit and way of seducing the camera with makeup and staring eyes. Look at the visual similarity between Cars and Sexuality. Put on the outfit Prince is using in the music video Scandalous.

One Word ...LISTEN & WATCH...it's so obvious!!

http://www.youtube.com/wa...8&NR=1

[Edited 6/16/11 3:03am]

i believe that kraftwerk and david bowie's 'low' album led to gary numan's new wave sound.....its amazing to think that as punk exploded in 1977 that david bowie went in an entirely different but ultimately longer lasting cold electronic sound that led to new wave...i love that album....

.

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Gary Numan / Tubeway Army material 78-81 was fantastic and unique. He had a sound of his own. Just listen to Metal, Are Friends Electric, This Wreckage, We Have A Technical.

SquirrelMeat said:

Gary Numan / Tubeway Army material 78-81 was fantastic and unique. He had a sound of his own. Just listen to Metal, Are Friends Electric, This Wreckage, We Have A Technical.

Totally agree. I don't think anyone could say he was simply a Bowie wanna be. It was hard to not be influenced by Bowie in some way during that period. But he ultimately crafted a sound and image that became distinctly his IMO.

lezama said:

SquirrelMeat said:

Gary Numan / Tubeway Army material 78-81 was fantastic and unique. He had a sound of his own. Just listen to Metal, Are Friends Electric, This Wreckage, We Have A Technical.

Totally agree. I don't think anyone could say he was simply a Bowie wanna be. It was hard to not be influenced by Bowie in some way during that period. But he ultimately crafted a sound and image that became distinctly his IMO.

i only say that because i know he was a huge fan of bowie's...gary numan deserves his props for developing the sound that kraftwerk and bowie and others were making in the mid to late 70s...

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blackbob said:

lezama said:

Totally agree. I don't think anyone could say he was simply a Bowie wanna be. It was hard to not be influenced by Bowie in some way during that period. But he ultimately crafted a sound and image that became distinctly his IMO.

i only say that because i know he was a huge fan of bowie's...gary numan deserves his props for developing the sound that kraftwerk and bowie and others were making in the mid to late 70s...

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...when i'm listening the albums PR/1999/Controversy & Dirty mind....the main & huge influence that i hear it's the sound of Gary Numan....all the respect is due to this Artist&musician!!

http://www.youtube.com/wa...u6MDdxBork

http://youtu.be/uahZLfoZ954

[Edited 6/16/11 6:34am]

Gary Numan is fucking awesome. And the compliments were returned when he covered both "1999" and "U Got The Look".

My cousins said that one of the main things Numan did was different was that he used live drums on electronic songs. Like if you listen to "Cars" etc it's mostly all electronic but the drums and percussion are live.

I never thought of this but makes sense after listening to a couple of these tracks. I always liked "Cars"...love those synths. I don't get it when people dog synths as sounding too "80s" or something. They are just another instrument and glad that Prince had a long love affair with them and still uses them a good bit sometimes.

FunkiestOne said:

I never thought of this but makes sense after listening to a couple of these tracks. I always liked "Cars"...love those synths. I don't get it when people dog synths as sounding too "80s" or something. They are just another instrument and glad that Prince had a long love affair with them and still uses them a good bit sometimes.

"IceMan" by Gary Numan is music for the Gods!

"Something in the Water (Does Not Compute) ," by Prince definitely has Gary Numan written all over it.

[Edited 6/16/11 9:41am]

I think people forget that Tubeway Army / Gary Numan were born out of Punk. The live drums a legacy of that.

Gary's early stuff fused punk and snyth. I think that is where Prince drew influence from with the likes of Dirty Mind.

at the mention of Gary Numan... yeah he definitely influenced Prince, you could tell.

Gary was great.

All the comparisons with Bowie were just lazy journalism.

eireboy34 said:

Gary was great.

All the comparisons with Bowie were just lazy journalism.

Actually Gary played a roll in being stuck with the label of being a Bowie "wannabe," with an interview speaking of Bowie being an influence, journalist ran with it.

Militant said:

Gary Numan is fucking awesome. And the compliments were returned when he covered both "1999" and "U Got The Look".

I remember a Gary Numan interview (I can't remember the source) from around 1992, where he was talking about Prince's sound. He mentioned something like it was his (musical) ambition to release something of as high a quality (sound wise) as a Prince album, and went on to mention how he thought the Symbol album was an incredible piece of work.

daood said:

eireboy34 said:

Gary was great.

All the comparisons with Bowie were just lazy journalism.

Actually Gary played a roll in being stuck with the label of being a Bowie "wannabe," with an interview speaking of Bowie being an influence, journalist ran with it.

As I said, lazy journalism!

TheDigitalGardener said:

Militant said:

Gary Numan is fucking awesome. And the compliments were returned when he covered both "1999" and "U Got The Look".

I remember a Gary Numan interview (I can't remember the source) from around 1992, where he was talking about Prince's sound. He mentioned something like it was his (musical) ambition to release something of as high a quality (sound wise) as a Prince album, and went on to mention how he thought the Symbol album was an incredible piece of work.

If you ever found out the source, please post!

daood said:

TheDigitalGardener said:

I remember a Gary Numan interview (I can't remember the source) from around 1992, where he was talking about Prince's sound. He mentioned something like it was his (musical) ambition to release something of as high a quality (sound wise) as a Prince album, and went on to mention how he thought the Symbol album was an incredible piece of work.

If you ever found out the source, please post!

It may have been an old music magazine, i'll take a look through my boxes.

eireboy34 said:

daood said:

Actually Gary played a roll in being stuck with the label of being a Bowie "wannabe," with an interview speaking of Bowie being an influence, journalist ran with it.

As I said, lazy journalism!

Your right

We need more musician/journalist

[Edited 6/16/11 11:18am]

Here is an interesting little snippet I found online about Gary talking about Prince.

Source http://thequietus.com/art...maker-1994

"I was told that Prince used to do 'Cars' in his soundcheck, too. Yeah! And Chic, they did, too. Prince is the sort of bloke who sucks in like a sponge what's going on around him. What about 'Cream'? That's 'Get It On', isn't it? Have you noticed, everyone's slagging off Michael Jackson for turning white, but have you ever seen any early pictures of Prince? Now that was a very black man. These days he's a white man, with a laughably small beard. I really admire anyone who puts on a real spectacular show, without charging £250 a ticket like Barbra Streisand."

(Re. bold part) Oh how times change.

TheDigitalGardener said:

Here is an interesting little snippet I found online about Gary talking about Prince.

Source http://thequietus.com/art...maker-1994

"I was told that Prince used to do 'Cars' in his soundcheck, too. Yeah! And Chic, they did, too. Prince is the sort of bloke who sucks in like a sponge what's going on around him. What about 'Cream'? That's 'Get It On', isn't it? Have you noticed, everyone's slagging off Michael Jackson for turning white, but have you ever seen any early pictures of Prince? Now that was a very black man. These days he's a white man, with a laughably small beard. I really admire anyone who puts on a real spectacular show, without charging £250 a ticket like Barbra Streisand."

(Re. bold part) Oh how times change.

I saw that interview I belive on youtube but didn't hear the part about Prince using "Cars," in his soundcheck. I'll head over there after I finish listening "Come," which iis 2:13 seconds from the end.

thks