I love this jam. It's very apparent that this must have influenced Prince when he made "Automatic".

Timmy84 said:

One of my FAVORITE songs from the 80's...

Love the bassline and drums

BEST SONG OF ALL TIME

I love Gary Numan. This one, "Are Friends Electric?" and "Metal" are my favorites.

Possibly my all-time favorite song. And perhaps the source of my 10 year obsession with Prince - I couldn't help but love how the synths in The Beautiful Ones sounded like this.

Great song but overplayed so I find it quite annoying now.

Excellent song, and deserving of its status as a classic! Even so, I like several of his songs better!

An 80s classic When this song came out,it didn't sound like anything else on the radio.It was edgy and experimental for 1980....a "preview" of what we would soon be hearing in the 80s.

vainandy said:

I remember reading an interview with Lisa Coleman in the 80's. She said she borrowed Prince's car, played a C90 cassette in the stereo and this song was on there twice

This song is from 1979, people!

Moonbeam said:

yep,... it will have the nº1 position in my 70s song list!!

Moonbeam said:

*coughshamelesspromotioncough*

And it became a hit two years late.

Cars is only just the tip of the iceberg!!

Gary Numan wrote a massive amount of really cool music that was overlooked by the masses, cause he wouldnt play by record company rules.
And for some reason the media hated him in his home country.
Radio on both sides of the Atlantic ignored him completely.

He and Prince actually share alot of common ground as artists, although they are both different.
Both pioneered synths in their music, both were funk/rock heads, both experimented with Jazz and song arranging, both wrote all their own music, both had quiet and iconic personas.
[Edited 7/1/10 9:54am]

Timmy84 said:

We have to save it for the 70s poll.

Moonbeam said:

Yeah,but I always think of it as an 80s song.It was released as a single in America at the tail end of 1979,debuting in the US Top 40 on March 29,1980 (it peaked at Number 9).

pacey68 said:

Yep,Prince was clearly influenced by this song.

SoulAlive said:

Are there ANY artist that Prince was NOT influeneced by?

Graycap23 said:

Springsteen, Dylan, N.Young and many other roots rock artists...

the man IS smart

JoeTyler said:

Amen! I'm glad he stayed far, far away from that scene.

Moonbeam said:

worst scene of all time

I was all over this song when it came out in '79, I had (have) the 45. It was like the battle-cry for the upcoming new decade: The 80's! (oooooh, The 80's! So mysterious!) Back when New Wave was... well... NEW!

1979: New Wave was like everyone's license to get as weird, freaky and "Out There" as their imaginations could take them. Spiky hair, black eye-liner, mismatched clothes, leather, metal studs, Mohawks, Doc Martin's, lol (...and no AIDS yet - not that anyone knew of yet anyway). We were immortal. The PARTY was ON, full blast! And we had a New Breed Leader that was encouraging everyone to shag anything that moved, lol. We were all "inventing" ourselves as we went along, and it was ALL GOOD. The world was full of possibilities then.

Ahh, to be 18 again! You kids today better ENJOY! (...because WE ripped it up!)

SoulAlive said:

SoulAlive said:

A bit like when Rolling Stone voted The Clash's "London Calling" as the best album of the 80's when it was released in the UK in 1979.

Timmy84 said:

Moonbeam said:

Gary Numan's Cars was NOT a hit in the USA until 1981, which was the same year that The Human League's Don't You Want Me was a hit. I know this for a fact because it was around this time that the New Wave Movement were provoking a synths VS. guitars rivalry within the rock & roll community.

Kraftwerk, The Human League, Gary Numan, Heaven 17, Depache Mode, Yaz, Devo, & Berlin were all at the forefront in pushing a synths & drum machines only policy. And it was no accident that funk bands such as Roger/Zapp, Cameo, The Gap Band, Dazz Band, & Prince were using synths more often in their music because of those new wave & synthpop acts.

TonyVanDam said:

Don't forget Soft Cell & Pete Shelley.

PDogz said:

Them too.