Gary Numanrose to prominence at the tail end of the 1970s, initially recording under the band name Tubeway Army. After recording an album's worth of punky demos, he was signed by Beggars Banquet Records in 1978 and quickly released two singles, neither of which charted. A self-titled, New Wave oriented debut album later that same year sold out its limited run and introduced Numan's fascination with dystopian science fiction and, more importantly, synthesisers. Almost from nowhere, Tubeway Army reached number one in 1979 with the powerful single "Are 'Friends' Electric?", the parent album Replicas simultaneously climbing to number one in the album charts. A few months later he repeated the feat with "Cars", which became a top ten hit in America as well, and the 1979 album The Pleasure Principle, both released under Numan's own (assumed) name, which he had plucked from an advert in the "Yellow Pages".
last.fm page