Understanding Gary Numan: The Machine Quartet (1978-1981)

The first analytical study of the pioneering English musician. The historian, Paul Sutton begins by taking the reader through a vastly entertaining potted history of rock music pioneers, tracing them all back to “a delta of Mississippi mud from where howled the first harmonica, and from where was heard the first blue plucking finger on string”, to show that popular music was strictly The Imitation Game until Gary Numan came along with his Machine Quartet, four albums that completely re-invigorated rock and roll.
“Numan’s music added so many new strands of DNA to the gene pool of what hitherto had been dead Mississippi mud that the transformative effect was immediate and everlasting.”
Artists major, from Frank Zappa, Neil Young and Alice Cooper, and bands then minor, including Tears for Fears and Depeche Mode, all stopped what they were doing and added lessons learned from Numan to their art.
Sutton looks at the influence on Numan of David Bowie, Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and John Foxx, and deconstructs Numan’s cryptic lyrics from the first single to the fourth album in order to unlock the art and mind of the world’s first Asperger’s pop star.