''Telekon'' is the second solo studio album by English musician

Gary Numan Gary Anthony James Webb (born 8 March 1958), known professionally as Gary Numan, is an English musician. He entered the music industry as frontman of the new wave band Tubeway Army. After releasing two albums with the band, he released his d ...

. It debuted at the top of the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

in September 1980, making it his third consecutive (and to date, final) No. 1 album. It was also the third and final studio release of what Numan retrospectively termed the "machine" section of his career, following 1979's ''

Replicas A 1:1 replica is an exact copy of an object, made out of the same raw materials, whether a molecule, a work of art, or a commercial product. The term is also used for copies that closely resemble the original, without claiming to be identical. Al ...

'' and '' The Pleasure Principle''.

Releases and promoting

''Telekon'' was released in September 1980. To boost initial sales in the UK, on first release the album came with a free single, in a plain black sleeve, including two live recordings from 'The Touring Principle' tour; 'Remember I Was Vapour' and 'On Broadway'. A year later, in an attempt to further boost sales, the album came with a free poster in the UK using a photo taken from the main Telekon photo-shoot. The cassette release included the singles ''

We Are Glass "We Are Glass" is a song by the British singer Gary Numan. It was released as a single in May 1980 and reached number five on the UK Singles Chart. The song was Numan’s first release since his 1979 album, '' The Pleasure Principle'', which had ...

'' and '' I Die: You Die'' which was not on the vinyl LP. A number of Dutch releases were pressed on coloured vinyl. The US and Canadian releases replaced the track ''Sleep by Windows'' with ''I Die: You Die''. The album was released on vinyl and cassette in Japan.

Singles

''Telekon'' was preceded by two non-album singles, "

" and " I Die: You Die". The only single taken from the album after its release was the opening number, "

This Wreckage "This Wreckage" is a song written and performed by Gary Numan. It was featured as the opening track on his 1980 LP ''Telekon'' and was the third and final single to be released from that album (although the only one to feature on every configu ...

", which peaked at No. 20. Numan later admitted that, regardless of its merits as a song, it was a "bloody stupid single". The live version of ''Remember I Was Vapour'', released as a bonus single with the UK album, was released as a 12" single in Germany with the studio version on the b-side. ''Remind Me to Smile'' was released as a US single with ''I Dream of Wires'' on the b-side.

The Teletour

From September to November 1980, Numan toured the UK and North America in support of ''Telekon''. The tour was followed by three "farewell concerts" at

Wembley Arena Wembley Arena (originally the Empire Pool, now known as OVO Arena Wembley for sponsorship reasons) is an indoor arena next to Wembley Stadium in Wembley, London, England, used for music, comedy, family entertainment and sport. The 12,500-sea ...

in April 1981 with guest

Nash the Slash James Jeffrey "Jeff" Plewman (March 26, 1948 – May 10, 2014), better known by his stage name Nash the Slash, was a Canadian musician. A multi-instrumentalist, he was known primarily for playing the electric violin and mandolin, as well as the h ...

Classic Album Tour and ''Micromusic'' DVD

In December 2006, Numan undertook a ''Telekon'' "Classic Album" tour, comprising four concerts in the UK in which he played all the songs from the ''Telekon'' album, as well as its associated singles and B-sides. On the 2CD ''EKO: The Telekon 06 Audio Programme'' (sold at the 2006 ''Telekon'' gigs and from Numan's website), Numan discussed (with interviewer Steve Malins) the making of ''Telekon'', revealing that it is his favourite of his "early albums." Numan followed the 2006 tour with further "Classic Album" tours, for ''

'' in 2008 and '' The Pleasure Principle'' in 2009. In 2006, Numan promised fans a DVD release of the 1981 ''Micromusic'' video. On his official website in October 2008, Numan announced that the long-lost master tapes of the ''Micromusic'' concert had been found, "in excellent condition and, to make things even better, more footage has been found from two other camera positions that were not used on the original version. This new footage will be edited into a new updated version...We expect this to be, with all the extra footage and interviews, a double disc DVD." On 19 March 2010, Numan announced that the ''Micromusic'' DVD would be released on 13 April. ''Micromusic'' was released on that date as a one-disc DVD; in addition to the concert itself, the DVD featured an hour-long interview with Numan as a special feature.

Cultural references

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' used the track title "I Dream of Wires" as the name for a fictitious

synthpop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s a ...

act about which they published a series of spoof articles in early 1995, culminating in reports of the alleged band's death in a coach crash in Eastern Europe. "I Dream of Wires" was covered by British singer Robert Palmer on his 1980 album '' Clues'', featuring Numan on keyboards and synthesisers.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Gary Numan except for " Trois Gymnopédies (First Movement)", which is a composition by Erik Satie.

LP

Cassette

1998 CD reissue

*Subsequent digital issues of Telekon revert to the original intro mix for "Remind Me to Smile".

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Personnel

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

Minimoog The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...

Polymoog The Polymoog is a hybrid polyphony (instrument), polyphonic analog synthesizer that was manufactured by Moog Music from 1975 to 1980. The Polymoog was based on Frequency divider, divide-down oscillator technology similar to electronic organs an ...

ARP Pro Soloist The ARP Pro Soloist was one of the first commercially successful preset synthesizers. Introduced by ARP Instruments, Inc. in 1972, it replaced the similar ARP Soloist (19701971) in the company's lineup of portable performance instruments. Histo ...

Roland Jupiter-4 The Roland Jupiter-4 (JP-4) was an analog synthesizer manufactured by the Roland Corporation between 1978 and 1981. It was notable as the company's first self-contained polyphonic synthesizer, and for employing digital control of analog ci ...

, Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, Yamaha CP-30,

Roland CR-78 The Roland CompuRhythm CR-78 is a drum machine launched in 1978. Although primitive by later standards, the CR-78 represented an important advance in drum machine technology at the time, in particular by allowing users to program and store thei ...

Synare The Synare was a series of electronic drums made by Star Instruments in the mid-1970s through the 1980s. The Synare was a drum synthesizer, meaning that it was essentially a synthesizer, but instead of being controlled by a keyboard, it was triggere ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

, Minibass *

Paul Gardiner Paul Andrew Gardiner (1 May 1958 – 18 February 1984) was a British musician who played bass guitar with Gary Numan and Tubeway Army, as well as creating material under his own name. Biography Paul Gardiner was born in Hayes, Middlesex. In ...

– bass,

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

Cedric Sharpley Tubeway Army were a London-based new wave band led by lead singer Gary Numan. Formed at the height of punk rock in 1977 the band gradually changed to an electronic sound. They were the first band of the electronic era to have a synthesiser-b ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

, backing vocals * Chris Payne –

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

, piano, Minimoog, Polymoog, backing vocals * Russell Bell – guitars,

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

, claves, backing vocals * Denis Haines – Prophet-5, piano, ARP Pro Soloist, Yamaha CP-30, whistle, backing vocals * John Webb,

James Freud James Randall Freud (born Colin Joseph McGlinchey; 29 June 1959 – 4 November 2010) was an Australian rock musician-songwriter. He was a member of Models during the 1980s and wrote their two most popular singles, "Barbados" and " Out of Mind, O ...

, Simple Minds – handclaps

Notes

References

* Paul Goodwin (2004). ''Electric Pioneer: An Armchair Guide to Gary Numan'' *

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

{{Authority control Gary Numan albums 1980 albums Beggars Banquet Records albums