ABOUT THIS ITEM

Gary Numan's solo debut album, "The Pleasure Principle" was the point where the singer became a huge international solo star. The album pioneered electronic pop music on a new scale – it was a much bigger success worldwide than Kraftwerk's releases or anything from the influential but still relatively 'culty' Bowie / Eno 'Berlin' trilogy. And the fact that it was different and had a major impact in America – Numan performed "Cars" and "Praying To The Aliens" in front of 40 million people on the Saturday Night Live Show – means that there's a direct link from "The Pleasure Principle" to the new musical forms that were born in the USA over the next decade – namely hip hop, industrial and techno. His influence on hip-hop, while rarely recognised, is enormous. Numan's influence on electronic music in general is unparalleled. When GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan covered "Films" in 2008, he really was taking hip hop back to its roots as the track features one of the original break beats (in fact, "Films" appeared on the hugely influential "Ultimate Breaks & Beats" compilation series in the early 1980s). In industrial music both Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) and Marilyn Manson have name checked Numan as a significant source of inspiration. While techno pioneers ranging from Carl Craig to Juan Atkins were grabbed by this strange, futuristic music.