The Pleasure Principle

The Pleasure Principle is the debut solo studio album by English new wave musician Gary Numan, released on 7 September 1979 by Beggars Banquet Records. The album came about six months after Replicas (1979), his second and final studio album with the band Tubeway Army. The Pleasure Principle peaked at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart. Recording Following Replicas, Numan recruited a permanent drummer and a keyboard player and demoed an album's worth of new material in April 1979. This was before the single "Are "Friends" Electric?" from the previous album had been released. A second session that yielded four further songs followed some weeks later. The day after "Are "Friends" Electric?" reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, Numan and his band recorded four of the new songs in a session for John Peel, credited to Gary Numan and dropping the group name Tubeway Army. By the time Replicas reached number one on the albums chart The Pleasure Principle was being recorded at Marcus Music Studio, London. Composition and release The Pleasure Principle has been described as featuring synth-pop, new wave, and electronica throughout. Numan completely abandoned electric guitar on the album. This change, coupled with frequent use of synthetic percussion, produced the most purely electronic and robotic sound of his career. In addition to the Minimoog synthesizer employed on his previous album, Numan made liberal use of the Polymoog keyboard, particularly its distinctive "Vox Humana" preset. Other production tricks included copious amounts of flanging, phasing and reverb, plus the unusual move of including solo viola and violin parts in the arrangements. Lyrically, the album continued the science fiction-themes of the previous album. While not a theme album the way Replicas was, Numan has described the songs as "more of a collection of thoughts I'd had about the way technology was evolving and where it would take us."