Gary Numan - Strange Charm (13 tracks) +Album Reviews

"I know that I don't sound like I should"

mwreview | Northern California, USA | 08/05/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I bet more than a few Numan fans back in 1986 felt a bad trick was played on them when they plopped Strange Charm on their turntables for the first time. "My Breathing" is amazing! On my top 10 all-time Numan list. It quietly builds up and then kicks in with this powerful orchestra sound (well keyboard-generated orchestra sound) and quiet, actually very nice, female vox. Unbelievable song! Words cannot do justice. After The Fury, which disappointed many fans, this song must have sounded like a breath of fresh air (no pun intended). Numan is back on track! Then the saxophone blares and the female singers wail on the second track "Unknown and Hostile" and reality sets in. More Janet Jacksonesque music from the New Wave/synthesizer god.

"I Can't Stop" and "The Need" continues the annoying material found on The Fury ("Creatures," "This Disease"). The latter is my vote for all-time worst Numan track. Like on The Fury, though, there are some decent tracks on here, besides the excellent opener, that keeps Strange Charm from being a bust. The title track rocks! It reminds me of "The Pleasure Skin" off The Fury. "The Sleeproom" and "This is Love" are two beautiful ballads. I know a lot of fans hate Numan's very commercial work with Bill Sharpe, but I think "New Thing from London Town" is rather catchy. Cleopatra's issue even gives you a 7:57 version of the infamous single with different lyrics. Of the extra tracks, the haunting ballad "Time to Die" is the best. It reminds me a little of "I Still Remember" off The Fury. According to the liner notes, it was inspired by the movie "Blade Runner" (a clip from which begins "Call Out the Dogs"). "Faces" and "Survival" are two odd instrumentals. Strange Charm is one of my least played Numan CDs but "My Breathing" alone makes it worth the price. This issue has black & white photos of Numan from the period (one color photo with Sharpe) and lyrics."

Schizophrenic charm

olofpalme63 | auf der flucht! | 10/07/2004

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Numan's dance trend reaches scattered heights in the disco-tronic 80's. Confusion and perhaps blatant redundancy cloud whatever direction Numan is trying to approach in the post-modern era. A river patrol to sax highlighted dance floors perhaps.

...however, the schizophrenic "Strange Charm" yields 3 classics in "My Breathing", "The Sleeproom" and "Time To Die". Strange in the fact that Time To Die was left off the first pressing of this CD. Even more strange is that it was only available on cassette. Did anyone still buy 45's in the mid 80's? Strange Charm indeed.

olofpalme63"

One-track Wonder

Trevor Luke | Tallahassee, FL United States | 11/01/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"In the US, Gary has been consigned to the one-hit-wonder file. Too bad, since he put out at least 7 solid albums, and a load of intriguing tracks scattered over the rest of his opera. When I first bought this one, the cover art put me off right away. Wayfarers and platinum blonde hair? Please. It seems Gary never quite extricated himself from the 21st century brothel-attendant look of "Dance." But I recall the very moment I flipped it onto the turntable at a friend's house and was STUNNED when I heard the first track. "My Breathing" is one of the finest tracks Numan ever produced. The string groove has a kind of Wagnerian drive to it. The wailing ladies weren't distracting attention from everything else. It was just plain fun to listen to, and the lyrics were above par for Gary in this period of his career. In short, I was certain Gary was going to make that comeback Numanoids of olden days long prophesied. Then I heard the second track.

There are two other tracks worth visiting and revisiting, "The Sleeproom" and "Time to Die" which is sort of a schlockie tribute to Ridley Scott's Bladerunner that very nearly works and certainly beats everything on the original album except the two other aforementioned tracks. I would give 5 stars to "My Breathing," 3 stars for the other two, and 1 or 2 stars for each of the others."

I don't understand all the rampage against this album

Said Head | MN, USA | 10/21/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I feel this album to be one of Numan's best; sure, it's not Replicas or Pleasure Principle, but fans of an ever-evolving artist have to keep up with him in taste and style, which this album clearly has great value in. 1983's Warriors was a mislead and equally misleading album that paired Numan's signature style with dancier beats and instrumentation; for me, it misses the mark. Berserker was a great album, though found Numan in the same strange place that Warriors was trying to get out of. The Fury is Numan's perfecting the fusion of dancey pop and new wave, taking his style into a more industrial, slightly funky direction; the only problem with that album is the lack of originality between the tracks.

This album shows Numan taking that perfected new sound he'd been working on for years and indulges in musical ideas. Using his new found admiration for female backing vocals and saxophone he managed to create an eclectic and very well-written album.

As another reviewer stated, 'My Breathing' is an extremely powerful track, using decidedly non-Numan instrumentation: orchestral strings. It's catchy and serious altogether, and a great impression on the album's overall effect.

'Unknown & Hostile' is a very funky dance track that I'm sure most 'die-hard' Numan fans probably ignore whole-heartedly. But really the combination of sax, keyboards, and sparse guitar give this an outlandish feel that I think he had attempted to create on Warriors; well, if that really is the case, here we finally get to hear that vision!

'Sleeproom', while not a ballad, is a down-tempo stroke of isolation; the vocals are powerful, and Numan speaks very vividly of his career, say 'I don't sound like I should; I don't even belong to fashion' shows that he is aware of people's dislike of his new style, but that this is what he is. It's really more of a rather polite 'f*** off' to anybody who wants more Tubeway Army.

'New Thing From London Town', the album version, is an incredible industrial tune with some of the most forward-looking synths I've ever heard. While the music isn't exactly product of Numan's, the new vocals are a bit better over the original single's I think.

'I can't Stop' really stands away from the rest of the album; it has somewhat of an arena rock feel with the guitars, but most aspects of the song are signature late 80's Numan sound. I think Numan may have been trying a little too hard with this song, but it's still a great listen, and the extra version of the track available on most remastered CD's of the album is not to be missed.

The title track is an awesome piece on its own, as well as tying in the rest of the song. All the different ideas and styles that make this album so unique can be found in this track.

'The Need', perhaps the strangest song on SC, is the longest track, and very repetitive. I personally really like this track for its straight-forward beat and sparse instrumentation that gets thrown in the mix here and there which in some moments is in a way hypnotic and dancey in different moments.

As the only true ballad on the album, 'This is Love' takes the energy of the last few tracks and brings them back to a very isolated cache of emotions. I personally think ballads are cliche, but this one, with the other two slower, more serious songs, really shows what the purpose of the ballad is all about. This song is spacey, surreal, but uses piano chords, sax, and female vocals, among other things, to keep it human enough.

The b-side 'Time To Die', I never cared much for, mainly because Numan didn't even write it, but it definitely sounds as if it had been, since it uses references from 'Blade Runner' (a film that Numan had taken inspiration and used samples from until the early 90's).

The two instrumentals, 'Faces' and 'Survival' are fascinating industrial pieces, a style that he doesn't get back into until 'Outland' and 'Machine & Soul'. They both use heavy percussion and deep synths mainly, while retaining their own strengths. They're honestly brilliant, and I think, providing that these had been included in the album, that it would have made a bigger impact, but at least now we get to hear them on CD.

Overall, this album is extremely under-rated; it may be a little much for casual/beginner fans of Numan, and it would definitely be a good call to get his earlier mid 80's material like Berserker and The Fury first, to prepare yourself for the feel of this one. Absolutely one of my top favorite albums by Numan."

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