A Review of "The Premier Hits" by Sean McGhee of Liverpool, UK
(who gave it 8 out of 10)
December 2nd 1996

So, the Premier Hits. Certainly not the first Numan compilation, and I have a sneaking suspicion (sp?) that it won't be the last. Now, my problem is this. I'm by no means a huge Numan fan - I've never seen him live, I don't particularly identify with his lyrics, and politically, we differ spectacularly. But all this is besides the point, really - the reason I'm writing this review is the MUSIC. I grew up on electronic music, and yet somehow managed to miss Numan somewhere along the way. Now, I have the opportunity to catch up, and it has to be said that the man has made some great music in his time, and I'm not just talking about the pre-Numa stuff. But my criticism is this (and to those of you who love the albums and songs I'm about to mention, please don't take offence - the last thing I want to do is to annoy anyone)...

Every Gary Numan album I have heard has been flawed in some way, IMHO. It seems that each album has a specific sound all its own, which is used in each track on the LP, thus tying it to that album forever. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing - look at your average guitar band, for example...the sound doesn't really change from song to song. But, it seems that for every 3 good songs Mr Numan writes, he comes up with one that is either substandard, repetitious of existing songs, or just plain dull. This means that an LP like "Replicas" has songs like "Down In The Park" and "Me, I Disconnect From You", but is unable to hold this standard over a whole album, and so we also get "Praying To The Aliens" or "The Machman" or the two closing instrumentals which, although not unpleasant, aren't exactly the sort of songs you'd miss if they ceased to exist tomorrow. And the same goes for most of the other albums, except perhaps for "Sacrifice" - We get "Cars"? We also get "M.E.". We get "I Dream Of Wires"? We also get "Sleep By Windows". "A Child With The Ghost"? "Pump It Up". Do you see what I'm getting at?

Now, this means that when it comes to singles time, there is no shortage of excellent choices, and this helps to make The Premier Hits rather more cohesive than you might expect, because you really do get the cream of GN's Beggars Banquet period. Of course, there are plenty of good LP tracks from this period, but a Greatest Hits LP is hardly the place for things like "Slowcar To China", is it? And a "Best Of The LP Stuff" isn't really a good plan - all the fans have got it all already, and don't really want it again, no matter what Reciever Records seem to think :). But, for the casual admirer of Numan's music, The Premier Hits is a very good starting point, and thus serves its purpose quite adequately. Of course, it would be musically improved if it contained such post-BB gems as "This Is Love", "I Still Remember", insert your personal favourite here...but the public's perception of Numan is that of a synth-wielding robotic ex-pop star, so I somehow don't think that the saxaphone solos and (often) dated synth programming of this period would go down at all well. But as a record of some really rather good 80s synth-based pop, The Premier Hits gets an 8 out of 10.