On September 7th, 1979 Gary Numan released his debut solo album The Pleasure Principle. The record was released about six months after Replicas, to which Numan instead of promoting entered the studio again while Replicas was entering the charts at number.
Despite initially being the second album with his band Tubeway Army, the band’s name was dropped, and The Pleasure Principle is considered to be Numan’s debut solo album. It was also Numan’s second consecutive number 1 album on the UK charts.
The album was promoted by two singles, such as Newman’s most famous track “Cars”:
And “Complex”:
The album track “Metal” is notable as well, being sung from the perspective of an android longing to be human, and was later covered by Nine Inch Nails on Things Falling Apart.
Recently Numan and Nine Inch Nails recovered a live video of them performing “Metal” together:
