Replicas (album)

Tubeway Army.[1] Replicas. London: Gooseberry Sound Studios (recording) / Beggars Banquet • Atco (label), 1978, released 1979. Length: 42:02. Gary Numan, lead singer and producer.[2]

Jim Flannery notes as relevant for the Wiki, "Are Friends Electric" especially, "and pretty much everything else from Replicas" (e-mail, 28 June 2004; see bold on track listing).

From Wikipedia entry:

Replicas was the first album of what Numan later termed the "machine" phase of his career, preceding The Pleasure Principle [1979][3] and Telekon [1980],[4] a collection linked by common themes of a dystopian science fiction future and transmutation of man/machine, coupled with an androgynous image and a synthetic rock sound.[5] [* * *]

A loose concept album, Replicas was based on a dystopian book Numan hoped to eventually complete, set in a not-too-distant future metropolis where Machmen (androids with cloned human skin) and other machines keep the general public cowed on orders from the Grey Men (shadowy officials). While the album's setting and lyrics were directly inspired by the science fiction of Philip K. Dick, particularly his seminal work Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the title was not. Although Numan's Machmen were similar to Replicants, the term used for androids in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (based on Dick's book), Scott's film came out three years after Tubeway Army's album and Dick never used the word "Replicant" in his original 1968 novel. The album cover shows Numan as a Machman staring out from his room at a waning crescent moon [...].[6]

Lyrics available on Internet; those to "Are Friends Electric?" available with discographic data and discussion on Genius.com, as of April 2023, here.[7]

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Tracks {1979 Beggars Banquet LP and MC (BEGA/C 7) and 1995 Beggars Banquet CD reissue (MUSCD509)}[8]

"Me! I Disconnect from You" – 3:23

"Are 'Friends' Electric?" – 5:25

"The Machman" – 3:08

"Praying to the Aliens" – 4:00

"Down in the Park" – 4:24

"You Are in My Vision" – 3:15

"Replicas" – 5:01

"It Must Have Been Years" – 4:02

"When the Machines Rock" – 3:15

"I Nearly Married a Human" – 6:31

RDE, with thanks to Jim Flannery; finishing, 16/17Ap24