Replicas Mixes + Versions

In early 2008 Gary Numan celebrates his 30th year in music and turns 50. To celebrate this, the pioneering electronic album Replicas will be re-issued as Gary Numan & Tubeway Army - Replicas Redux on February 23, 2008. This is a week before Numan performs the original LP plus B-sides on a 15 date UK tour in March 2008. The album includes the breakthrough single 'Are 'Friends' Electric?', which gave Numan his first simultaneous Number 1 single and album when Replicas joined it at the top of the charts a few weeks later.

Different generations have identified with Replicas' atmospheric music, images of technology out of control and a ripped-up London of the near future. The imagination of one young man in Cleveland, Ohio, namely Brian Warner, was fired by the 'apocalyptic' imagery of 'Down In The Park' and as Marilyn Manson he later recorded the track with producer Trent Reznor (also a fan) from Nine Inch Nails. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain namechecked the guitar-led 'It Must Have Been Years' as an influence in his journal and The Foo Fighters covered 'Down In The Park' for the X-Files soundtrack, Songs In The Key Of X. In the late '90s Damon Albarn recorded the more obscure Replicas 'outtake' 'We Have A Technical' and of course Sugababes scored a UK Number 1 in 2002 by sampling 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' for their single 'Freak Like Me'. Other acts who have covered tracks on the album include DJ Hell, Smashing Pumpkins, Beck and Moloko.