Song Of The Day Outtakes 2015 – This track from former used car salesman Gary Numan was cut from Ultimate Breaks & Beats week, for no other reason than I ran out of room for everything I wanted to feature. UBB, as you'll recall from the syllabus, was the 25-volume anthology of songs with breakbeats and rhythms favored by a coterie of hip hop DJs in the '80s and '90s. The strictly-speaking underground compilations covered a gigantic range of styles and went a long way towards democratizing hip hop and pop music in general into the 21st century. I'm not sure what I mean by "democratizing" but whatever it was I meant in the best possible way. As for Numan, whose biped-resistant "Cars" was one of new wave's very first crossover hits, I never had strong sentiments one way or the other. More positive than negative. I was too young to understand his vaguely cranky settlement of science-fiction themes. I can't even tell you if he was "dystopian" or not. I just made a rash and unprincipled determination that any pop musician who brandished sci-fi motifs was most likely bothered by the potential advent of dystopia. That was silly, of course, because we never devolved into dystopia, and won't until Trump is elected. A few years ago I saw Numan at Bumbershoot. He was full-out, balls-to-the-wall aggro-rocker. He snarled. I felt he was, in his own special way, paying tribute to Trent Reznor for citing him as a key influence. It was a bit weird, but I suppose it would have been weirder if he'd gone into chamber pop or something. Dystopia Comes Alive! Anyway, here's a song and I hope it makes some sort of impression upon you.
