Telekon finds Gary Numan ready to try something new

Gary Numan : This Wreckage

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On September 5, 1980 Gary Numan released his second solo album , the UK#1 hit Telekon. Anticipation for the album was matched only by the upcoming tour. Two shows at Hammersmith Odeon had already sold out so a third date had to be added. It was all getting to be a bit much for Numan, who has Aspergers and was not accustomed to getting so much attention.

"I hate being stared at like I'm some kind of freak," he told Trouser Press. "I never liked having to deal with I didn't want to, even little things like having to talk to the electricians when they come to read the meter. What success is good for is that maybe I can hire people to do that for me! I had a job once delivering parcels. You have to talk to people; I lasted about two weeks."

While The Pleasure Principle had elements of science fiction, here Numan sings about more personal experiences like fan adulation in "Remind Me To Smile":

"Reconsider 'fame'/I need new reasons/This is detention/It's not fun at all...Keep your revivals/Keep your conventions/Keep all your fantasies/That's all we are"

Numan refers to himself as a wreckage, the aircrash bureau and the final silence on Telekon. It doesn't sound like he's having much fun. He had mostly failed to win over the English press. He'd also seen "We Are Glass" and "I Die:You Die" fail to chart in the United States despite the success of "Cars". 

At 22, he was ready to try to something else.

"I've got a very big fear of being a has-been," he tells Trouser Press." I'm getting out  of it before I get too involved to get out of it. I have to avoid facing not being famous anymore. Besides, having said I'm going to stop, I'm obliged to stick by it. I's lose too much face otherwise."

Gary Numan's new single attacks the music press

Gary Numan : I Die :You Die

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On the week of August 24, 1980 Gary Numan's new single "I Die : You Die" b/w a piano version of "Down in the Park"  entered the UK charts at #8. It would peak two spots higher at UK#6 but fail to enter the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. The song was not included on UK pressings of the forthcoming Telekon but did appear on the American versions.

 In the song Numan attacks the press:

They crawl out
Of their holes for me
And I die you die
Hear them laugh
Watch them turn on me
And I die you die
See my scars
They call me such things
Tear me, tear me, tear me

"We Are Glass" provides Gary Numan with another UK #5 hit

Gary Numan : We Are Glass

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In May of 1980 Gary Numan released the UK#5 single "We Are Glass", a song that marks the return of electric guitars to his sound. Numan plays the crunchy guitar himself. What's the song about? Numan said in a 1981 radio interview

"Somebody once told me, a man from (the science magazine) Omni, said that he thought I'd been put here by ... something ... aliens or something, to carry out a cause ... which I thought was very flattering but a little silly. ... 'We Are Glass' I wrote because of that, y'know, like all pop stars are put here for reasons."

Numan would soon tire of his Numanoid look, complaining that he felt like an extra in Star Wars, ( in 2017 that no longer seemed to bother him) and reading  reviews like this one in Smash Hits:

The surprising B-side of "We Are Glass" is the first movement of Erik Satie's "Trois Gymnopedies,"originally composed in 1888,  in an arrangement that added guitar, bass and synthesizer to the original's solo piano part.