100 Greatest Songs of the 70’s #10 Gary Numan – Cars

Released: 1979

Up until late 1979 synthesizers had remained firmly inside the domain of the serious professional musician. As Tubeway Army’s general Gary Numan began the process by which that would change, scoring a number one single with the doomy android waltz of Are Friends Electric, but a few months later he would tear down the barriers to the pop world completely with a song on which guitars had now been dispensed with en masse.

His rise had been meteoric and whilst the accusations of copying David Bowie had more than enough merit in them, it was as if nobody had previously thought that rather than confront the listener with the dystopian vibe of such an inorganic sound, would there not be the hope that they could dance to it as well? Triumphantly for Numan, Cars successfully tested that hypothesis all the way back to the top of the charts.

With lyrics derived from a sci-fi book he’d failed to write, Cars spliced Moroder and J.G. Ballard to spectacular effect, the song’s verbal repetition like simple lines of code. Also robotic were the synths, stamping an industrialised rhythm not unlike that rung out on the newly built auto production lines that were threatening to make humans obsolete. Slaves or foes, the synthesizer was now making a friendly invasion of our lives.