Evidently heartened by a recent rash of recorded homages, '80s synth-pop pioneer Gary Numan returns to the world stage. His trademark icy electronica is refined to Manga-movie bleakness here - Imagine Icehouse on a bad acid trip - and his horrific-futuristic vision is intensified accordingly: God is treachery, Hell is nigh, the children are slaughtered in every other song and all hope of salvation has been cancelled. The titles offer a taste of the Biblically-proportioned terror that reigns within: "Dominion Day", "Dead Heaven", "Dark", "Innocence Bleeding", etc. While the inherent lack of humour does nothing for Numan's credibility problem, the over-wrought concept is offset by good pop sense and a mighty sci-fi soundscape, a pristine techno-sculpture with detail enough to keep the headphone-oriented credulous and cowering.
3.5 stars out of 5

Review by Michael Dwyer.

Review by Jeremy Chunn.

Hmmmm. I think the reviewer is a complete and utter bastard. Obviously his full name is Jeremy Chunnder, because that's exactly what his review makes me want to do. What a fuckwit. My guess is that he's using this review in an attempt to get a job with the NME. It won't work - not enough vitriol.

Exile is chilling, anti-religious and other worldly. True to form, Gary Numan, whose keyboards do so much to craft out a bleak ambience, does little to experiment with changes of mood, pace and theme. Lyrically, Exile relies on verse patterns that are simplistic. Note : "Glory is dead heaven/Glory is shadows and pain/Glory is dead heaven/Glory is death in 'His' name" (Dead Heaven). Still, while diversity and humour are not on Numan's agenda, the starkly haunting Dominion Day is happily garnering extensive airplay.
2.5 stars out of 5 (between tolerable and good).

Review by Terry Reilly.

Long before Spice Girls, early 80s icon Gary Numan was foolish enough to come out in support of Thatcher and her closeted Tory party. Unfortunately for Gary it got him tagged as a fascist. Added to his other tag as an arrogant and pretentious art wanker, he really didn't have much hope for a long reign at the top of the pops. But he has continued to release albums long after his pop star has faded and now, some two hundred and thirteen flop albums later, his early work has been thrown together on this compilation. There are the slick, sharp-edged electro-classics Are 'Friends' Electric?, Cars, Down In The Park, etc. There are also inclusions from his early, pretend-punk days (when he was Tubeway Army) such as Bombers. It also covers his faux-Japan period (he was no David Sylvian), his attempts at pompous prog-electro, his flirtations with Janet Jacksonesque funk and the campy Stormtrooper in Drag (no wonder there were rumours flying around about his dating a certain Australian 80s pop star). While this is probably the best way to listen to Numan (his studio albums tend to have lots of filler tracks) it unfortunately includes a pompous, recent remix of Cars and doesn't have his wonderful rendition of On Broadway (a personal favourite).
Rating : 3/5

A 2CD set tribute to Gary Numan, in which the '80s squelchy synth popster's tunefully dramatic songs stand up surprisingly well. Though some of the contributors simply approximate the author's gurgly, grinding and riffy synth manoeuvres, most find fresh to different ways of dealing with Numan's songbook.

Strong pop to heavy grunt is supplied by the likes of Dubstar, Amanda Ghost, Kenickie, Gravity Kills, Bis, Pop Will Eat Itself, Republica, EMF, Jesus Jones, Chris Holmes, and the Moog and vocal sharing team-up of Matt Sharpe and Blur's Damon Albarn, while The Orb, Sukia, St Etienne, Peck Slip, Earl Brutus, Underdog and Dave Clarke remodel proceedings as groovier to hypnotic electronic fun.

Among many highlights are a spectral solo acoustic piano take of 'Are Friends Electric' (three wildly diverse versions aboard), Jimi Tenor's oompah band at the fairground 'Down In The Park', Magnetic Fields' breezy banjo and cello soaked 'I Die: You Die' and Towering Inferno's whooshy machine-driven epic rebuild of 'Metal' (with guest vocals from Sadenia and Dubstar's Sarah Blackwood).

All up, a mostly fantastic collision of spirit and reinvention.

Performance : 8/10
Production : 7/10

Tributes can often be a case of blowing off the dust and rehashing but the two-disc tribute to the super-wierd Gary Numan, RANDOM (Shock), is alive and refreshing.
Maybe it's a testament to the talents of the Englishman who made synthesisers, robotic dance, the new romantics and the Bogart-styled Trilby fashionable during the '80s.
Numan was off-the-wall but maybe it was the often unappreciative listening public that was behind the times. The styles on the tribute vary just as much as the artists.
The opening song, Stormtrooper In Drag, is a trance-dance number from St Etienne, followed by the heavy Poetry and Power performed by Gravity Kills.
Bands like EMF, Jesus Jones, The Orb and Pop Will Eat Itself pump out various sounds ranging from electronic numbers to a piano version of Absolution by Amanda Ghost. All the Numan hits are covered by some 26 artists. The collection is brilliant.

And Numan's brilliance is captured by the London boy himself on the best-of CD PREMIER HITS (Shock).
Top-10 hits like Cars, Are Friends Electric?, We Are Glass and Down In The Park (a cover was done by the Foo Fighters) all appear on the 18-track CD.
Lesser-known songs like Sister Surprise and This Wreckage also appear. Both CDs should evoke flash-backs for those who experienced the 80s and would be a historical trip of how 90s music came to be for the adventurous.

The reviewer, an obviously enlightened guy called Brian Semmens, gave both albums 3 stars out of 5 (perhaps a bit stingy considering how positive the review was!).

In addition, when I recently went into the excellent (if expensive) Red Eye Records shop they had a monster great Random poster displayed in a prominent position. They also had several smaller adverts around the shop - these turned out to be clipped from music papers. I asked if I could have one of these to scan in for Outland, but they told me to get stuffed (well, more or less).

NERD GOD REVISITED NuWorld: The Official Gary Numan Website
Somehow it comes as no surprise that Gary Numan, the late '70s singer with the persona of an android, should have his own state-of-the-art Web page. Now 38, Numan makes a nice living thank you on his royalties, which enable him to indulge his hobby as a demonstration pilot at airshows.

First there was the Gary Numan best-of collection, Premier Hits. Now his electric friends (including Jesus Jones, EMF, The Orb, Bis and Pop Will Eat Itself) have delivered a double-disc tribute album, containing no fewer than three versions of his 1979 breakthrough smash, Are Friends Electric. The stand-out is An Pierle's haunting, Tori Amos-like piano version of the song. Numan fans will love this work - and look out for his autobiography.

The reviewer gives the album 2 stars (out of 5).

Remember Gary Numan? Nowadays he spends most of his time flying planes, but at the end of the Seventies and start of the Eighties he was flying high on the pop charts with his quirky electro-pop (Are Friends Electric, Cars, We Are Glass). Premier Hits is a collection of 17 Numan singles. A timely release, given the current electro-rock success of the Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers.

The reviewer gives the album 2 stars (out of 5).