Song of the Day 01-27-14: The Heavy Metal rocking band, Fear Factory, did a great cover version of Gary Numan’s 1979 smash hits “Cars” in 1999, but before we get to that let’s talk about the original release. Mr. Numan recorded and released a single from his album Pleasure Principle in 1979 entitled “Cars”. Numan claims that the song was inspired by a incident of road rage while driving through the streets of London. Whatever the inspiration was, the song was considered a new wave smash because it charted in several countries. It hit #1 in the UK and Canada but only hit #9 here in the U.S. The band Fear Factory started performing the song while on tour in 1996 and word spread to Numan’s manager who arranged a meeting with Numan and the band in Vancouver to do a three day recording of the song for the band’s upcoming release of their album Obsolete. Numan had a long-standing dislike for being associated with what he perceived as dated music, and this initially made him apprehensive of working with Fear Factory until realizing there was a chance that it could introduce me to a new generation of people who didn’t know my history. And that can be useful, because my music’s got a lot heavier and darker anyway. The result would be satisfactory for both parties, and Numan praised the band as brilliant, really easy to work with. They didn’t have a bad word to say about anyone. Cars played a significant part in Obsoletes status as Fear Factorys highest-selling album. By 2001, it had sold over 750,000 copies but the song never charted here in the US, only in the UK.
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 15:53:29 +0000
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