Tubeway Army - Are 'Friends' Electric?

Released in the summer of 1979, this cold dark single that ran for over five minutes appeared out of nowhere after one appearance on Top Of The Pops and pushed the single to number 1. First described as "Machine Music" this electronic single paved the way for all the other bands like OMD, The Human League & Depeche Mode to get airplay who before had struggled with the punk/new wave scene that was still around.

Gary Numan had formed Tubeway Army in 1978, released one album and was in the recording studio recording the follow up album which was to be Replicas, when he came across a synth in the studio. Everyone had thought what a great idea it was of his to make an electronic single, but as he admitted later on, all he did was replace lead guitar parts with the keyboard parts instead. After appearing on TOTP and a gimmick release of a limited editon 7'' picture disc, it climbed the charts and stayed at number 1 for 4 weeks and a classic was made!

Here are the images of the single, the original picture cover plus both sides of the limited edition picture disc