The Pleasure Principle is Gary Numan’s third studio album (and debut under his own name) and marked the point where he became a huge international solo star, reaching the Top 10 in the US with “Cars” and Top 20 with the album itself. The Pleasure Principle pioneered electronic pop music on a new scale, becoming a much bigger hit worldwide than Kraftwerk or anything from the Bowie/Eno Berlin trilogy. And the fact that it was so different and had such a major impact in America (crystallized when Numan performed “Cars” and “Praying To The Aliens” in front of 40 million people on Saturday Night Live) meant that there was a direct link from The Pleasure Principle to the new musical forms that were born in the USA over the next decade - namely hip hop, industrial and techno.