Demo excerpt
Album Version
Over the last two decades entire swathes of the entertainment have successfully wired themselves more to the cyclical nature of nostalgia than ever before. The 2010s became a garish monument to eighties styles and sounds, overlooked in part by discount versions of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
The likes of ‘Uptown Funk’ and ‘Get Lucky’ dominated the airwaves with liberal throwbacks to the likes of R+B hitmakers like Prince and Chic (the latter track even recruiting Chic mastermind Nile Rodgers on guitar and songwriting) and while former chart stalwarts are rarely seen on the UK top ten this is as much down to customers moving away from operating in circles easily surmised by one or a dozen sample sizes as it is changing cultural tastes.
In an age of seemingly perpetual crises we appear to be drawn further to existing comforts whether that be entertainment choices (helped by the rise of streaming) or one’s voting inclination (see the rising tide of populist movements partly spearheaded in part by a yearning for ‘the good old days’).
As an established rock act, the changing market offers simultaneously more and fewer options to the maturing artist. You can play the nostalgia circuits, roll out the hits to sell-out stadium crowds and pepper the setlist with the obligatory smattering of new material. You can avoid that as well, see the recent reunion of Rage Against The Machine which was marked not by new material but controversy over alleged ticket price gouging.
You can take the legacy to the arenas (Pink Floyd performed the entirety of The Wall during a series of 2010s shows, Kraftwerk have spent the last twenty years almost exclusively touring their classic material) or if the act is disbanded (or deceased) you can work the back catalogue route with elaborate reissues of career-defining albums or eras. The estates of the late David Bowie and Prince have favoured this approach recently, often favouring the most lucrative physical format: vinyl.
As record sales continue to haemorrhage, vinyl has become the most relevant physical format. Every other back catalogue announcement is another forgotten piece of music history being given a vinyl pressing, sometimes for the first time. Audiophiles may swear by the format’s superior fidelity, and I can understand the appeal behind a prestigious version of your favourite albums. Vinyl often has more expansive liner notes, sometimes a reordered track listing with new or exclusive material. We used to have bonus tracks on CDs to get us to speed up vinyl’s obsolescence, over thirty years later we have bonus tracks on vinyl to get us to reinvest in the very same format.
‘Cold’ is one of these vinyl exclusive songs, offering a third possible format for Savage. The standard edition has ten tracks, the deluxe CD adds ‘If I Said’ before ‘Broken’ and the vinyl places ‘If I Said’ as track eight and adds ‘Cold’ as the closer. My personal choice of tracklist would put ‘If I Said’ before ‘What God Intended’ and ‘Cold’ after to keep the longer and slower numbers split up.
Seemingly born out of an early ‘My Name Is Ruin’ demo, ‘Cold’ appeared destined to be a minor track although anything after the uniquely structured curtain-closer ‘Broken’ would be underwhelming. Taken on it’s own merits Numan offers a suitably burnt-out vocal atop one of the more organic instrumentals on the record. The first chorus has the instruments fall away leaving Gary’s vocal “and you feel so cold” hanging in the air like breath fogging in the winter. Even as the track builds, there’s a sense of things not quite hanging together, like something could give at anytime. Eventually something does, by Gary’s final few lines the bulk of the arrangement is shed, leaving a horn reminiscent of ‘Pressure’ fading out.
‘Cold’ was exclusive to the vinyl pressing of Savage and has yet to make its live debut.
Top: Gene Takovic considers his situation. Publicity still from Better Call Saul (Season 2 Episode 1: Switch), 2016.
Bottom: Tweet by Gary Numan on September 19, 2017; "Really loving the Savage picture disc vinyl format :)"
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