Are 'Friends' Electric?
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Are 'Friends' Electric? is an electropop ballad written and recorded by Gary Numan with his band Tubeway Army, and included on the 1978 album Replicas. It was Numan's first single to chart at #1 in the United Kingdom, in 1979.
The lyrics supposedly refer to Philip K. Dick's sci-fi story, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. It is the tale of a lonely and paranoid man whose only friend is a robot that has broken down; its lyrical themes of alienation and isolation were a Numan hallmark at this time in his career. Musically the song is notable for its plaintive, emotional qualities, which were in stark contrast to the deliberately cold and computerized sound preferred by other synthesizer-based artists like Kraftwerk. The single signals the start of the then unnamed New Romantics and the single remains not only one of the outstanding singles of 1979 but one of the greatest techno pop records of all time.
The song was covered by Information Society in their 1997 album "Don't Be Afraid". It was also heavily sampled in 2002 on the track "Freak Like Me" by Sugababes - this song also reached number one on the UK singles charts.