The Pleasure Principle has been described as featuring
synth-pop,
new wave, and
electronica throughout. Numan completely abandoned electric guitar on the album. This change, coupled with frequent use of synthetic percussion, produced the most purely electronic and robotic sound of his career. In addition to the
Minimoog synthesizer employed on his previous album, Numan made liberal use of the
Polymoog keyboard, particularly its distinctive "Vox Humana" preset. Other production tricks included copious amounts of
flanging,
phasing and
reverb, plus the unusual move of including solo
viola and
violin parts in the arrangements. Lyrically, the album continued the
science fiction-themes of the previous album. While not a theme album the way
Replicas was, Numan has described the songs as "more of a collection of thoughts I'd had about the way
technology was evolving and where it would take us." helping make
The Pleasure Principle Numan's strongest North American showing, but lack of a strong commercial follow-up resulted in him being tagged as a
one-hit wonder there. "Complex", featuring an arrangement including
piano,
violin (played by
Ultravox's
Billy Currie) and
viola, was chosen as the second single from the album, released in November 1979. Despite its commercial success, peaking at No. 6 in the UK during a nine-week chart run, Numan later regretted the choice of it as a single and that "Metal" should have been released instead. ==Title and cover image==