This Wreckage

"This Wreckage"
Single by Gary Numan
from the album Telekon
B-side	"Photograph"
Released	12 December 1980[1]
Recorded	Rock City Studios, Shepperton, 1980
Genre	Pop rock[2]
Length	5:26
Label	Beggars Banquet BEG 50
Songwriter(s)	Gary Numan
Producer(s)	Gary Numan
Gary Numan singles chronology
"I Die: You Die" (1980) "This Wreckage" (1980) "Stormtrooper in Drag" (1981)

"This Wreckage" is a song written and performed by Gary Numan. It was featured as the opening track on his 1980 second LP Telekon.[3]

"This Wreckage" followed the singles "We Are Glass" and "I Die: You Die", which were only included on the cassette release of Telekon and on later reissues. Released in December 1980, "This Wreckage" reached No. 20 on the UK Singles Chart. Numan later admitted that, regardless of its merits as a song, it was a "bloody stupid single".[4] The song was later described as "possibly the strangest Top 20 hit of all time", a fore-runner of "the slightly one-note anti-religious goth-industrial music" Numan would favour later in his career.[5]

References

1. "Music Week" (PDF). p. 26.
2. Evans, Richard (August 6, 2024). "1980.3". Listening to the Music the Machines Make: Inventing Electronic Pop 1978-1983. Omnibus Press. p. 234. ISBN 978-1-915841-45-2.
3. Conte, Frank (9 October 1980). "Reviews: Gary Numen - Telekon". The Boston Globe. p. 82. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
4. Stephen Webbon & Gary Numan (1985). "Complete Gary Numan UK Discography". Record Collector (December 1985, No. 76): p.15
5. McNamee, David (17 November 2008). "It Started With A Mix: One Side Of A C90 From Synth Pop Pioneer Gary Numan". The Quietus. Retrieved 16 November 2023.