Dance is the third solo studio album by the English new wave musician Gary Numan, released on 4 September 1981 by Beggars Banquet Records. It was the first studio album Numan released after his "Farewell Concerts" staged at Wembley Arena (although Numan would return to performing live shows in 1982).

Dance features the single "She's Got Claws", which reached no. 6 on the singles chart in September 1981 during a six-week chart run. The album itself reached no. 3 on the UK charts and remained on the charts for eight weeks, and was certified with a silver disc in the UK for over 60,000 sales. Dance is described as Numan's first true solo album, having previously been supported by an accompanying backing band on his previous albums.

Retrospectively, on a vinyl double LP reissue of the album, Ned Ragget wrote in a highly positive 2018 review in The Quietus that Numan's Dance is "one of the most interesting albums he ever released", calling it a "weirdly thrilling" album where "everything had gotten calmer, quieter, more introspective, but no less electronic or textured" [than his previous albums], especially pointing out the ten minute "Cry, The Clock Said" as a highlight, a song that is "capturing deep blue melancholia with precision and skill, a further processing of heartache. With its steady beats almost like a rhythmic patter of raindrops, a guest appearance by Canadian prog figure Nash The Slash on violin adding delicately mournful touches, keyboards softly sparkling then withdrawing, a lead melody played with calm deliberation, Numan's clipped lyric delivered with a wounded yearn, it's easily one of his most affecting numbers then and now. His spoken-word break can barely be heard, a self-rumination, and if the joke is to say that the robot is finally human, a better take is to say that there aren't many songs like it anywhere that capture the shocked emptiness after a decisive break, like the heart steadily beats but there's not much to warm it or comfort it". Raggett also pointed out that "Numan's obsessive love of strong rhythms plays out – the soft bursts and beats of electronic pulses, often touched with gentle echo, are nearly always played first and foremost in the mix, and he hangs the song's hooks around them with the same catchiness as he had readily demonstrated over nearly everything he'd already released. It's not art-rock, it's art-pop, but transformed, extended."

A few years after Dances release Numan conceded, "if I was supposed to be a pop star doing music for the masses, it probably wasn't the right thing to do", but he praised the standard of playing on it.

Track listing

  • Previous CD releases of Dance (Japan in 1990, and the UK in 1993) included "Love Needs No Disguise", Numan's 1981 single with Dramatis, as a bonus track. The track was subsequently replaced by its B-side, "Face to Face", for the subsequent edition of Dance, although "Love Needs No Disguise" would be included on the 1996 Numan compilation, The Premier Hits.

On 19 January 2018, Beggars Arkive released Dance as a vinyl double-album, with the following track listing:

  • The only previously unreleased track in the 2018 edition of Dance is the extended version of "Moral," which is over a minute longer than the version in the original album. The 2018 edition of Dance otherwise replicates the track listing of the standard CD edition.

Personnel

  • Gary Numan – vocals, Polymoog, SCI Prophet-5, Roland Jupiter-4, Yamaha CP-30, ARP Odyssey, Roland CR-78, Linn LM-1, Claptrap, guitar, bass, piano, percussion, claves, handclaps
  • Paul Gardiner – bass, guitar, ARP Odyssey
  • Cedric Sharpley – drums
  • Chris Payne – viola
  • John Webb – Roland Jupiter-4, Linn LM-1, handclaps
  • Jess Lidyard – drums
  • Mick Karn – fretless bass, saxophone
  • Nash the Slash – violin
  • Roger Taylor – drums, tom-toms
  • Rob Dean – guitar
  • Tim Steggles – percussion
  • Sean Lynch – Linn LM-1
  • Connie Filapello – vocals
  • Roger Mason – SCI Prophet-5, Yamaha CP-30
  • Mick Prague – bass

Charts

{| class="wikitable"

!Chart (1981)

!Peak position

|-

|United Kingdom (OCC)

|3

|-

|United States

|167

|-

|Australia

|85

|}

{| class="wikitable"

!Chart (2018)

!Peak position

|-

|United Kingdom (OCC)