[8] In contrast to Numan's previous album The Pleasure Principle, Telekon featured heavy use of guitars and a richer, more complex sound with a broadened use of different synthesizers in combination with viola and violin.
The album's sound ranges from heavier tracks such as "I'm an Agent" and "The Joy Circuit" to more sombre, melancholic songs such as "Sleep by Windows" and "Remember I Was Vapour".
"[10] In an interview with Smash Hits magazine in November 1979 Numan hinted on initial plans that his next album Telekon was going to be about telekinesis.
Like Numan's previous album, Telekon received a largely hostile reception in the British music press on its release, but has proved to be an influential work cited as a major influence by musicians such as Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Stephen Merritt of Magnetic Fields.
[9] Upon its release in 1980, Smash Hits reviewer Red Starr found Telekon to be "better than The Pleasure Principle but not so good as Replicas" and that Numan was "recycling old ideas instead of pioneering new ones.
"[6] In a retrospective review for Pitchfork Media in 1999, Michael Sandlin wrote: "On Telekon, Numan is a master texturalist, skilled in creating synth parts that perfectly coalesce and swim melodically around each other; an interplay much like Television innovated in the mid-1970s using guitars.
Many of today's legions of sample- happy, MIDI- obsessed nerds claim to have learned a thing or two from Numan's intelligent compositional craft.
"[4] NME used the track title "I Dream of Wires" as the name for a fictitious synth-pop act about which they published a series of spoof articles in early 1995, culminating in reports of the alleged band's death in a coach crash in Eastern Europe.
[23] "I Dream of Wires" was covered by English singer Robert Palmer on his 1980 studio album Clues, featuring Numan on keyboards and synthesisers.
[24] "I'm an Agent" was covered by English pop punk band Kenickie as a bonus CD track on CD1 of their January 1997 number 24 hit single "In Your Car".