WHITE NOISE LIVE is a two-disc compilation that spans several years in Gary Numan's long career as a cult artist. A small coterie of devoted fans obsesses over Numan, but he's either sneered at as a has-been one-hit wonder or simply ignored by pretty much everyone else. Judging by the healthy crowd noise heard on these tracks recorded in concert during the mid-'90s. Numan's fans are a passionate lot, The guitarist/synthesist rewards the faithful with a song selection that stretches all the way back to his debut single with Tubeway Army, the 1978 post-punk classic "Are Friends Electric?," and forward to the then-new EXILE album. The arrangements are looser than one might expect, given Numan's reputation as a technology fetishist, and R&B-style female backing vocals invest Numan's primarily chillly, Phillip K. Dick-inspired lyrics with some humanizing soul. WHITE NOISE LIVE is unlikely to change non-fans' minds, but it's probably the best of the many live Numan discs