Originally released in 1982, I, Assassin is Gary Numan's sixth studio album and fourth under his own name. Combining fretless bass with heavy rock drumming, Numan further refined his dark, sparse, funky-electro style, mixing it with impenetrable, slurred vocals. Numan recorded and wrote most of the music between January and March 1982, following his infamous round-the-world trip in a light aircraft and a near-death crash onto a British road while co-piloting a spiralling Cessna. Three of the album's songs made it into the UK top 20. According to Numan, who was still only 24-years-old at the time, "the round-the-world flight, the plane crash, these were big things that helped me shape a new opinion of myself. Those experiences gave me a self-confidence, a genuine strength that I hadn't had before." Twenty years later, the singer enthused, "I still think it's one of the best albums I've made."