Glamour Boys: Duran Duran in the 1980s (Pt. 5--Three Against the World)

11/18/1986

Roger Taylor bowed out after the recording of "A View To A Kill," citing "burnout."  Andy Taylor stayed, but strung along his band mates as he completed a solo LP in Los Angeles.  With session drummer Steve Ferrone and Zappa/Missing Persons guitarist Warren Cuccurillo brought in to facilitate the recording of wreck-hard number four,  the Duran Duran that fans knew and smothered with maniacal obsessive love essentially vanished from the planet, vamoosed the caboose, and exited left of stage in apoplectic rage.

Fresh off the hells of two ill-fated side projects (and Simon LeBon's brush with death in a yachting mishap), stylistic whiplash was inevitable, and perhaps inevitably painful.  The presence of band hero/one-time savior Nile Rodgers on the boards and on record helped to shrink the swelling somewhat.  John Taylor yearned for funky horns all over Notorious like cheese on macaroni--Simon LeBon, not so much.  In a violation of the standard rock-star rulebook, the singer did not overrule all here.  Notorious is nothing if not brazenly brassy.

"Notorious"--A top 3 smash in the States (top 10 in their homeland), "Notorious" is perhaps best known these days as either Sparkle Motion's last-minute soundtrack in Donnie Darko or as Diddy's so-obvious-it-blocked-my-nasal-passages sample choice for yet another tribute to his long-deceased yet still-valid meal ticket, Notorious B.I.G.  

Too bad.  This is how you kick off an album, confidence and intelligence covering every inch.  "Notorious" is a vigorously defiant "V"-up to any and all second-guessers and would-be underminers of the double D juggernaut:  "Lay your seedy judgments/Who says they're part of our lives?"  Their ex-band mate is also a target:  "Who really gives a damn for a flaky bandit?"  Damn, Simon, GET 'EM.

There's actually nothing to not love.  The chicken-scratch guitar at 2:00, the horny embellishments to the chorus starting at 2:56, the way they sing the word "notorious," it's all filthy good.  Back-against-wall is a good position for the boys.

"Girls will keep the secrets/As long as boys make a noise."  That line is peach pie amazing.  It can go in so many different directions.

"I'll leave you lonely/Don't monkey with my business."

I wish I didn't care about being factual and doing research, otherwise I'd love to sell you on the theory that this was a George Michael dis.

"American Science"--Oh shit, kid, drama is afoot.  The band were going for dazzling here, but misspelled it with an extra "z."

"Skin Trade"--For a song whose purported concept is "There's a little hooker in each of us," this walks the streets far too leisurely.  Taking inspiration from a well-drained writer's catalog (in this case, Dylan Thomas) does not give one license to underwhelm.

The Duran Duran of even two years prior would have made "Skin Trade" sexy and complex, as well as sultry, sensual, salacious, and many other words that begin with the letter "S" and all mean more or less the same thing.  But times change, people change, and tastes change.  Years under white-hot spotlight aged our heroes rapidly.

"A Matter of Feeling"--Oh, fame is alienating!  Weep for the isolated rock god!  Where hath his soul gone?  Why is it such a chore to just feel anymore, damnit?!  

Fuck that.  Nick Rhodes bought a Picasso on his AmEx card.  You think I can go to MOMA and throw down my fucking Visa and walk away with that Braque piece I love so much?  Do you think they'll accept my generous offer of one million payments of five dollars spread out over 370,000 years?  Will they HELL.  New York assholes!

"Hold Me"--Oh man, I thought "In a Big Country" was starting up and got excited.  Then the real song happened and I was crestfallen.

"Vertigo (Do the Demolition)"--Simon's stern and heartfelt lecture to John concerning the latter's worsening dependence on chemical comforts.    In other words, a dabbler tut-tutting a full-blown.

The sounds conjured are a fit companion, leaving sleaze trails so positively of the decade that Crockett and Tubbs could trawl strip joints to them.  Despite the title's promise, the proceedings remain steady...perhaps a lesson by example?

"So Misled"--A cornucopia of insignificant ideas.  But enough about Rebecca.

"Meet El Presidente"--What a Prince-ly falsetto on display here, Mr. LeBon.  Slower than it is simple, but harbor no query, it is simple.  Thatcher?  Reagan?  Castro?  Heroin?  Is it heroin?!  Throwing out a bait-less hook into the open waters, oh I don't approve of that at all.

They released "El Presidente" as a single and it tanked.  But but, where was Nile Rodgers to shore up their hit potential?  Oh, that's right--he was already there behind the boards.  You're' telling me he never once thought to futz with the pitch or add kazoos?  

"Winter Marches On"--"To drink from her breast of fortune."  Because just coming out and saying "big tits" is anathema to masters of 80s pop music.

Faux-emoting doesn't derail the train, thankfully, free as it is of BIG DRAMATIC DRUM CAR, leaving orchestral elements to sink along the rails.  Like so much of this album, "Winter Marches On" passes through my ears leaving little impact other than it wasn't an unpleasant listening experience to have.

"Proposition"--Nick's shuffle keeps distraction at bay, chiming insistently, a Morse Code missive reminding fans why they ever gave multiple bothers about the boys to begin with.  Only problem, there's more sway than thrust apparent, and that's no way to reach satisfactory climax.

62 Years of Peanuts

The greatest comic strip ever debuted 62 years ago today.  On October 2, 1950, a mere seven U.S. newspapers gave their readers the option of Peanuts.  At its eventual peak, the strip would appear in over 2,600 papers worldwide.

Some time ago I listed my favorite Peanuts dailies and Sundays, and if you missed it or would like to revisit, I've compiled all the posts here in one helpful "link-bomb."  Please enjoy.

The Honor Bag
Greatest Dailies, 50-41
Greatest Dailies, 40-31
Greatest Dailies, 30-21
Greatest Dailies, 20-11
Greatest Dailies, 10-1
Greatest Sundays, 20-11
Greatest Sundays, 10-1

Glamour Boys: Duran Duran in the 1980s (Pt. 4--A Side Project Of My Own)

I was only eight years old when it happened. Of course I had no idea.

 Power Station, that was just John and Andy Taylor taking a little break, hooking up with fellow rock star Robert Palmer and having some supergroup fun. That "Bang A Gong" song sure sounds swell, especially when to you T-Rex = dinosaur. Why would any of that indicate disharmony within the ranks of their wildly successful pop group?

 Same with Arcadia. Except not at all, because I will never be of an age to care about Simon LeBon and Nick Rhodes' extracurricular douchecrabbery.

 I didn't know the end was nigh. I did realize, thanks to my older brother, that Duran Duran were on tap to record the title song for the upcoming James Bond film. I also knew, again thanks to my 007-nerd of a sibling, that Roger Moore was about three years too old for the role of the suave British Naval Commander/spy. But he had no idea that said song would be the last recorded by the original quintet for another sixteen years.

 Performing the (usually titular) song that plays over the flashy opening credits of a James Bond film is still a prestigious honor. Artist and production studio alike crave instant credibility, and this provides ample opportunity.

Reviews of the films themselves could take up a whole 'nother TJMD series…they most likely will not.  I am, thanks to familial interference, an avowed fan of the double agent on screen AND page, so as an excuse to write about one of Duran Duran's best-ever tracks, I present to you my own side project.  Reviews of each Bond theme, in chronological order.

DR. NO (1962)

"James Bond Theme"

John Barry Orchestra

Just as Cy Young's 511 career wins should be exempt from inclusion on any list of sports' most unbreakable records, so should Dr. No's opening track be excluded when considering the great Bond themes.  It is the Bond theme!  Yer not gonna shatter that sword in a duel anytime soon.

Combining the swing of a virtuoso big band with staccato guitar that sweats like casino walls while lacking the usual odor of desperation-sweat, this is all-time.  House doesn't win; Bond wins.  All the time.  He doesn't play the numbers, he is the number.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963)

"From Russia With Love/James Bond Is Back/James Bond Theme"

John Barry Orchestra

This instrumental isn't too far from Percy Faith…but far enough.  Segues painlessly into the beloved theme, because no one is to forget that they are watching Bond, James Bond.  Did you know he's an orphan?  Pity.

Some rate the vocal version of the theme that plays over the end credits. Clearly I don't.  Sung by Matt Monro ("The Ugly Sinatra"), listening to it is as forlorn an experience as reading most Beat poetry.

GOLDFINGER (1964)

Shirley Bassey

If this song were a drama student, the teacher would tell it to slice the ham a little thinner.  The trumpets don't blare and whine, they wail and bleat.  Shirley Bassey's intensely dedicated vocal performance gives premature birth to the phrase "seductive silliness."  A top-tenner in the States, but just missed the top 20 in Bond's homeland of the United Kingdom.  Check in our column!

"Goldfinger" is the first of Bassey's unmatched three turns at singing a Bond theme (no other vocalist has done more than one) and as top-notch a flick as it is--sublimely ridiculous plot, hot bitches with ballsy names, cool cars, superbly-monikered villain and his imminently-deadly, cult-friendly sidekick--without Bassey's touch, it would all feel like the Discovery Channel without Shark Week.  The very first notes generate a massive excitement that endures throughout the entire 110 minutes of the film.  

Producer Harry Saltzman hated this one; thankfully, his was not the final say.

THUNDERBALL (1965)

Tom Jones

On the heels of Goldfinger's blockbuster success, Thunderball was an inevitable massive hit in theaters.  Never mind that nearly fifty years on, it's exposed as a tedious and suffocating Cold War relic.  

I'll give Tom Jones credit, he definitely "says it with his chest."  I would imagine this gusto extends to all facets of his existence, and would explain why throughout the peaks and valleys of his career he has maintained a reputation as a Lothario nonpareil despite looking like Burt Convy's death mask with some hair sewn on it.

Just like "Goldfinger" before it, "Thunderball" starts off with some egregious horseplay.  Also, it tells us the fantastical story of the dastardly bastard our hero must thwart lest the world suck significantly more. His name is not Thunderball, but--"He strikes like Thunderball."  It becomes slightly scarier when you learn what Thunderball is, but only a bit, and you may have fallen unconscious by that point in the film.

The original choice for a theme was a song entitled "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," pretty much the greatest possible description of these films.  Shirley Bassey was brought on board, then Dionne Warwick, but then United Artists, in the dynamite-fuse-finite wisdom of all major motion picture studios, decreed that since the movie was named Thunderball, the song must also be named "Thunderball."

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967)

Nancy Sinatra

"One life for yourself/And one for your dreams."

A perfect aural representation of the film's Far East setting, "YOLT" is one of just a few Bond themes that has gained renown as a worthy song even when considered independently of the behemoth it was created to help keep upright.  Yes, Robbie Williams' shameless sampling for "Millennium" was horrific, but the use of this song in the closing minutes of Mad Men's fifth season was mute-button brilliant.  It's much more than a song for the hero.  Much much more.

Neither soundtrack god John Barry or Miss Sinatra herself were terribly thrilled with the vocal take here, and technically it is tremulous in parts, maybe even timid.  Compared to Queen Shirley's gleaming tour de force, it can seem lackluster.  But considered within the proper context, and judged on its own merits, Nancy's vox perfectly serves the theme of the song.

ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969)

John Barry Orchestra

The studio was in a frenzy over having to replace Sean Connery in the role, but the composition crew wasn't having an easy time of it either.  How the hell do you fit that title in a song?  And what rhyme do you use?  Nervous?  Cervix?  John Barry did better emerging from his muck, blessing our ears with a blue-orange instrumental that takes the classic theme and traumatizes it just enough so that we recognize it on sight, but can't help but acknowledge that it's been through some shit.  Moogs.  Alpine horns.  What rhymes with, "Best chase scene music ever"?

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971)

Shirley Bassey 

Vibrant.  Mesmerizing.  Powerful.  Everything the movie was not, despite the best efforts of Wint and Kidd, Bambi and Thumper, Jimmy and Dean.  Diamonds cascading out of a purple velvet bag.  

"I don't need love….Diamonds never lie to me."

Just like Shirley's prior contribution, Harry Saltzman was not fond of this one.  I can't believe they let this guy have money.

LIVE AND LET DIE (1973)

Paul McCartney & Wings

The first Bond theme classifiable as "rock," this was a huge chart hit as well as strong contender for most successful and well-known of them all.  Getting a fucking ex-Beatle to write and sing a Bond song?  Anything less than pyrotechnic bliss would have been an unspectacular failure following the true meteoric trajectory.  What Macca delivered was:  piano ballad/rock opera/reggae shuffle/reset.  Also the lyric "If this ever-changing world in which we live in," which suffers from the same redundancy as my last name, but (also like my last name) is forgiven just because it's so damn fly.

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (1974)

Lulu

I love this song, for the reason many despise it--it is so ridiculous that it sounds like a parody of the Bond franchise.  Those near-comically zig-zagging strings, countered with mournful brass and--best of all, like blue ribbons and gold stars all over its chest--that 1970s porno-wah magic.

Lulu handles the entendre-laden lyrics with all the gusto they have coming to (and from) them.  It's really the lyrics fans have beef with, for leaning too hard on lascivious puns, to which I can only reply--these are James Bond movies.  Pussy Galore.  Honey Ryder.  Goldfinger's first name was Auric, for Christ's sake.  Speaking of Jesus, do you know how many times the not-accurate anniversary of his birth is celebrated annually?  I mean in this movie alone Bond flirts briefly with a swimmer named Chu Mi and sips Foo Yuk during a dinner with Mary Goodnight.  You don't go to a candy store and bitch about all the chocolate, do you?  WOW, THIS DOG PARK WOULD BE A GREAT PLACE TO HANG OUT IF IT JUST DIDN'T HAVE ALL THE DOGS!

John Barry's least favorite of all the themes.  Good for him.

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977)

"Nobody Does It Better"

Carly Simon

Another for the pantheon.  Huge hit, and so wonderfully crafted by Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager that it has long outgrown its initial role as "just another Bond tune" and been featured in other movies.  It also appears on AFI's "100 Greatest Movie Songs" at #67, the only 007 track so honored.  

All Carly had to do with this one was show up, and she did.  

The lyric "Nobody does it better/Though sometimes I wish someone would" has always intrigued me (in that one-eyebrow-up way, as opposed to both of them).  It nails the frequent agony of loving a jet-setting super-sleuth who will always put his majesty above his conquests.

MOONRAKER (1979)

Shirley Bassey

Queen Shirley's final turn at the mic is also her least impressive, although very little of the underwhelming atmosphere is directly attributable to her efforts.  She was a last minute choice, after Johnny Mathis flaked out.  Maybe he saw the lyrics?

"Just like the Moonraker goes in search of his dream of gold/I search for love, for someone to have and hold."

Yeah.  It just goes on like that.

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY  (1981)

Sheena Easton

Follows the pattern established by "Live and Let Die" and "Nobody Does It Better":  top 10 in the U.S. and U.K., Oscar nomination.  Yes, it's more "soft chick-shit."  Eat it, piggish fanboys.  The chorus is better than your blog, probably.  Everything that was good and right about 80s pop balladry.  What didn't that decade do with supreme excellence?  Oh, right...elect American Presidents.  That aside!  Spacious, warm, worth revisiting. Work that, Sheena.

OCTOPUSSY (1983)

"All-Time High"

Rita Coolidge

A resolute non-smash as handled by a country crooner several years past her peak.  A surprising choice, and one apparently made to appease the daughter of producer Cubby Broccoli.  If its reputation is that of a half-ass love ballad that has squat to do with the film it precedes--well, it's still rather catchy.  Yes, there's certainly times it sounds like the music to a Stephen J. Cannell TV drama, but it was the 80s!  Best decade ever!

A VIEW TO A KILL (1985)

Duran Duran 

The only Bond tune to hit #1 in America was born unceremoniously:  Duran bassist and mega Bond-freak John Taylor approached Cubby Broccoli at a party, possibly stumbling the entire way, and blurted, "When are you going to get someone decent to do one of your songs?"

Common sense would have dictated Cubby pat John on his head, chuckle, and moonwalk to the adjacent room.  But, it seems Mr. Broccoli never heard the last time Duran Duran provided a theme for a movie (that never was), the bloodless and brainless "Wild Boys," and took up the pixilated bassist on his "offer."

"A View To a Kill" is as magnificent a piece of potent pop menace as A View To A Kill is a rancid bucket of stercoraceous vomit.  It's right up there with "The Man With the Golden Gun" as far as being a sonic parody of the entire brand it's intended to celebrate, but this time erring on the side of devilish suspense.

It goes without saying--yet, here we are--that the lyrics are absolutely state-of-emergency impenetrable.  "A sacred why/A mystery gaping inside/The weekend's why."  Yep!  "That fatal kiss is all we need."  Mind you, John Barry's orchestration alongside the band makes this all sound positively Wilde.  The last truly great Bond theme, and I have little faith that it will be challenged anytime soon.  

John's bass challenged Jaws from Moonraker to a refrigerator-eating contest and won decisively.  Score one for determined fanboys.  

THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (1987)

a-ha

Made top 5 in the U.K. but didn't make a dent here, 'cause unlike much of Europe, we Americans picked up on the fact a-ha had the one undeniable song that would endure, and chose to ignore the rest of the relative clap-trap they produce.  (See also:  Spandau Ballet.)  So while on this side of the pond the decision to let the musical pride and joy of Norway headline the soundtrack was greeted with furrowed brows and narrowed eyes, it made sense over there.

The introduction sounds enough like Madonna's "Angel" to convince me a good song is about to happen.  But the lyrics are prophetic:  "Set my hopes up way too high."  Yep.  "Living's in the way we die."  Wow, way to extinguish all the tension from the one room that needed it.  Does your lifestyle determine your deathstyle as well, pray tell?

The Pet Shop Boys were originally on board, but pulled out after learning their services would be required for the theme song only, and not the entire soundtrack.  I appreciate their collective ego and ambition, but ah, what brilliance the authors of "West End Girls" might have wrought!

LICENCE TO KILL (1989)

Gladys Knight

That intro is so fantastic...

OHHH NOOOO!

ANOTHER FILM WITH DALTON!

HE DISAGREED WITH SOMETHING THAT ATE HIM!

SHARKY SHARKY SHARKY!

Bombastic bubble plastic.  Which isn't an insult.  I admire the chutzpah of recreating "Goldfinger" as an R & B song.

GOLDENEYE (1995)

Tina Turner

Just as the flick was a throwback to the days of when studios made intriguing, exciting, memorable installments to the series, the title song is a nice return to the days that a Bond song didn't make me press the fast-forward button through the remote control.  Short sharp stabs from nylon and lace-covered blades work well alongside surprisingly inoffensive lyrics from the two biggest douchebags in U2.  

TOMORROW NEVER DIES (1997)

Sheryl Crow

"Darling, I'm killed."  

Oh Christ, if only.

This charted high in the U.K….in fact all the latterly Bond themes have, while receiving little chart love in the States…which puts the whole "England is better than America" argument into serious question.  There's other things.  Like how the populace not only didn't kill the Gallagher brothers before they could escape the borders and poison other countries but actually permitted their preposterously unoriginal drudgery to flourish, like they wanted it to happen.  

Co-writer Mitchell Froom separated from his then-wife Suzanne Vega a year after this song was released.  I have seen no evidence tying the split to an affair with Crow, but this song is so repulsive that it could put foul, deceitful thoughts in anyone's head, so…I wouldn't be surprised.  

What's most disgusting is that this was not the original theme.  K.D. Lang's "Surrender"--a vastly superior track that sounds like a song that belongs in a James Bond movie--was relegated to the closing credits when Eon Productions decided to go with a bigger name and more conventionally attractive  (read: non-lesbian) image.  

AND--that picked guitar melody in the verse is just "Bringin' on the Heartbreak" by Def Leppard sped up a little bit.  

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (1999)

Garbage

Yep, another U.K. Top 10 hit.  England, I don't see the use in your defamation of America's character.  How can we improve if our mother doesn't set a sterling example for us to follow?

Anyway I listened to this song three times and can't remember any of it.  

DIE ANOTHER DAY (2002)

Madonna

Well, this hit the U.S. top 10 as well…sigh.

This is only the second-worst musical moment in the movie ("London Calling," anyone?).  Fans of this song gush over how edgy and fresh it is/was.  My thoughts are for the poor runner, she died on the track, and no one came forth to claim the corpse.  There it laid, till the elements had their way and nature took its course.

CASINO ROYALE (2006)

"You Know My Name"

Chris Cornell

Y'know, "Die Another Day" doesn't sound like the wretched crime against cognitive abilities that it is when paired with the film's opening credits.  Same here.  While "You Know My Name" isn't near that level of horrible, it is an undergrown Soundgarden indeed and let us move on.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008)

"Another Way To Die"

Jack White & Alicia Keys

Jack White took inspiration from On Her Majesty's Secret Service and somehow this happened.

"Something that you think that you can trust/Is just another way to die."

A random Tuvan person throat-singing the content of Swizz Beatz' paternity case court files would be more riveting and, frankly, musical.  This is the facile strut of someone who just got shot in both kneecaps.  Bond songs shouldn't make you root for the villain.

So…to conclude:

BEST BOND THEME:  "A View To A Kill."

WORST BOND THEME:  "Die Another Day."

Well done, boys.  And Maddy...the 80s are very disappointed in you.  

A Splash of Her

"A Splash of Her" is a new project put together by myself and Patrick Suddath, a zine that features a subject near and dear to each of our hearts:  women in music.  We put quality time into making this a mini-masterpiece.   Below, check out the promo video and if you are so moved, a link to purchase the zine.  Thanks, and enjoy!

$6.00 plus Shipping

U.S. and Canada $8.00 USD International $10.00 USD

Money Order also accepted.

Glamour Boys: Duran Duran in the 1980s (Pt. 3--The Model For All Years)

11/21/1983

(I'd have posted a hi-res pic if everything from the title to the uncomfortable relationship between the colors to the random strip of tiger pattern didn't piss me off so much.  Then there is of course the title of the album itself.)

Duran Duran brought in producer Ian Little to cultivate the foxy music babylon.  The completely unappealing title refers to the band members and the two men it took to manage them at the time, with the "ragged tiger" representing success.

Yeah, they'd reached that point.

Hanging with Warhol, getting hospitalized for "nose problems," dancing barefoot on smashed vodka bottles, publishing alleged art books, pursuing models then dumping them after a fortnight with no hoo-hah, and even taking wives...t'was the Duran era.

Music was still somehow at the center of it all, and after an album which managed to be both brilliant and popular, it was time to see how much heat the band could take without cracking.


"The Reflex"--The "so-gouda-it's-good-huh?" remix is the one most folks know (which made popping the cassette into the deck for the first time real interesting).  The band was not happy with the original's lack of "hit potential" (whereas I could give a toss) and sent the tracks to Nile Rodgers with a plea to work magic.  After waving around some steel drums, wooden blocks, and vox trickery, a rabbit came out of the hat, and the Duran boys had a #1 smash on both sides of the pond.

Nineteen years on, I can say confidently that I prefer the original version.  The things about the single remix that helped endear me to "The Reflex" as a young girl simply haven't aged well.  The fade-in is lightweight.  The "why-yi-yi" breakdown is superfluous filler.  Simon LeBon's words are ridiculous enough on their own.  I like them that way.  The man acknowledges his absurdity:  "Every little thing the reflex does/Leaves you answered with a question mark."  In other words, the song doesn't mean shit.  Thank you, good night, drive safely.

Now what to dig about the original?  The intro, with the guitars trying to mask their burps and groans.  The refreshing lack of steel drums, the one instrument along with French horn that has absolutely no place in a rock song.  And of course, at no point during the original version do we get:

WHY-YI-YI-YI W-W-WHY-YI-YI!

I love Nile Rodgers, I mean just this weekend I watched Coming To America and marveled at his soundtrack work, but sometimes a red wheelbarrow is just a red wheelbarrow.

"New Moon On Monday"--The video--which the band despises, as it makes them look like derelict ponces--is overlong and confusing.  Whereas the song is perfectly structured and confusing.  (And the very beginning reminds of me of Red Rider's "Lunatic Fringe," so, another check in its column.)  Despite no overhead handles to grip, "New Moon" is still a smooth ride, with a strong rousing rebel chorus that is in competition with "Hungry Like the Wolf" for Best Duran Chorus Ever (and by default, Best Pop Chorus Ever).  Songs like those you don't listen to just the once.

"(I'm Looking For) Cracks in the Pavement"--"My head is full of chopstick."  Just the one, then, sweetie?

"If I had a car/I'd drive it insane."  Now that I wish I had written.

This one's about thwarted ambition, which LeBon knows nothing about at this point in his life.  Once upon a time he did, but after a certain amount of records sold, money earned, and vaginas entered, a man's hardscrabble past is instantly expunged from the permanent record.  None of which invalidates the song.  It's fine.  But whereas the pair of tracks prior to it sounded like lush condos, "Cracks" is a one-bedroom walk-up.  LeBon's a sex-god Pynchon, you see, too distracted by his own fabulous brain-games to play well with others.

"I Take the Dice"--One could only hope that Andrew Farriss taking Jerry Casale's place in Devo would ever sound this good.

"Of Crime and Passion"--Seven falls short of Rio in the "pop masterpiece" stakes, but certainly not for lack of effort.  "Of Crime" stumbles about in the manner of "Dice" just before, but this one has weight behind it, and a gleam of cognition in its eyes, so it deserves some attention paid to it.

"Union of the Snake"--Duality is the theme.  First, the boys take inspiration from two sources:  Bowie's smash comeback "Let's Dance," released earlier in the year, and the Tantric lore of Shiva and Shakti.

Imagining that Shiva (male energy) is at the head and Shakti (the female energy, represented as a cobra) is at the feet, Shakti uncoils and slithers upward, meeting Shiva at the head.  This melding of the male and female energies can be understood as the actualization of the soul, a conciliation of one's passive and aggressive strengths; but I suppose it's more fun to see the word "Tantric" and apply the sexual union sticker on this one.  And it is pop pop pop music after all, where all songs are about fucking, except the ones about fucking, which are actually about fame.

The actual song does it up big-style, managing yet again to eroticize synthetic sounds, and topping it all off with a Stay-Puft Marshmallow Monstrosity of a chorus.  I am at it's beck and call forever.

"Shadows On Your Side"--The subject is fame.  Write about what you know.  Write about what you know you can hammer into the fucking ground till the Earth's core begins to bleed.

The music would fit tidily in with the Ninja Gaiden series of video games.  Oh those fucking birds!  Duran Duran will kick their asses whilst leaping over tigers whilst decapitating mercenaries with kitanas whilst breathing fire whilst retrieving the ancient golden demon statue of ancients!  'LET'S FUCKING GO!

"Tiger Tiger"--An instro to show off chops.  And, presumably, sticks.

Dedicated to the tigers in Ninja Gaiden, and the fun to be had jumping over them.

"The Seventh Stranger"--Originally the title track, until some kind of sanity prevailed.  Pity it didn't stay around.

All the sounds bouncing around here intrigued me as a kid--less so now, which is par for the course, but it's still a minor gem--expertly threaded, keenly pressed, and worn oh so well.  Seven would have benefited from a few more songs in this vein.

The singles are spectacular, but the first two records laid waste to the conventional wisdom that 80s pop couldn't sustain a long-player.  LeBon is in the pocket so snug you'll never want to take your jeans off, and the band are on top of their game still, but too often the melodies are unchallenging to mind and body.  The malaise of massive success has taken up space in the guest bedroom, and unfortunately, it would not vacate the premises until long after another resident of the palace Duran already had.

Glamour Boys: Duran Duran in the 1980s (Pt. 2--Musical Photoshop 101)

5/10/1982

Widely considered to be Duran Duran's full-length apex, Rio was a smash, eventually selling over ten million copies.  Television screens were awash with the outlandish curves and colors of their infamous-on-arrival music videos; pop radio couldn't go more than a couple of hours without sending another hit onto the waves; sold-out concerts reeked of girls and women screeching, swooning, and imagining Mr. LeBon-vivant was serenading them and only them.

Robert Christgau had very little time for the music of Duran Duran in his heyday as the Village Voice's dancer-in-chief, once dismissing their phenomenon thusly:  "Sometimes I think the little girls don't understand a damn thing."  Or sometimes, we realize not all art has to be understood to be valid.  Context is most, but not all, and if lingo-bots like Bobby Christ ever once in their lives eschewed the urge to describe something as "Roxy Music's worst moments meshed with the most mediocre offerings of Chic," and just told us why they enjoyed it, then dancing about architecture wouldn't be demeaned as one of life's ultimate futile efforts.  There would be throngs, fucking throngs I tell you,  fox-trotting in front of the Tower of Pisa.

"Rio"--If you start in such grandiloquent style, does the ending matter so much?  If a couple at their wedding ceremony decide to just say "I do" first things first, shunning such silly sacraments as the ring exchange and vow recitations, won't all the guests remember that twenty years afterward and not so much the acrimonious, permanent separation?

There are a thousand things, or so I imagine, to love about "Rio."  There's the fact that it was a rewrite of one of the demos recorded with Andy Wickett three years prior, itself a pretty crackin' tune even without a distinguishing vocal.   The intro (redolent of Queen's "Play the Game" recorded a couple years earlier) created by Nick Rhodes recording small metal rods being dropped onto the strings of a grand piano, then reversing the captured audio; John's mischievous bass shuffle (which proved quite influential to a young D'Arcy Wretzky...but let's forget that); keening guitar; cryptic imagery ('Cherry ice cream smile/I suppose it's very nice" is a line that only a Brit could write, forget about it); and perhaps greatest of all, double LeBon for the chorus.

Of course I can't forget the bubbling build to that chorus, which feels like an officer of the court just knocked on my door and informed me that all the city's denizens are to be slaughtered posthaste, except for me, for reasons that shall be explained in great detail once I've been evacuated to my new duplex in New York.  By the third time the dude's come 'round, I'm shouting every word of my inexplainable reprieve along with him, word for word.

Andy Hamilton shows up to do his best Kirk Pengilly, and Simon's derring-do post-solo is a nutshot to Grim's bits.

"You make me feel alive alive aliiiiive!
I'll take my chance!"

Of course, video and song are inextricably bound to one another with golden handcuffs designed by Anthony Price and Russell Mulcahy.  Duran Duran sold their product like no act at the time, showing off a stunning visual vocabulary and a sincere knowledge of--and willingness to have casual fun with--color and intensity, line and texture, rhythm and movement.

Soon, MTV would be suffused with vids by acts who followed by the example the boys had set.  In many cases, the style suffocated the substance and nowanights those bands and clips are fortunate to be footnotes.  But the best--Duran Duran, Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson--had the complete package.  Life was not as grand as these videos would have you believe.  If you turn your lover into a lion, you will not be so unaffected as to sing your anthem of defloration with no fear of your life (or yourself, 'cause how did you pull that off?).  Zombies are unlikely to be so well-choreographed.  And, Nick Rhodes felt putridly seasick for the entirety of the "Rio" video shoot.  But it was all a sight better than some racket-gang of barely-theres content to play along to a recorded track confident that the editing team would do some nifty effects tricks to try and fool the viewer into thinking that while the song sounded like crap when you heard it on the radio, it's really actually very good, look, saturation!  Smoke machine!  See, acts like DD already knew their songs were excellent and could have stood on their own.  But why, when there's yachts to be rented and martinis to be drank underwater?

I was very envious of the pastel phones in the vid, as well.  They cast the ones in my own home in an uncomely light, for sure.  And the women, well, those warpaint bitches also made quite the impression on li'l Jenny Lee.  Did I want to be them?  Just be around them?  Was it possible they were even cooler than the Duran guys?  'Cause I knew what the Duran guys did, they were rawk gawds, they made music and toured the world and shagged the most pulchritudinous babes.  But those women...I knew nothing of the modeling world, a realm that once penetrated left me nauseous.  But back then, I could pretend these were for-real soldiers of the islands.

"My Own Way"--Well, that's a precipitous drop!  Not a fave of the band, either.  It's funk-rock in clear, actually translucent imitation of their beloved Chic.

"Lonely In Your Nightmare"--Doesn't come off particularly unnerving, unless you would describe the sound of early INXS as such (the surviving band members would likely share your belief).  There's a lightweight spray of solace to be enjoyed underneath the colors of John's bass parts.  Man, a talented broomsman and he caught that TD pass from Joe Montana to win the Super Bowl!

"Hungry Like the Wolf"--One of their biggest hits, and one of the songs that defines its time.  The Juicy Lucy of 80s pop music, supremely tasty and sloppy in equal measure.  VH-1 viewers named "Wolf" the third greatest song of the decade, behind "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Livin' On a Prayer."  (A swifter pendulum swing from brilliance to idiocy you will be hard-pressed to locate.)

This is my favorite Duran Duran song, and like "Rio," it has an infamous video that it can exist quite comfortably away from.  The percolating synth is a near-constant presence without infringing on the song's essence, and the same can be said for the Marc Bolan-esque guitar swaths.  The chorus is one of the stickiest of all time (and varies; my favorite is the second, which gives the impression of a more formidable predator).  Simply, I can't think of a greater testament to DD's power as an actual band.  During each instance of the aforementioned refrain, for example, the bass switches up in subtle ways.  First time, it's a pretty basic bedrock pattern.  Then, when it comes 'round again, John pops an octave and I kinda pop a blood vessel.  Almost as good is when (around 3:14, give or take a half-second) suddenly John switches to eighth notes, making the song even more minatory.

The video is a faithful recreation of the tune's subject matter:  the condensation of male/female relations into a trusty metaphor of the lusty hunt.  Does it stunt progress or insure propagation?  Can't the answer be both?  And can't you just enjoy the song?  I was 5 when this thing came out, what the hell did I know about the carnal urges that both facilitate and complicate our lives?  I mean even if I did have those feelings when I was young I just transferred them to food anyway.

Another vixen with facepaint!  Is she a metaphor for Spandau Ballet, and Simon a metaphor for his own band? Why don't more people randomly flip over tables in diners?  And with all due respect to Spandau Ballet, I can't get over the fact there was an honest to Jebus rivalry between both bands.  Mind you it was only relevant in the U.K., 'cause over here we recognized straight away which band was legendary and which was good for one smash hit...just sayin'.

I wonder if the members of Duran Duran liked leaving the lights on during sex so they could gaze upon, and gain further stimulation from the sight of, their own immaculate duds strewn on the floor.

"Hold Back the Rain"--It may not be as evocative as setting fire to it, but it's equally as preposterous.  Given that LeBon's inspiration was John Taylor's worsening drug addiction, however, I can forgive him the indulgence.  This is a thoughtful plea from one imperfect person to another, and if it made any impression on Taylor (per LeBon, the pair have never spoken about the song) it wouldn't make itself manifest until many years later, when he finally cleaned up.

The backdrop is peppy, which might be unfitting for the topic at hand, but completely in step with Rio's single-bodied dedication to dance or die.  Physicality uber alles.

"New Religion"--Per the liners, "A dialogue between the ego and the alter-ego."

Translation:  Fuck Spandau Ballet.

"Women don't care about the lyrics," goes the conventional wisdom.  Yeah, 'cause sometimes the lyrics are pants.  So we focus on the beat and the bass like it's the snap of bones and the thump of the heart and move our hips in a time-old rhythm 'cause "I'll bring my timing in/Seagulls gather in the wind" doesn't do it for that part of me that aches to have something done to it.

"Last Chance On the Stairway"--To get off a witty riposte?  (LeBon does have French Huguenot ancestry, after all.)  To get a handjob while burning the candle at both ends?  (LeBon is a rock star, after all.)  The seismic shifts in mood, tone and speed keep "Last Chance" enjoyable.  Really, Rio is an album of hits.

"Save A Prayer"--Another well-deserved smash.  "Save A Prayer" is a musical muffuletta:  best enjoyed after sitting at room temperature for a few hours, all the better for the olive oil to soak into the roll and for the salami, cheeses and mortadella to curl.

The bending allure of Nick's synth is enough to suck the listener into a very human tale regarding the swells and ebbs of the string-free relationship between two people whose first language is kinetic.  Forget society's code of behaviors and expectations of emotional etiquette.  One person's miasma is another's, well, paradise.  All you have to do is call it such.

"The Chauffer"--Dear to many Durannies (and still a live staple).  The music vacillates between faux-horror and foxy sci-fi.  Proof that Simply Simon is not only capable of relatively straightforward lyricism, he can even excel at it.

The drums aren't missed for the first two minutes because everything else is so damned enrapturing like the greatest conversation you've yet to have, but when they do finally materialize and begin the journey forward with their admirable steadfastness, it only accentuates what has already proven itself to be a class tune.

The gent in question has always struck me as an unwitting yet punctilious escort, hoping the singing blue silver can one day somehow deliver him from the evils of banality.  I don't think it ever panned out, but I hoped secretly it did.

Glamour Boys: Duran Duran in the 1980s (Pt. 1--Discover Your Distraction)

DURAN DURAN
6/15/1981 (U.K.)
4/25/1983 (U.S.)

Ladies and gentlemen--but mostly ladies--Duran Duran.  And there was much rejoicing.

Look at that cover.  Gaze upon those poised bastards.  One hundred million records sold worldwide absolutely could lie, but in this case they don't.

Please note that this review concerns the American reissue, which replaces "To the Shore" with "Is There Something I Should Know?", the single whose presence on the U.S. charts facilitated such reissue in the first place.

"Girls on Film"--Band manager Paul Berrow had himself a Nikon camera, and it never took a picture so grand as this:  all foreground, no background.  The uncensored music video was apocryphal for MTV viewers who couldn't or wouldn't venture out to the much less-private dance clubs.  In retrospect, it was fortunate that this five year old girl didn't see the band's other, seedier version.  I mean, nipples getting iced down, greasy grappling, and multiple instances of women rendering men unconscious via acts that really shouldn't render men unconscious...I just wasn't ready.

The impressionist blaze of "Girls on Film" is undeniable.  When I confessed to a friend that Duran Duran were my so-called "guilty pleasure," I expected some playful ribbing.  Instead, I got a pithy, "Hey, they did 'Girls on Film.'"

They had first done it in 1979, when Andy Wickett was still out front.  The demo has a wicked romp to recommend it--and harmonica!--but Wickett's performance goes through all the metal dangling off the chain and has to pick the lock before he freezes to death.  When Simon LeBon put his vagabond Huguenot poetry to the revamped tune, he had the good sense to recognize and retain the one great quality about Wickett's original--the chorus.

"Girls-on-film!  Girls-on-film!"

Make the guitar 98% funkier, and there! You have a classic.

LeBon claims it's a feminist statement, lost in the ensuing hubbub over the indecent visuals.  Well, if he wasn't sympathetic to the struggle of women back in the 80s, I can guarantee fathering three daughters years later did it.

"Planet Earth"--The first single, "Planet Earth" reached #12 in the U.K., but it doesn't possess the gravitas of "Girls on Film," which is one of those small shames one must simply learn to live with. They did get to lip-sync it on every music program on European TV, though.

The band sounds like they're encased in a smokey cube, bop-bop-bah'ing a New Romantic manifesto (they even namedrop the movement in the lyrics; self-awareness and an attendant sense of humor helped to separate the guys from the pack early on).  Its swirl and snap is disco-ready, but while the cocaine remains, the names and places have been altered to ensure the guilty parties don't get crashed.  The transition from bridge to chorus--"Can you hear me noooowwww-oowww?--is reminiscent of biting into a caramel-coated apple and discovering that the center is...even more caramel.

"Is There Anyone Out There"--The riff here is supremely listenable, one that's more of a loop than a line.  It stresses the third note each go-round, but it's the first two notes I'm most enamored by, as they can be either eighths or sixteenths depending on my mood when listening.  The keybs are ready to dunk heads back into the water, and if "Planet Earth" suggested  John Taylor was a bad-ass on bass, irrefutable proof is contained within these few minutes.

"Careless Memories"--The wit of the staircase; a whit of the heart.  The guys watch an Adam Ant video while dressed as the cast of a spaghetti Western.  Heavy on the bread, heavier on the balsamic vinaigrette.

Save for the chorus, the voice-work is a celebration of mumble-mouth.  The music is abrupt in a manner that nicely mimics a disintegrating connection.  My mind always hears the deadening horror of domestic violence in the lyrics.

"Is There Something I Should Know?"--Hitting the top of the charts in the U.K., and placing within the American Top 5 two years later, here we have a standard fantastic Duran single.  Lyrics nothing more or less than richly-angled sketches, hooks smeared with exotic jellies, a friggin' harmonica solo that enlists the help of a lazily-arpeggiating guitar to stretch the melancholy.  Stealthy as kept, their knack for small touches as a song progresses--knowing what, knowing when--cannot go unappreciated.  The "ohhh-ohhh"'s after the first chorus don't last long, and don't need to.  The "jungle drums" need poke their head out from behind the bedroom door when called.  Duran Duran know that you should eat all the fish by day two.

"(Waiting For the) Night Boat"--It's Night Boat!  The crime-solving boat!  Whenever it seems that the bad guys are gonna triumph, whenever it feels like all hope is lost, just remember:  there's always an inlet.  Or a peninsula.  Or a fjord.  There is always...Night Boat.

After two minutes of build-up, Simon begins singing about moaning water (the first line is "quay," an invitation to a Scrabble game if I've ever heard one).  The idea of sentient natural elements freaks me out.  The theme would seem to be stasis.  The vessel could be an extraterrestrial one in its other life, and the emotional and physical dissonance it emanates is rubbing off on the nearest humanoid.

"Sound of Thunder"--Thunder sounds like Blondie fronted by a Bowie wanna-be.  Who knew?

2:20 to 2:35 could have been excised and encouraged to birth another full song.  Simon continues to dawdle:  "Waiting for the sound of thunder."  It's all tasteful, if not quite timid.

So there it is:  minimalism reigns, here and throughout the album.  Just as LeBon is uncertain at this young stage who he wants to sound like (and just how much he wants to sound like them), his clearly-talented bandmates are still playing with visors on. This is down to greenness, which necessitates a gentle treading.  They had those superstar ambitions almost from day one, and they knew one fulfills said ambitions by being able to fill every available crevice, but they couldn't do that until someone actually knew and cared about who they were.

"Friends of Mine"--The boat arrived, finally, took off and docked at an ungodly soiree thrown in the mansion later used for the film Octopussy.  The attendees, like the hosts, are the dregs and lees of their generation, buzzing about what they or someone they know saw this and did that, but it's all bullshit, and no one's fooling anyone.  But there's finger foods to be ducked down throats, alcohol to be quaffed, and powder rooms to overcrowd, so what's the 100% truth matter?

LeBon's disgust with the scene's pervasive toxicity is evident.  "I'm not waiting anymore," he announces in a jarring chorus that steals the show by a fair pace, a harmony-rich treat over a mortal thump.  The name "Georgie Davis" is dropped, which meant nothing to me as a child.  Davis was wrongfully convicted of an armed robbery in East London sometime in 1975.  Naturally, he became a cause celebre, with rock luminaries and ordinary protesting citizens united in the quest to see justice served.  Sure enough, Davis was freed within a year.  Two years later, he pled guilty to another charge of armed robbery.  No one took to the streets or shouted him out in song over that one, or maybe they did and I just don't care.

"Tel Aviv"--LeBon had words for this one, inspired by his time as a volunteer on an Israeli kibbutz, but the decision was reached that it worked best as a five-minute instrumental that just missed its calling as a Miami Vice interlude by a few years.

What's key to the ear is the way the band's individual elements blend without becoming bland.  That's chemistry, and a collective either has it or hasn't it.  For all the baby steps and juvenile missteps, those five guys had to come together at that time to share those goals and write/perform those songs.

It would change the world.