Happy holidays! Best present of
the year: the Miami Dolphins are back in the NFL post-season and we got there
in part while eliminating the hated Buffalo Bills. Huzzah!
Speaking of blind hate, when I
rolled this next album I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of disappointment.
Sheila (who likes it) sharply reminded me that this odyssey is about keeping an
open mind to every album.
That’s true, and I do my best, but
my dislike of this next band goes well beyond any logical reasoning. It
just…is. With that in mind, here’s my best
effort.
Disc 951 is….Rio
Artist: Duran
Duran
Year of Release: 1982
What’s up with the Cover? Patrick Nagel art was as
synonymous with early eighties pop culture as…well, as Duran Duran. I kind of
like this cover although if a
girl’s skin is as white as her teeth, you should check for bite marks on your neck after every date.
How I Came To Know It: I knew this album in the eighties
when it came out, but chiefly through the practice of actively avoiding it. It
came into our collection earlier this year when Sheila decided to break the
Duran Duran embargo and buy it.
How It Stacks Up: This is the only Duran Duran album we
currently have [knocks on wood] so it can’t really stack up.
Ratings: 1 star – see below for special
calculation procedures for Duran Duran albums
Since my
early teens I have hated Duran Duran, both for their music and for the way they
took over the consciousness of my junior high in the early eighties. At every
high school dance, on every music video channel and on the radio of every other
car that passed this band’s blend of borderline New Wave and pop pablum would
assault your ears. For a budding young metal head like myself, outside of Much
Music’s Power Hour, there was no escape.
Long
time readers will remember that I was pretty narrow minded back then when it
came to music. I’ve since happily come to my senses over amazing eighties bands
like the Police, U2 and the Clash, all of whom I initially dismissed when I was
a teenager. Duran Duran is not so lucky.
The
album’s first song is the poster child for what is wrong with this record. “Rio” was a massive hit which had all the
girls gabbing about how dreamy Simon Le Bon and Andy Taylor were, and all the
boys trying to copy their look. Or maybe it was Roger Taylor or John Taylor; I
don’t remember and there’s too many guys named Taylor in this band to keep it all
straight. Even I would watch the video when it came on (it featured a beautiful
woman in a bikini and body paint, after all).
“Rio” has a passable keyboard hook and a
solid chorus and could have been an average song, despite all the bangs, bells
and whistles that are thrown in an attempt to ruin it. But then at the three
minute mark we are subjected to a drawn out and pointless saxophone solo. This
may be the worst sax solo ever, a wound to this song so infected that
nothing could save it. The solo eventually ends, draining (like a flushed
toilet) into a synthesizer doing an impression of a xylophone. We never learn
why.
This was
my reaction to most of the songs on this record, which load a ton of disparate
bells, bangs and whistles into a cacophonous hodge-podge. It is about as
tempting as a frittata comprised of ingredients from the three preceding days
of leftovers because that’s what happens to be in the fridge.
And this
is a damn shame, because the bass and drums (played by a couple guys named
Taylor) are actually pretty solid, particularly John’s bass playing, which
gives the songs a nice and vaguely funky foundation at the ground floor. The
fact that the band decides to build a ziggurat made out of shit isn’t entirely
his fault.
So what
about my promise to Sheila to have an open mind? Weren’t there any songs I
liked? Yes, to my horror there were three. “Lonely
in Your Nightmare” has a cool sound that reminded me of the Smiths or the
Cure, and while there is a bit too much futzing around with the drum sounds,
the melody still shines through. “Hungry
Like the Wolf” is also a good song, with one of the better doo-da-doo-doo-da-doos
in music. That annoying pseudo-xylophone is in the background throughout, but
it doesn’t quite wreck what is a good track.
The
album ends with “The Chauffeur” which
I also enjoyed, a steamy song full of sexual tension that reminded me favourably
of Depeche Mode, despite Simon Le Bon’s one-note vocals. In fact, when Duran
Duran are at their best they sound a lot like an inferior version of Depeche
Mode. At their worst they just sound like…Duran Duran.
Even the
songs that I liked tend to go on too long, and the whole album (which is 43
minutes long despite having just nine songs) tends to drag. Or maybe it is just
that I don’t like most of the songs and just want them to end soon after they
begin. Maybe the songs are longer because they are meant as dance songs, but I
found this shit impossible to dance to in high school and nothing over the
years has changed my mind.
Everyone
has that one band they hate, and Duran Duran is mine. If I was being fair, I’d
acknowledge this record has enough going for it that it warrants a two star
rating, but I’m not going to be fair. Would I congratulate the Buffalo Bills on
a good effort on Saturday as my Miami Dolphins ended their season? No I wouldn’t.
Would I applaud the Montreal Canadiens
for winning a game? Again, no.
Besides,
I always give vampire moves an extra star for no reason (it’s how the Twilight
movies earned their single star). I also grade up every movie that includes Ron
Pearlman by a star because…Ron Pearlman! The universe demands balance. I will
provide that balance by arbitrarily giving any Duran Duran record -1 star for
equally baseless reasons.
Best
tracks: Lonely
In Your Nightmare, Hungry Like the Wolf, The Chauffeur
No comments:
Post a Comment