Duran Duran: Classic or Dud?

GIMME GIMME GIMMEEEEE!!!

NOTHING beats Grace Jones adding vocals to anything, surely?

Russ T... sorry. I think Bernard Edwards and his funkaliciousness throughout the Power Station LP (and his profound influence on JT) must top Grace Jones on "Election Day."

The reproductions look a little dodgy, but maybe that's just me since I work with graphic design all day? Besides, it's not like Assorted iMaGeS could have sent over their .pdfs, now, is it?

Assorted iMaGeS. The true believers know.

The two of them vs. the Designers Republic = utterly impossible to determine. Argh...

in practice i taped careless memories, save a prayer, the chauffeur, & a track called 'whispers' (which i cannot recall the sound of at the moment)

i also like ordinary world, view to a kill & skin trade and wish i had them too

dis-association of the sound from everything else about them is key - a purer/simpler/better way of listening, or a thinner/ fragmented/simpleton way.....
ilm may help me decide one day

That singles box is awesome.

Also on the b-side search: The full, five-minute version of Arcadia's "Rose Arcana". I sigh a million happy sighs when I listen to that lush arrangement. Yum.

This is a very happy day in Deannaville.

*quietly hopes no one recognizes this bit*

"Medazzaland" is my very favorite album. The title track thrills me to the bone as I'm madly obsessed with Nick Rhodes. "Big Bang Generation" is a rollicking good-time track. "Electric Barbarella" is a great song with a horrible video (IMO). "Out of My Mind"...well, it's a beautiful track to say the least...the righteous heir to the "Save a Prayer" throne if the universe was fair. "WDYTYA?"...well, I only *quote* from it in my sig! "Silva Halo"...I must be one of a few people who love this track. "Be My Icon" is a thrillingly cheeky track. "So Long Suicide" is the ultimate highlight for me...I think it's incredibly awesome. "Buried in the Sand" is sweetly tragic in its plaintiveness. "Undergoing Treatment" is simply brilliant, another exceptionally cheeky track. I *think* I named every track on the album but if not...well, I love them all!

(Oh yeah, and "WDYTYA?" = "Who Do You Think You Are?" Just FYI.)

Just wanted to post that up so that you can see, through something I wrote over three years ago, why Medazzaland remains my favorite album of theirs.

p.s.: Kate, if you're reading this, I know who you're talking about re: Alizarine!! Isn't she the woman who theorized that Nick came from the same lovely little planet David Bowie comes from? If that's the case, OMG, her website is totally hilarious! And I do remember Entertain Me! You guys had the BEST slashfic around. I miss that place, in fact.

*drops off to sleepland*

Planet Earth
Late Bar
Careless Memories
Girls On Film
My Own Way
Hungry Like The Wolf
Save A Prayer
Rio
Hold Back The Rain
The Chauffeur
Is There Something I Should Know?
Union Of The Snake
New Moon On Monday
The Reflex
Wild Boys
A View To A Kill
Notorious
Come Undone
Ordinary World

(79:30, chronological AFAIK)

Today, classic! Without any shadow of doubt!

This song alone makes Duran Duran in the 90's equal to their 80's classic period.

From Liberty (1990):
"First Impression"
"Liberty"
"My Antarctica"
"Serious"
"Venice Drowning"

From The Wedding Album (1993):
"Too Much Information"
"Ordinary World"
"Love Voodoo"
"Come Undone"
"Breath After Breath"
"None Of The Above"
"Sin Of The City"

From Thank You (1995):
"Drive By"
"Watching The Detectives"
"Perfect Day"

From Medazzaland (1997):
"Medazzaland"
"Big Bang Generation"
"Electric Barbarella"
"Out Of My Mind"
"Who Do You Think You Are?"
"Silva Halo"
"Be My Icon"
"Buried In The Sand"
"Michael (You've Got A Lot To Answer For)"
"Midnight Sun"
"So Long Suicide"
"Undergoing Treatment"

(Of course I would have to name every single one of the songs on that album -- that's my favorite album of all time!)

I would also name songs off Pop Trash, but that's going into a different decade altogether. Though I do adore it, not as much as Medazzaland and sometimes not as much as The Wedding Album, but I do certainly think it's an awesome album overall. :)

Ooh, I'll have to work on it tonight. Just getting to narrowing it down to that length... wow. I might actually want to do that myself. :) (The burning, that is.)

Does Night Version just mean extended version?

Well, "Night Version" is essentially a catch-all term that refers to certain extended versions of songs the band recorded back in the early '80s (i.e., pre-7&TRT), but in terms of Rio tracks that are labeled "Night Version", it's more often referring to tracks remixed by David Kershenbaum. For example, the "Night Version" of "Hungry Like the Wolf" is hardly any longer than the "regular" version of "HLTW", but it sounds a bit differently because of the David Kershenbaum touch. Any American who bought the Rio album on vinyl back when Rio started becoming popular Stateside, or cassette back when Rio was originally released in the U.S., would be most familiar with the "Night Version" of a sizeable chunk of the songs therein. The original vinyl release and the most recent cassette release of Rio would have the original mixes of all the songs, same as the regular worldwide CD version of said album and the regular UK vinyl/cassette versions.

Uh, have I confused you?

"Fallen Angel"/"Falling Angel"
(They're essentially the same song, though "Falling Angel", which is found on the Obsession and Corruption release, has a different, rougher intro than "Fallen Angel". This song, though, no matter what the version, is gorgeous and lovely.)

"Time For Temptation"
(Great, catchy song, though once again the version found on Obsession and Corruption is a bit rougher than the version found on the Japanese version of TWA.)

"Stop Dead"
(Now there's only one version of this song! Still, great and catchy and very danceable. Anytime you see anything in the Duranternet referring to the phrase "Yo Latin mama, check out your hombre," you can now know that it comes from this particular song.)

You know, I've had that "enhanced" special edition CD deal ever since they released it, practically, and it just sits there in my bedroom gathering dust, because the first time I listened to it I realized they had misled us into thinking it was going to be the version of the album with all those David Kershenbaum remixes, but instead it turned out to be just a cleaned-up version of the regular CD release. I had no idea there were additional things on that CD aside from the music and the three videos that they stuck on there. (Predictably for the clueless Crapitol they went for the more commercially available videos and included "Rio", "Hungry Like The Wolf", and "Save A Prayer", thus completely ignoring the video for the "disco-fied" "My Own Way" and the video for "Lonely In Your Nightmare".) Wow. So there's a discography on there. I'm going to actually have to fire up that baby on the computer sometime soonish.

(p.s.: Please, hon, call me Dee.)

make a CD80 of latter day tracks and post it! Then I will burn it and listen as I drive around!

... and here it is, complete with run times of each of the songs listed:

"My Antarctica" (5:00)
"Serious" (4:20)
"Ordinary World" (5:39)
"Love Voodoo" (4:58)
"Sin Of The City" (7:14)
"Breath After Breath" (4:58)
"Fallen Angel" (4:35)
"Drive By" (5:34)
"Watching The Detectives" (4:48)
"Big Bang Generation" (4:40)
"Electric Barbarella" (5:16)
"Out Of My Mind" (4:16)
"Be My Icon" (5:10)
"So Long Suicide" (4:37)
"Undergoing Treatment" (3:05)
"Sinner And Saint" ("Electric Barbarella" b-side) (4:50)

Total run time: 79 minutes, exactly. I did a list up which included "Come Undone", but that would've pushed the compilation to 83 minutes and 38 seconds, which would've been impossible. I figured that since you had "Come Undone" in your other compilation, and that "Ordinary World" is such a personal song to me that I would really want you to have it in here too, that "Come Undone" could get cut.

Enjoy! (And I'm definitely going to enjoy making this one for myself. *grins*)

Yeah! That's why I like them.

WHERE THE BLOODY HELL WERE YOU GUYS WHEN I WAS IN GRADE SCHOOL OR HIGH SCHOOL?!

I got SO much shit from my classmates throughout grade and high schools for being a Duran fan. I either got asked, "Ew, you like those old people?" or, "Who are they?" I didn't even know there were any other fans out there until 1997, when I went online for the first time and found out that there WERE other fans out there.

God, I would've been in fangirl heaven if you'd have also been there.

If you don't like Duran Duran's music, just say so, understood? I am not having any more elitist malarkey concerning the band. I've forced down more than enough shit like that by practically everyone in the mainstream music media. If you don't like their music personally, you have every right to, but saying that they "suck" is also essentially saying that my taste in music "sucks" because I adore this band.

Look, Duran's music has saved my sanity time and again. "Ordinary World" and "So Long Suicide" are songs that have especially personal connotations to me. I have been a fan of the band through some of the rockiest of roads. I champion them and defend them and I am NOT about to have some random person tell me that all of that means nothing because it does. It may not to you, but it definitely does to me.

but you saying they're great if i think they suck is essentially saying that my taste in music sucks! so how dare you sing their praises? seriously, come on... this is a "classic or dud" thread. expect a few posts on the dud side.

but you saying they're great if i think they suck is essentially saying that my taste in music sucks! so how dare you sing their praises? seriously, come on... this is a "classic or dud" thread. expect a few posts on the dud side.

What? You make no sense to me. All I'm doing is going on about how much of a fan I am and how much I know about the band. This is the message I get from the jack coles of the world (and there are TONS of them):

"Oh God, Duran Duran sucks ass and you are a fool for being a fan of their music because it is horribly wretched and how can you even consider yourself to have any good taste whatsoever when you're such a huge fan of such shit? You just like them because they're attractive, face it -- you don't take music seriously because you like them and they wouldn't have been nearly as successful had they not been as physically attractive as they were, because their music certainly wasn't going to do it for them."

I can't even count how many times I've gotten this message -- from every single mainstream music press person and "serious music" fan I've come across out there. So excuse me for being a bit touchy. I do recognize that one could not like that kind of music and say, "Well, for me personally, they're completely dud." But I am not standing for anything that gives off the message of, "You are the world's biggest fool for caring as much about this one band as you do because they are so utterly untalented." I've had enough shit like that from the Rolling Stones and the Qs of the world.

I look up information on this group, The Field Mice (because I honestly have no idea who they are), if you point me in the direction of someone who is taken seriously in the music world (music press, music recording, etc.) who also acts as an advocate for Duran Duran and obviously loves their music.

Until then, I remain unmoved.

I was born in late 1979, and look at how passionate a fan of Duran Duran I am. I've seen them six times in concert. Granted, it wasn't the "fab five" lineup I was seeing at the time, but I'm a huge fan of all the lineups the band has had, including the "unofficial Duran reunion-ette" otherwise known as The Devils. (Stephen Duffy and Nick Rhodes, together again for the first time since early 1979!)

However, with any luck, next year I will be seeing the "fab five" lineup, as they (hopefully) support that new album thing they've been talking about for over a year and a half already!

Wyclef Jean (who I've never listened to but he's a mainstream music guy), he listed Rio as his #1 favorite album ever, I'm pretty sure.