― Jim Reckling (Jim Reckling), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 12:45 (twenty years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 21:23 (twenty years ago) link
Dr C have you seen sense yet?
― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 21:30 (twenty years ago) link
So any word on the new album?
― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 22:13 (twenty years ago) link
― anode (anode), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 22:28 (twenty years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 22:41 (twenty years ago) link
― Allyzay, Wednesday, 10 March 2004 03:07 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 10 March 2004 03:58 (twenty years ago) link
Praise Dee, for she understands. High five sistah.
My husband likes the Field Mice. The worst he's ever had to deal with is paying too much for an import album. Cry me a fucking river.
The day a Field Mice fan is cornered in a middle school cafeteria and publicly taunted by mean-spirited 12 year olds for liking the band is the day fortunate hazel wins the debate. There's a difference between liking a band that critics don't acknowledge or appreciate and loving a band to an overwhelming degree and having everyone -- critics, record store clerks, friends, lovers, enemies, random people on the street, radio and video program directors -- openly and publicly shitting on them for fifteen years just because they were popular and pretty.
Considering that being popular and pretty are two of the most important things in the world in most western cultures, this is only slightly ironic.
― Catty (Catty), Sunday, 9 May 2004 00:36 (nineteen years ago) link
Datz rich.
― jack cole (jackcole), Sunday, 9 May 2004 00:40 (nineteen years ago) link
it's DURANIME!
Experience Duran Duran live on the current tour. Do they sound just like the record? Almost. They're tighter than a [insert YOUR lewd comment here].
― Catty (Catty), Sunday, 9 May 2004 00:44 (nineteen years ago) link
Due: October 4th [UK] October 5th [US] on Epic
― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 6 August 2004 09:43 (nineteen years ago) link
As far as the Field Mice comparison goes, I'm not really sure it's fair. Bobby Wratten has been vindicated those last few years (even though I know they were ridiculed in the eighties) with Trembling Blue Stars, recognized for the wonderful songwriter he is, but no such thing has happened to Duran Duran. I mean, the whole New Romantics movement is still considered vomit-inducing by many (most) music journalists.
― Maria Jacobsson (mariajacobsson), Friday, 6 August 2004 10:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 6 August 2004 18:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― phil d., Friday, 6 August 2004 18:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 6 August 2004 18:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 6 August 2004 18:44 (nineteen years ago) link
I've gotten a chance to listen to some of the demo tracks that have been floating about online and I think the songs are quite solid. The lyrics aren't as obtuse, mainly because Simon's writer's block has meant that more of the lyric-writing responsibilities have been passed on down to the rest of the band, mostly Nick if the trend from Pop Trash has continued. Even though the demos were mostly produced by Nile Rodgers and the actual album itself is going to be produced by a few other producers, including Jason Nevins (apparently -- he's the one who did the remix of "Sunrise" for the Queer Eye soundtrack), I think they're not going to sound tremendously different. Maybe a bit more polished and hi-fi and maybe tracks such as "Pretty Ones" will be transformed into actual full-length ones, but still, not that much of a change.
I'm glad you included the new label in that news update. Duran signed with Epic a few months back, apparently agreeing to release two or three albums with the label. I have no idea what happened between them and Hollywood Records, which released Pop Trash in 2000, but I do know that even during the Thank You and Medazzaland era, Capitol were doing more publicity for the band than Hollywood ever did.
Also, heads up -- first single for the band is going to be "Sunrise", with a video directed by the Polish Brothers [never heard of them before in my life].
The video, directed by the Polish Brothers, was shot in four countries - US (California desert/John), Ibiza (on the beach, out in the countryside and at 10,000 capacity club - Manumission/Andy), Spain (up in the Pyrennes/Simon) and in London (Roger and Nick).
Sounds... weird. *shrug* Oh well. Better than the Flash video nightmare that was "Someone Else Not Me". (Yes, it was a video made purely from Flash. Made a pretty screen saver, but not a video.)
― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 6 August 2004 21:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― phil d., Friday, 6 August 2004 21:47 (nineteen years ago) link
As for the title of the album -- trust me, it will probably factor in heavily with the theme of the album. Medazzaland, i.e. my favorite album of theirs, was an album filled with songs about the perplexing modern world, how the dizzying effects of so much change and chaos could affect someone in the same manner as would an injection of a hallucinatory sedative would. Pop Trash dealt with the trashy and disposable, from fame to the search for true love, in songs that were bookmarked by the not-so-trashy, i.e. one song about showing love toward someone else by setting them free, and another song about living life as if each day were the last day one were on Earth. Maybe Astronaut will have as much meaning.
Thus says the ever-eternal, "shit, I can't help being this way" optimistic fangirl.
</xpost>
Oh? No way. So would you advise me to look forward to this video, then?
― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 6 August 2004 22:00 (nineteen years ago) link
And the rest of the music journalists out there only seem to have a surface "love" for the artists of the genre, a "love" that never really seems to surface when it really counts, e.g. when it comes time to stating their own personal list of "greatest albums" or "greatest frontmen" (come on, Simon was just as energetic in concert in 2001 as he was in 1984, and he could sing better, too) or "best bassists" (John laid some mean bass lines) or "greatest artists from the '80s" (if you're going to pigeonhole them to only ten years of their twenty-six-and-going years of existence, at least tell me you thought they were GOOD during those years), or hell, even "favorite albums" or "singles" or whatever.
I remain unconvinced that a single music journalist out there Really Loves DD.
― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 6 August 2004 22:07 (nineteen years ago) link
― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 6 August 2004 22:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 6 August 2004 22:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 6 August 2004 22:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― Bimble (bimble), Friday, 6 August 2004 22:54 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.durandurantimeline.com/years/prehistory.html
http://www.cookingvinyl.com/the_lilac_time/index.php
The Prefects were basically the first punk band in Birmingham(Subway Sect as well?) and the tangents article mentions John Taylor's love of the Nightingales. Steven "Tin Tin" Duffy formed Duran Duran, then left the band and joined up with ex-members of the Prefects for several bands, ending with Lilac Time featuring his brother Nick Duffy. The Prefects featured Eamon Duffy, another borther or Nick? I have to get this straight. They all used to play at the punk club Barbarellas, the Prefects even wrote a song about it. What is it with Birmingham and that movie?
― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 6 August 2004 23:06 (nineteen years ago) link
(Okay, so that was just an excuse for me to recite some MORE Duran trivia that's permanently stuck in my head. *whew* I feel better now.)
uh, there's music journalists ON THIS VERY THREAD professing their love of DD. and the 80s are hot shit all over again now - there's tons of club kids who eat retro New Ro fetish for breakfast. Liking Duran Duran is no longer a contrary position in any way shape or form....
Hm, how many people take "club kids" seriously? You know, Duran Duran were ORIGINALLY a band that catered to "club kids" -- remember, they were once sorta the house band for the Rum Runner and were originally managed by that club's owners, and they were still a more adult "club" band up until the first single from Rio, "My Own Way" was released -- but did that help their case ca. 1982, when critics were lining up just to shit all over aformentioned album? Nope.
As for the whole "music journalists on this thread loving DD" thing -- well, yeah, I did completely forget about Ned there. Okay, so that's one person. Not even Ned can be Everywhere Man.
(Actually, that rant was partly inspired by my recent perusal of Spin magazine, which I was convinced would do a halfway decent job with all mentions of DD in its pages, but I HATED that issue because (a.) it proves to me that the only band members anyone at Spin seems to remember are Simon and John [thought process at the time of seeing a picture caption in the reviews section: You should do your fucking research, you fuckers -- the guy doing the sax solo in that raft in the "Rio" video was fucking ANDY HAMILTON! You know, the guy who actually played the fucking sax on that track?? NOT fucking John, you stupid asses!], (b.) they think the band were always a teen idol band, when the band didn't even begin being covered in the teen magazines until about late 1982 [see: the comic strip rendering of the SLB story in the back of the issue], and (c.) Charles Aaron, in mentioning Rio in the list of the "best New Wave albums ever!", wasn't even BRAVE enough to actually SAY ANYTHING NICE about that album! He just said the usual bullshit about the band being a bunch of stylish pretty boys. Hello? What's so fucking new about that kind of "journalism"? Please, at least mention how great A FEW of the songs are on that album! Please fast forward the fucking album and see how damn good "The Chauffeur" and "Last Chance on the Stairway" are! Please acknowledge how awe-inspiring "Hungry Like the Wolf" is, even after listening to it 10,000 or so times! Please talk about how lovely "Lonely in Your Nightmare" is! DON'T FUCKING GO INTO HOW "TEEN IDOL"-Y THE BAND WERE! THAT'S JUST TIRED OLD BULLSHIT!
*whew* Okay. I feel slightly better.)
― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Sunday, 8 August 2004 03:42 (nineteen years ago) link
(p.s.: Where's the love for Medazzaland around here? That is the most underrated Duran album and the biggest artistic accomplishment the band has ever made. They will NEVER top that album. NEVER.)
― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Sunday, 8 August 2004 03:46 (nineteen years ago) link
Then again, when Medazzaland is your third best album, what does that say about the quality of your material? Blah. Great singles, though.
― Atnevon (Atnevon), Sunday, 8 August 2004 15:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Sunday, 8 August 2004 15:32 (nineteen years ago) link
True, that would be time-consuming. ;-)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 8 August 2004 18:59 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 8 August 2004 19:48 (nineteen years ago) link
A Dollar/Duran Duran collaboration would have been either horrifying or brilliant.
― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Sunday, 8 August 2004 19:53 (nineteen years ago) link
At least now I know who Animotion was trying to look like.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 8 August 2004 19:54 (nineteen years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Sunday, 8 August 2004 20:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Sunday, 8 August 2004 20:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Sunday, 8 August 2004 20:09 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 8 August 2004 20:14 (nineteen years ago) link
― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Sunday, 8 August 2004 20:33 (nineteen years ago) link
I also wanted to take this opportunity to slap myself silly for completely glossing over the love people have already expressed for Medazzaland on this thread. I guess I was in the midst of a blinding streak of loneliness because I've made misconceptions about ILM and thought I couldn't possibly engender hyper discussion about things such as how exciting it will be to get the SECOND singles box because, even though it doesn't do what the first one does and recreates the singles exactly, it does succeed in bringing forth all manner of obscure remixes and even more obscure b-sides, such as the two spoken-word tracks from the Big Thing era, "God (London)" and "This is the Way a Road Gets Made". One of them (I actually forget which one) is a track that features Simon uttering the infamous "fuck the Queen" quote. (Those of you who hadn't heard this already -- I kid you not.) Oh, and if the version of "Throb" they're including in this singles box is the rare instrumental version (yes, there are two versions of a b-side -- THE MADNESS!), I will have to eat this box set.
― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Monday, 9 August 2004 05:06 (nineteen years ago) link
Heh. Thank you for that. I guess I have to make SOME use of this otherwise useless information, hm? (FYI, this is why I'm completely clueless about all sorts of other artists I should know more about -- I've devoted way too much cerebral disc space to the most minute data about ONE single musical artist. Obv.)
(Ned, I cannot thank you enough for the Rio review in AMG. That's the best review of a Duran recording I have ever seen in my entire life and I am eternally grateful to you for that.)
Some day I will buy a dollar copy of the first Duran Duran album!
Ooh Tim, you're going to want to get the remastered version of the DD debut album, hon. Because that is the ACTUAL debut album itself, with "To the Shore" and everything, instead of the 1983 re-release of the debut album Capitol ended up using in place of the actual debut, when it was transferring the entire Duran album catalog onto CD back in the late 1980s. This was referenced above in a post that complained about how the 1983 song "Is There Something I Should Know?" was stuck in the middle of an album full of 1981 songs. "To the Shore" is joyfully dark and affecting, which means it fits in well with the rest of the debut, unlike "ITSISK?"'s Seven & the Ragged Tiger-like synthpoppiness.
This remaster should set you back a bit more than just a dollar, but it will be well worth it.
i wonder if anything on 'Astronaut' will sound like Planet Funk's 'The Switch' or 'Stuck In The UK'
I have no idea what either of the second two songs you mentioned sound like, but I do know that if you wanted a possible preview of what Astronaut MIGHT sound like, you would pick up a copy of the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy soundtrack, which features the Jason Nevins remix of "Sunrise", i.e. the first single proposed for this new album. It's very Positive Thinking dancey, which is awesome, sure, but also sits a bit uncomfortably with me, since the band were having success being awesomely bitter and cynical with Medazzaland and Pop Trash.
― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Monday, 9 August 2004 05:10 (nineteen years ago) link
Aw. Well, thank ya!
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 06:28 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.arjanwrites.com/arjanwrites/2004/08/astronaut.html
― DJ Martian (djmartian), Thursday, 26 August 2004 10:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Thursday, 26 August 2004 11:37 (nineteen years ago) link
― DJ Martian (djmartian), Thursday, 26 August 2004 11:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― DJ Martian (djmartian), Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 26 August 2004 17:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Thursday, 26 August 2004 17:13 (nineteen years ago) link