duran duran RIO

As much as I love 'The Chauffeur', I can't get on board with the idea of it being the best track on this!

Brad otm

And the two songs with 3 votes are all-time classics

OTM. 'Hold Back the Rain' is one of the best choruses this band ever wrote and I adore the fretless bass on 'Lonely in Your Nightmare' - it's not quite Karn-level playing, but it's still fantastic.

Already on my must-read-immediately-when-published list.

I could not be more thrilled to share that I'm going to be writing a @333books on @duranduran's "Rio," one of my favorite albums in life and an LP I think is brilliant and influential. https://t.co/R4q3W0Opco pic.twitter.com/czcFzwfCpP

— Annie Zaleski (@anniezaleski) March 1, 2019

It's that time where I blast Rio again and marvel once more at how wonderful it is. This, of course, is always followed by the realisation that they were never this good over the course of a full-length ever again. It's something that's always annoyed me about Seven and the Ragged Tiger - they had it in them to do something so much better. They really should never have moved away from working away from Colin Thurston so quickly, too.

Cocaine is a helluva drug

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Also, y'all are on drugs, "Last Chance on the Stairway", "My Own Way", "Hold Back the Rain", and "Lonely in Your Nightmare" are all far better than "Rio".)

They really should never have moved away from working away from Colin Thurston so quickly, too.

Pretty sure this is the only time this sentiment has been expressed in human history.

Yeah, I'm pretty much the most hardcore Duranie on this board and even I'm, like, "Dude, they needed to move away from Colin Thurston in order to make the albums they made from Seven and the Ragged Tiger onward." Also, had they never worked with Alex Sadkin on 7&TRT they would have never had the inspiration for "Do You Believe in Shame", one of their saddest, most beautiful songs ever. Also, my favorite albums of theirs were either self-produced or produced by Mark Ronson, so.

what even is the 'sand lane'? this is the most freakish album ever made. bunch of twats somehow transcended music

the banned turrican was right if only this once

lj's love for this record makes me so happy

i think there's a lot to be said for early-years programming; i was raised on this and it is me and i am it

that said i can't listen to it and wonder how the hell Rhodes and Taylor worked out their synth and bass parts; it is extremely amazing & advanced pop composition. was it just loads and loads of cocaine tho

*figure out, not wonder. i always wonder

syncopation between synth and bass on this record is unreal yes. the guitars are also all amazing cf. "my own way"

my brain produces dopamine instantly any time i focus on that synth blinking just beneath the surface of "hungry like the wolf"

yeah the guitars are perfect too, but they're like the adornments on top of this monstrously great architecture

yes like northern lights flaring over a complex arrangement of stars

yes!

"it means SO MUCH TO ME like a birthdayyyyy or a pretty view"

has anyone sung total nonsense more convincingly than le bon on this record

tbf I think that line is intended as sarcasm, cf. "you're about as easy as a nuclear war"

not enough meaning being conveyed for me to read intention into them

This is the greatest album in pop history. Y'all can't believe how uncool it was to proclaim it in 1991.

Don't think coke had entered the picture yet btw

yeah seven and the ragged tiger is a coke album if i've ever heard one, rio considerably less so

iirc rio was no. 1 on britney spears' ballot for vh1's 100 greatest albums of all time countdown, and that is absolutely the reason i bought it

Just read John Taylor's memoir. Though it is light on music detail, it's evident that they took their craft seriously and were working toward a particular sound. That sound was partly in the air (from funk and disco) and partly something they invented.

It was a very particular, irreproducible moment, when the technology and the culture and taste came together to produce a work of almost-nonchalant genius. They look like they're all very handsome and they are having a good time while wearing their girlfriends' blouses, sure.

But the music was, and is, made with care. And it is transcendently awesome. Alfred otm.

The journey from the title track to "Last Chance on the Stairway" is like experiencing The Waves.

This is the greatest album in pop history. Y'all can't believe how uncool it was to proclaim it in 1991.

Well, Big Thing and Liberty were consecutive terrible albums so 1991 was a low point. They got their cred back in 1993 with Ordinary World and Come Undone though!

Don't think coke had entered the picture yet btw

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 2 December 2020 17:54 (thirty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this explains a few things

iirc rio was no. 1 on britney spears' ballot for vh1's 100 greatest albums of all time countdown, and that is absolutely the reason i bought it

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, 2 December 2020 17:56 (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

so does this

If you put Too Late Marlene on side 2 of Big Thing, that may be my favorite single side of a Duran LP

Liberty I haven't heard apart from "Violence of Summer" and "Serious," the latter of which is good.

iirc rio was no. 1 on britney spears' ballot for vh1's 100 greatest albums of all time countdown, and that is absolutely the reason i bought it

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, December 2, 2020 10:56 AM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

on second thought this may have been diva by annie lennox but i believe both were on there. my memory is terrible but i watched that countdown like 1000 times

that said i can't listen to it and wonder how the hell Rhodes and Taylor worked out their synth and bass parts; it is extremely amazing & advanced pop composition.

So true

Spears must've heard her mom's cassette copy of Diva in the station wagon.

Liberty I haven't heard apart from "Violence of Summer" and "Serious," the latter of which is good.

I picked Liberty up for like $2 at a used CD store in the 90s and had never even heard of the album prior to seeing it there. "Serious" and "My Antarctica" are the two songs I remember liking

Pretty great excuse to learn to play bass here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtcLKAGN-II

Taylor might be my favorite bassist. He's done several of those videos.

Britney has excellent taste unsurprisingly. You could probably trace a direct line between LeBon's braying and Britney's cluck

Also those lyrics are amazing, if i was in a band and the singer came in with "catch the mirror way out west" i'd be like 'wtf??? this is genius'

It may be nonsense but it's really colorful, alluring nonsense

Well, the lyricist's last name is Le Bon.

Le Bon Mot

wow John Taylor has aged incredibly well! I hope I look that sharp when I'm 60.

Also is that a bottle of vodka on the floor behind him?

This talk of how great John Taylor is a good excuse to post the Amoeba What's In Your Bag clip from 2009 with him and Simon. I've watched this many times and could listen to John talk about his favourite records for days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMymK9st49M

So Annie Zaleski's 33 1/3 book on the album is out, already literally sold out almost everywhere and going into a second printing. It's a fantastic read, just got it today and burned through it. What an album and what a band.

Ah, thanks for the heads up! Was really looking forward to this, thought I had it pre ordered but can't find a confirmation so ordered it just now, hopefully the 27/5 availability date is correct :)

Hopefully! The book both makes the case for the album and its creation as well as exactly how in America it became the monster that it was -- an interlocking combination of factors that always centers the band's particular drive at making it just that.