duran duran RIO

I read somewhere that LeBon attributed DD's success in the States ​to the recruitment of Andy Taylor and the introduction of a hard rock guitar element to their sound. Which both makes sense and seems contrary to the role their dance remixes played in breaking America.

Yeah that's interesting - quite a few of the brit synth/new romantic bands went in either a rock or a soul direction towards the mid-'80s (some did both I guess, like The Human League going from doing 'The Lebanon' to working with Jam & Lewis) and both of these moves seem like obvious attempts at reaching out to a US audience. I didn't know that about Duran's remixes though.

I direct y'all to Annie Zaleski's marvelous 33 1/3 book.

I find Deflatormouse's thought experiment interesting but at the same time, I just can't imagine those bands being different. I know this isn't profound or anything but music history - like all history - has a contingent element. The things happened as they did, and everything contributed.

Philosophically speaking it's a bit sus to imagine that you can change any one variable and keep everything else the same. Like, a John Lennon who didn't abuse any women could exist (and I wish he did). A John Lennon who didn't get shot, ditto. But does everything else stay constant in that alternate universe? I can't imagine (ahem) that it would. The particular circumstances aligned themselves this way, and we have the culture that resulted from those circumstances.

Blur were derivative enough of DD that it's usually easy to envision what GC might have played.

And indeed, Alex James wrote somewhere that when he was tasked with constructing a bassline for 'Girls & Boys', his guiding principle was, "What would John Taylor play?"

My friend is doing a Rio 40th special on twitch tonight at 8:00 PM CST with chat by Annie Zaleski!

https://m.twitch.tv/VJBigSuit

The main DD set starts at 9:00 PM CST, but come early and stay after for choice early MTV-era videos.

What a fucking incredible album, still.