Duran Duran: Duran Duran

Duran Duran: Duran Duran

1983

Capitol Records

Format I Own it on: VInyl

Track Listing: 1. Girls on Film  2. Planet Earth  3. Is There Anyone Out There  4. Careless Memories  5. Is There Something I Should Know?  6. (Waiting for the) Night Boat  7. Sound of Thunder  8. Friends of Mine  9. Tel Aviv




Omigawd!

I love Duran Duran! I have all their albums and all their shirts and every issue of Tiger Beat they ever appeared in!

Me and my friends have all totally pledged to lose our virginity to Duran Duran! I'm gonna totally bone Simon. My friends Valerie and Sarah are going to double-team Nick, Cynthia is going to roger Roger, Andrea is going to give it up to John and my gay friend Pete wants to pork Andy.

Duran Duran is gonna play the Sandusky Megadome in November and that's when I'm so going to marry Simon...My Mom doesn't approve of me running off with a 32 year old rock star, but I don't care! It's not her life! It's mine and I can do whatever I want! I'm going to get myself emancipatated when I turn 16 anyway!

I truly believe that Duran Duran are the best band ever in existence ever! Simon is cuter than Paul McCartney and John Lennon put together, Nick is way hotter than any member of Wham! and Roger is a very underrated drummer, who mixes sophisticated middle-eastern rhythms with metronomic krautrock tick-tock to convey a rattling post-punk urgency. The only bad thing they've ever done is John and Andy's Power Station band because the singer is like, so old...

Ew! Why don't all old people just like, stop making music and die or something! Why should I have to look at an old, 40-year old face on MTV? Why make everybody gag? On spoons? Pac-Man, Pac Man, Rubik's Cube, Q*Bert,  Atari, Leg Warmers?

Simon, if you're reading this I'll be at the Sandusky Megadome on November 26th and I don't know how you want to work out the details on the deflowering/marriage combo...I'll be in row 83 seat H17, so if you want to motion to me to come onstage and rest my head on your shoulder when you perform "Save a Prayer" you'll know where I'm sitting.

-Yours forever and ever, 

80's Girl

*********************************************************************


Alright, now that "80's Girl Theater" is over, I'll tell you how I really think of this record (this is Jamin again, BTW)...I'll make this quick-ish:

This was the 1983 American re-release of the band's debut after their second album "Rio" hit it big in the States...Remember, American audiences are thick-headed rubes with minuscule attention spans, so  some of the more "difficult" material was removed in favor of the non-album hit single "Is There Something I Should Know?"...Call me a thick-headed American rube, cos I love this...Probably my personal favorite Duran Duran album...It's got a more of a new wave jitteriness that was maybe downplayed in their later stuff, while still being relentlessly capital-P Pop...

Oddly enough, I don't care for album opener and breakthrough big hit "Girls on Film"...I can't especially find any compelling hook in it...I've always had this feeling they only wrote it so they would have an excuse to make a video full of hot naked chicks...Which I guess is a noble endeavor but it's definitely one of those songs that's only listenable when watching the video...

On the other hand, "Careless Memories" and "Friends of Mine" are two of my favorite Duran Duran songs..."Friends of Mine" sounds like it's going to be a robotic, monotone vamp until that glorious chorus suddenly pops up out of nowhere...

  I really have to give these guys credit...All anybody asked of them was to be some teeny-booper, pin-up, boy-band...They could have had someone write them a couple of empty-headed pop confections, coasted on their good looks and they probably would have been even bigger than they were...Instead they aspired to be nothing less than the junior-league Roxy Music...Their lyrics were often opaquely abstract while their music possessed a late night cool...Their stubborn attachment to these dark, arty tendencies have caused their albums to age much better than other 80's pop records...It still sounds cutting edge to my ears...I can't tell you how many "up and coming" bands I've heard that have strip-mined "Planet Earth" for ideas...Not to mention these guys had the ability to absolutely hammer a hook deep into your memory...

So I highly recommend this to 80's pop fans or to folks who find "Rio" a tad overplayed and/or safe...Let's listen to "Friends of Mine"...Enjoy...