This Afternoon

[Colin Zeal EFM]

Just been home for lunch, as stated in a previous thread. Had Duck with Plum Sauce and some Egg Fried Rice from the Chinese and a bottle of Cobra from Londis.

 

This afternoon will consist of having a read of this months edition of Q, whilst listen to the Duran Duran Singles '81-'85 Box Set which was released this week.

 

Here is what Q Magazine has to say about it...

 

 

Anyone who claims they haven’t thought about it is either lying or Boris Johnson: who would we want to be if we were pop stars? In polite company we’d aspire to Chris Martin or Thom Yorke: thoughtful, sensitive, heart just about in the right place. After a few light ales, the bone-headed bacchanalia of Liam Gallagher or Eminem would become more attractive. Somehow being Bono or Michael Jackson seems too, well, complicated. Secretly, though, we’d all like to be Duran Duran between 1981 and 1985.

 

From the sweeping Planet Earth to A View To A Kill, the last hurrah before The Power Station and Arcadia sapped the momentum forever, Duran Duran were not the best pop group in the world. They were, however, the best at being a pop group.

 

This was a strange, dark period. With Margaret Thatcher at her most unyielding, 1981 was the year of The Specials’ Ghost Town, of inner city riots and of dangerously high unemployment. The service economy had yet to be invented so miners went down pits, rather than dress up as 19th century miners for the benefit of tourists.

 

Just as Germany’s pre-World War II Weimar Republic provided distracting, decadent entertainment for people who could barely afford to buy their shoelaces, so bleak, uncertain Britain of 1981 needed colour. It wasn’t going to be provided by The Specials. Duran Duran – shamelessly decadent, lunatically Thatcherite and as deep as puddles – were the men for the job. As Rome burned, they lived la dolce vita.

 

Before they had played a note they were on the march. The unrelated Taylors (bassist John, guitarist Andy and drummer Roger), singer Simon Le Bon and keyboardist Nick Rhodes exuded lasciviousness. Spandau Ballet looked like Cockney brickies in drag and Ultravox were all 80 years old. Duran Duran might have come from Birmingham, but they looked like they’d descended from Mount Olympus. Moreover, they had a patron. Radio 1 was in its pomp and DJ Peter Powell promoted them with a zeal way beyond the call of duty. Pop’s graveyard is littered with handsome men who got a bit of airplay; moreover, celebrating shallowness and superficiality is no route to longevity. No wonder they were despised as much as loved.

 

Today, Duran Duran still refuse to make themselves appear especially likeable and they are still (just about) with us. It must be, mostly at least, about the music. And for the most part, this music is rather good. This collection comprises their first 13 singles, plus most of the attendant B-sides, each in their individual sleeves all tucked lovingly inside a little flip-top box. On one level it is music to shop by. On another it is the story of the times. On any level, it has aged as well as pop music of quality must.

 

They rode into town on the clothes horse that was the New Romantic movement. Once the hits began to flow, they dispensed with it before you could say “A Flock Of Seagulls”, but they always retained their insouciant glamour.

 

There was little dues-paying. They secured a major deal the moment Simon Le Bon left Birmingham University and that first single, Planet Earth, swirled to number 12. Even now, it sounds like a one-off, the sort of record – think Dead Or Alive’s You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) – they would spend a grim career trying to emulate. That the not wholly dissimilar follow up Careless Memories struggled to 37 appeared to confirm that very prognosis.

 

Girls On Film changed everything. It’s still far from their greatest song but a cheeky Godley & Crème video gave Duran Duran a certain risqué cachet. They toured like bastards and suddenly there were die-hards who called themselves “Durannies”. More importantly for a singles band, as the hits began to rack up, the albums began to sell.

 

Hungry Like The Wolf (great use of the word “the”), with its video filmed in Sri Lanka, and Rio, with its ocean-going yachts, introduced Duran Duran to America. Surprisingly, America took the bait. Quite right too. Hungry Like The Wolf has pace, power and a lissom chorus. Rio is ideal driving music and Save A Prayer was the big ballad every career needs, as Robbie Williams understood with Angels. They were international stars, proper album-selling, stadium-playing, model-dating international stars.

 

But this collection also takes us to the B-sides and, as the single hadn’t been fully discredited at this time, that isn’t always a bad thing. There’s the occasional perfunctory cover, such as David Bowie’s Fame, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel’s Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me). There are a few live tracks; the dreadful Careless Memories is inexplicably resurrected behind Hungry Like The Wolf. Inevitably, there is a plethora of extended versions. Some are shadows of the A-side (the so-called Part 2 of Rio), but there is a nice orgasm on the Night Version of Hungry Like The Wolf: it seems safe to assume Duran Duran may have enjoyed the occasional bedroom romp and perhaps some of them may have even taken a recreational drug.

 

The more interesting B-sides are properly different songs, be it Save A Prayer’s fiery Hold Back The Rain or Rio’s The Chauffeur (Sing Blue Silver), possibly their deepest, most curious three and a half minutes. Here, it sounds like the work of a completely different band. They would never be this interesting again.

 

Union Of The Snake and New Moon On Monday kept the momentum going. As ever, Duran Duran were at their best when they sounded urgent, even when singing of nothing in particular. The Reflex and Wild Boys were the work of a band bored with their pop formula and trying to stretch themselves via impressively clattering productions, rather than upping the lyrical game. Yet Wild Boys’ flipside, the Seven And The Ragged Tiger album track (I’m Looking For) Cracks In The Pavement, is a feeble Bryan Ferry pastiche and the quite the worst thing here.

 

We end on a high, though, with their second American Number 1, A View To A Kill. It’s the last great Bond theme and almost the last great Duran Duran single. A rare collaboration from a band who needed no outside help to pen a hit, John Barry’s intervention gave them a grandeur that fitted them most snugly.

 

And then they were gone, off to solo projects and the inevitable career decline. This though is how they should be remembered.

 

 

[Colin Zeal EFM]

Right, I'm going home.

 

Pizza and wine night tonight. Celebrate the pay rise (my second inside a month!) that I was informed about yesterday!!

 

Might watch that thing tonight about the Day Britain Stopped. Might not.

 

Might watch the Champions League Semi-Final. Might not.

 

Might watch the American Beauty DVD I bought recently and haven't seen yet. Might not.

 

Who cares?

 

 

[YELLOW]

Probably watch the AC-Inter game and tape that Day Britain Stopped thing and watch it later.

[Colin Zeal EFM]

You've done it again, GHA. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

 

Stop editing my posts or I'm going to get seriously upset.

 

 

[Chubbhead EFM]

Zeal, have you checked out that new music mag 'Bang' yet? I've got a copy and I haven't read it much yet but it seems quite good. There's a CD with it and on it is an Electric Six song called 'Naked Pivtures'. The chorus goes 'I'm gonna make money out of you...I've got naked pictures of your mother'. Quality!

[Colin Zeal EFM]

I saw it in Safeway a couple of days ago, but didn't buy it. Is it the first issue??

 

 

[MK James]

 

No, it's the 2nd. I bought the 1st. issue and very good it was too, although anyone who's wary of Swells's and other ex-NME journo's scribblings might care to give it a miss. There was no free cd with it by the way.

 

My apologies for a few stupid posts a couple of days ago. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

 

 

[Chubbhead EFM]

There was a free cd on my issue (the second one). It was called 'This sh!ts immortal'. Or are you talking about the 1st issue. Still haven't read it!

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

Any alternative to the NME is welcome at the moment, that paper is seriously annoying me at present