Rio
Duran Duran
1982
You'll see over the course of the next couple years that Summer Song Challenge participants beat me to the punch with a lot of the Blind Spot artists on my list. I mean, it makes sense when you think about it. I'm here because I am nominally familiar with a musical artist, and that's because they are ostensibly popular enough that even someone who isn't familiar with their music would at least be aware of their stature in the popular music canon, and so there is by definition going to be a lot of music that I am not familiar with but that everyone else is. That's literally why I'm calling them "blind spots." I am the blind one. Of course when other contributors of the blog hop on to write something, they are going to be familiar with music that I'm not. (That's one of the biggest joys of blogging!)
At the end of June, Fisher chose Duran Duran's "Hungry like the Wolf" for some prompt or another, and had this to say about it: "You've all heard this. You should all like this." He accidentally summed up my feelings about pretty much every album in Year of Blind Spots. I should have heard this. I should have already liked this. We are here for a course correction.
Fisher also indicates that he "couldn't tell you much about Duran Duran other than their namesake and that this song works." True again, and I empathize with the sentiments. I knew about "Hungry like the Wolf" of course. Also, the title track of their second and most critically acclaimed album, Rio, covered today, was almost as popular but not quite (eleven spots lower on the Billboard Hot 100 but still just as recognizable to my ears). Those two songs are the extent to which I know who Duran Duran are or what kind of music they make.
The assumption, proven correct after repeated listens this week, is that Duran Duran stand as a testament to the big new wave-esque sounds of peak-era MTV. If we say that a certain song or artist sounds like "the '80s," then that's intimately connected to what your typical popular music video might sound like during that decade. I wasn't listening to MTV back then, especially six years before I was born, but I know enough about the popular sounds through the decades to know that Duran Duran is totemic of that very specific sound at that very specific time.
So both of their big hits are on here. I was going to say "biggest hits," but that's all relative—Duran Duran has two #1 hits in America, and neither are on this album, and neither are "Rio" or "Hungry like the Wolf." Which is insane, because the 99% of us who aren't hardcore Duran Duran fans would be hard-pressed to name a single other song. The #1s are "The Reflex" from Rio's follow-up, Seven and the Ragged Tiger, and "A View to Kill," which is a Bond theme. I just listened to both of these songs—really relistened to them, since I've been following along with The Number Ones from the beginning—and neither of them were recognizable to me. Sometimes, songs take a long-term hold on the culture, which isn't reflected in the short-term success-tracking of Billboard's charts.
Thankfully this isn't one of those albums with two hits and a bunch of filler. I'd argue that Duran Duran more than justify their cultural gravity with these deep cuts. The genre adjective that I used above was "new wave," and that's true, but I'm actually more likely to refer to this music as dance pop. There are external connections between Duran Duran and Chic, and it shows in the music. The way that the funky bass on "My Own Way" levels out the flighty synths, that's dance music, baby. Or that big guitar on "Last Chance on the Stairway," and how those three quick beats interrupt the chorus. But then there's some artsy stuff going on around the margins too—the foreboding synths on "The Chauffeur" (reminds me of Sunset Rubdown), or those cool echo-y keyboard hits on "Hold Back the Rain," or the marimba solo on the breakdown of "Last Chance on the Stairway" that leads into the almost Slash-esque guitar solo (guys, I'm starting to suspect that "Last Chance on the Stairway" is the best song on this album). Overall, the perfect balance of cool and fun and chill and upbeat and retro and fresh.
That's basically all you need to know, in case you've been wondering since you heard "Hungry like the Wolf" on Puke on Your Birthday during SSC. There is no grand lore here. Just a cool band who peaked in the '80s, and even though that peak is long gone, it echos into the present. Great album.
At the end of June, Fisher chose Duran Duran's "Hungry like the Wolf" for some prompt or another, and had this to say about it: "You've all heard this. You should all like this." He accidentally summed up my feelings about pretty much every album in Year of Blind Spots. I should have heard this. I should have already liked this. We are here for a course correction.
Fisher also indicates that he "couldn't tell you much about Duran Duran other than their namesake and that this song works." True again, and I empathize with the sentiments. I knew about "Hungry like the Wolf" of course. Also, the title track of their second and most critically acclaimed album, Rio, covered today, was almost as popular but not quite (eleven spots lower on the Billboard Hot 100 but still just as recognizable to my ears). Those two songs are the extent to which I know who Duran Duran are or what kind of music they make.
The assumption, proven correct after repeated listens this week, is that Duran Duran stand as a testament to the big new wave-esque sounds of peak-era MTV. If we say that a certain song or artist sounds like "the '80s," then that's intimately connected to what your typical popular music video might sound like during that decade. I wasn't listening to MTV back then, especially six years before I was born, but I know enough about the popular sounds through the decades to know that Duran Duran is totemic of that very specific sound at that very specific time.
So both of their big hits are on here. I was going to say "biggest hits," but that's all relative—Duran Duran has two #1 hits in America, and neither are on this album, and neither are "Rio" or "Hungry like the Wolf." Which is insane, because the 99% of us who aren't hardcore Duran Duran fans would be hard-pressed to name a single other song. The #1s are "The Reflex" from Rio's follow-up, Seven and the Ragged Tiger, and "A View to Kill," which is a Bond theme. I just listened to both of these songs—really relistened to them, since I've been following along with The Number Ones from the beginning—and neither of them were recognizable to me. Sometimes, songs take a long-term hold on the culture, which isn't reflected in the short-term success-tracking of Billboard's charts.
Thankfully this isn't one of those albums with two hits and a bunch of filler. I'd argue that Duran Duran more than justify their cultural gravity with these deep cuts. The genre adjective that I used above was "new wave," and that's true, but I'm actually more likely to refer to this music as dance pop. There are external connections between Duran Duran and Chic, and it shows in the music. The way that the funky bass on "My Own Way" levels out the flighty synths, that's dance music, baby. Or that big guitar on "Last Chance on the Stairway," and how those three quick beats interrupt the chorus. But then there's some artsy stuff going on around the margins too—the foreboding synths on "The Chauffeur" (reminds me of Sunset Rubdown), or those cool echo-y keyboard hits on "Hold Back the Rain," or the marimba solo on the breakdown of "Last Chance on the Stairway" that leads into the almost Slash-esque guitar solo (guys, I'm starting to suspect that "Last Chance on the Stairway" is the best song on this album). Overall, the perfect balance of cool and fun and chill and upbeat and retro and fresh.
That's basically all you need to know, in case you've been wondering since you heard "Hungry like the Wolf" on Puke on Your Birthday during SSC. There is no grand lore here. Just a cool band who peaked in the '80s, and even though that peak is long gone, it echos into the present. Great album.
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