In Defence of Duran Duran (Guest Post)

Today's guest blogger is Joey Baltimore, a music and board game enthusiast from the USA. Joe has introduced me to lots of great bands (including Hallelujah the Hills and Hop Along, both of whom feature in my latest monthly playlist), and so I was a little surprised when this cool American guy - my portal to the States and all the awesome rock music being made there - offered to write a guest blog post about his appreciation for Duran Duran.

Now, I've never really listened to Duran Duran - to my mind, they were a bunch of aspirational New Romantic Tory boys who were mainly known for making videos full of scantily-clad women and music that was slightly worse than Spandau Ballet's. Still, I'm always happy to be proven wrong, so here's Joe on why you and I should give DD another go:

On April 4, 2016, The Album Wall had a nice entry discussing #realmusic meme nonsense. Then in May, when Joel was soliciting guest posts for the blog, this exchange happened:

Me: "I wonder how many words I can write about Duran Duran"
Joel: "I suspect you're joking..."

OUTRAGE. Why would anyone suspect I was joking when I referenced Duran Duran? According to the band's Wikipedia page, they were called the 'Fab Five' and compared to the Beatles (I cannot prove that Simon LeBon is not an avid Wikipedia editor). Why would people not take this seriously? Is it because they had a stylist before they had a record contract?* Is it because of this quote about the formation of the band?

"We wouldn't buy records by ugly groups," [Duran Duran keyboardist Nick] Rhodes told People, adding that when he and [John] Taylor decided to start a band they "had vivid ideas of what we wanted to look and sound like, but we looked at the instruments and said, 'Do we have to learn to play these things?'"

Whatever the reason is, I'm here to say I wasn't joking: if you love catchy pop songs, and you like music that makes people want to dance, go listen to Duran Duran again (or for the first time). There is no doubt that their second album, Rio, is their most popular and probably their best. But I've got a special spot in my heart for the band's self-titled debut.

I can't recall when I first heard Duran Duran, but it was probably in the late '80s, while I was visiting an older cousin. I was familiar with the singles Rio and Hungry like the Wolf from the constant MTV rotation (here's where people complain that MTV used to play videos...they did, it was great, move along). But then I got to borrow the full record, and hear the non-single tracks, and I was hooked. The bass on the album is great; it's moving around constantly.  The songs are pop songs, they're written with choruses that get stuck in your head, choruses that you want to hum after you've heard them. This is music that's meant to be consumed purely for entertainment purposes and it does a great job.

Amy's Top 5 Music Videos (Guest Post)

Guest post by Amy Harrison

In all honesty, at the inception of this article I wanted to pick out the best crop of new music video directors to keep an eye out for.  However, after researching further into it, I didn’t come up with much.  There are two main reasons for this:

1. There isn’t much money in music videos any more.  Equipment and editing have improved rapidly to the point where anyone can create a crisp, clean image on their desktop.  Gone are the days of several million dollar music videos.  Even music channels are starting to replace music videos with original programming (or, in some cases, re-runs of kitsch sitcoms) in order to draw in audiences.


2. Music videos are no longer seen as a viable platform to showcase talent.  The '80s were experimental.  The '90s understood the importance of cult material with alternative consumers, which allowed directors to show off their film knowledge.  The '00s had Web 2.0. There is now an industry encouragement to create and publish your own material on the internet because it is much more accessible.

So rather than relaying music video history, which has been covered several million times before, I thought I’d just have fun with it and remind you of (or introduce you to) some awesome music videos.

One More Time by Daft Punk

(2003, directed by Kazuhisa Takenouchi)

This is less so for the music video alone, more for the film it’s attached to called Interstella 5555, about an alien band being kidnapped and brainwashed by an evil manager to perform on earth, told through the songs of Daft Punk’s album Discovery.  Daft Punk had grown up as fans of Captain Harlock, a fictional badass space pirate created by Leiji Matsumoto, and whilst recording Discovery they developed a plot for a film they wanted to make in a similar style.  Upon completion of their album they approached Matsumoto, who agreed to make the film acting as visual supervisor and bringing on Takenouchi of Dragonball fame to direct.  It’s a really fun film that is a product of talented artists collaborating with a childhood hero.  It’s just adorable.