What's your favourite Duran Duran album?

Rio will obviously be the popular choice and I love it myself, but over the years, Notorious has really grown on me. It took me years to warm up to it, but once I did, I came to appreciate just how great it is.

All You Need Is Now and Astronaut are both stellar albums of theirs for me as well. Still Breathing may be my favourite DD song.

 

I think the musical tide was changing so fast that DD's perfectly good post-SATRT songs were just being replaced by the grunge wave. With the exception of "Liberty" (their worst album but it's not per se bad, just not DD or memorable outside "The Violence of Summer" which is a great track) all of their post-SATRT albums have one or two awesome songs, particularly the epic "Palamino" from "Big Thing" (which is my other least favoriteDD album) or Blame The Machines" from RCM or "One Of Those Days" from "Astronaut" -- nobody beats DD when they get an anthemic groove on ("What Are The Chances" from PG is fantastic old-school DD). I also thought "Sunrise" a great DD single and yes, my friend from high school directed the video. Small planet Earth!

 

Yeah Reach Up For the Sunrise is still great in concert, very much an anthem that gets people raising their hands in the air and clapping.

Off Astronaut I always liked Chains a lot, it's one of those haunting little songs they are good at.

 

I voted Rio, although on another day it easily could be their S/T debut. Notorious is a nice third, but that’s basically a Nile Rodgers album of course.

Strange thing is that I love the albums I mentioned above, but I also have serious problems with Simon’s voice and his singing. Most of their other albums are not that special enough to ignore him.

 

Precisely. Much better tracks than what they presented as singles. I remember the mania, went to the 84 show in Oakland that felt like what a second coming of The Beatles might have been like as far as the mania went. I watched casually from a distance, picked up the albums but really got back into them after meeting my wife who was such a pure and enthusiastic fan of the band that it really helped show me what a pure and great person she was. She stuck with them through thick and thin and through my constantly making compilations for her, I gained a very healthy affinity for the band, finding something to like about everything they've ever done. Seeing them in Berkeley not to long ago was a kind of coronation, the whole Bay Area was there and paying tribute to a band that had given everyone decades of great memories. I saw the Notorious show, Erasure had opened up for them and the press coverage was massive. Didn't seem like they had slipped even though it was obvious they took a hit. IMO, they haven't put out an awful album, each one was interesting enough if not great if not brilliant. Thank You even has a few gems.

That said, they just nailed it with Rio. Not many albums burst out of the speakers like that one and it doesn't really let up.
AYNIN, Astronaut, Big Thing and Paper Gods solidify things and then there's that first one that is a great collection of tunes but doesn't feel like an album for whatever reason. I can grab any of the others and be fine...........add to that Arcadia, they did that as well and that one's just fantastic.

Lucky to have grown up with them, they've been around for 35 of my 49 years and they just put out a pretty darned good album. Fair play DD.....well done.

 

Rio but debut isn't far behind for me.

 

RIO

 

RIO is the obvious one but the debut is equally good. A bit darker and arty. Notorious was such a departure in sound that it has taking me years to appreciate it. However It could be down to the sound quality of the CD/cassette I had over the years , as I picked up a second hand vinyl copy and was startled at how good it sounded. In my view the only duff song is A Matter Of Feeling, a song that Simon Le bon is not keen on as it was an attempt to simulate Save a Prayer. It’s also got an awful chorus. Skin Trade is perhaps one of their best songs and John Taylor’s bass is really good on it.
Looking at their more recent output, the second half of Astronaut it top drawer and the iTunes 9 track version of All You Need Is Now is a return to form. The subsequent physical release with umpteenth tracks ruined it for me . Quantity over quality if you ask me. Their last release, Paper Gods has some great songs (title track for one) but the EDM stuff goes over my head.

 

One of the best Duran Duran albums wil be "Arcadia - So Red the Rose".

 

I think "Skin Trade" is one of the best songs from "Notorious" and a great Friday dance song with one of my favorite LeBon lyrics:

"You've got steel, it's so cool,
Get angry at the weekend then go back to school
So big deal, it's what rules
When it comes to making money, say yes, please, thank you..."

 

You had me until A Matter of Feeling!

 

Sorry! I dislike Simon’s singing on it. Especially the chorus.

 

Nice pic Jeffmo.............even so, Jim doesn't approve of you. Just play Signal and the Noise and you'll hear him say it...........between those two things the song's about.

 

Nice to see you on here again, I guess!

 

Revisited "Big Thing" and was totally surprised. Had this on CD in 1989 and it never clicked. Now I got the new vinyl with the original "Drug" and like it better than "Notorious". The production is very much of it's day but the songs are really strong, I just like the whole feeling of it. I mean "Lake Shore Driving" is a bit strange but as a whole "Big Thing" works supremely well.

Would like to move on but beginning with "Liberty" the vinyl versions are getting more and more tricky to find. Or were never available at all - "Medazzaland" & "Pop Trash". Is this reissue series over? Just as it reached the interesting (aka "non bin") records? Really? COME ON!!!!

 

I don't have one.

 

Huge fan of Big Thing, and especially the moodier side two!

 

Side Two is really surprising with the deeply moving "Do You Believe In Shame", the unexpected Japan-isms of "Palomino", those weird little interludes, "Land" and the surprisingly stripped down - and lyrically uncanny current - "Edge Of America".

I remembered "Big Thing" as unsuccessful attempt at creating a modern dance album, cold, soulless and boring but it's actually crammed with fantastic songs.

So.... either this remaster and the exchanged "Drug" give it a completely different sonic quality or I wasn't able to listen properly. Or maybe these cold and soulless late 80's CDs are to blame

 

Now you have me wanting to play it again!

 

You'll be the better off for it. I had been coincidentally playing Big Thing and Tiger and both have aged quite well. I never quite understood why Big Thing got schwacked the way it did, I like the complexity of it and every part contributes to the sum. Side 1 has some cracker singles on it while side 2 is deep and creates a very interesting canvas with many colors. In their top 5 for me, Marlene, Palomino and Land being my favorites and I never really feel like skipping.

 

I was really surprised how good it is. Even the 80's production hasn't aged badly.

Commercially it did one position better than it's predecessor "Notorious", 15 instead of 16 in the UK. But it was downhill in the USA.

Why did it receive such a rather poor critical reaction? No idea, in Germany at the time too. I clearly remember one reviewer making fun of the title. Apparently some people mistook this as a bangwagon house exercise when the album clearly has also lots of other influences.

None of that matters now. At the end of the day "Big Thing" is 100% Duran Duran.

 

Although the first two singles were pretty good (and I love All She Wants is...), along with Drug (hate it), they don’t seem to fit in with the rest of the album. It’s quite a moody album otherwise.

 

A very druggy house album from that period that takes me back to hearing the record for the first time when I was working at Tower -- love the photo of them on the back cover of the "All She Wants Is" tripping the e fantastic...but the singles were weak to me, they were trying too hard to reflect the house scene and I missed their jet set sound tho it's present in a few songs...I really liked hearing Simon read his poetry on the my mini-disc of "ASWS."

 

Love this song and lyric:

Do you believe in love?
Do you believe in shame?
And if love can conquer all then why
Do we only feel the pain?
I heard you speak my name.
Heard you singing The Stones
Maybe heard you laughing in a line of static
On my telephone.
So why your eyelids are closed
Inside a case of rust?
And did you have to change all your poet's fire
To frozen dust.
I try to justify it
To learn from your mistake.
But where's the stupid lie that has to make its point
With such a pointless waste?
Come out
Do you believe in shame?
Do you believe in love?
And if they taste the same would you love again
Or abandon both?
I don't think I ever can believe my friend is gone
Keep saying it's all right, I'm gonna bring you back
But I know I'm wrong.
There's nothing I can say
There's nothing left to do
It's just that lately I've been so damn lonely when
I think of you.
And it may seem selfish now but I'll hold on to
The memory until all this fear is washed away.
Do you believe in love?
Do you believe in life?
Cause I believe a little part of you inside of me
Will never die.
Cause I believe a little part of you inside of me
Will never die
Cause I believe a little part of you inside of me
Will never die.
Cause I believe a little part of you inside of me
Will never die.
Oooooo-hey
Oooooo-hey
Oooooo-hey

 

Found "Astronaut" in a 3€ bin yesterday and had my first headphone, 100% focused listening to this album last night. Hmmmm.... to be honest I found it a bit underwhelming. There are some nice songs on here but overall it sounds a bit... well... ooooold, like dad pop. Unadventurous. Not especially magical. Safe. Hell... I even had to think of Oasis in various places.

Will this grow with repeated listening? The NME had this to say in it's review:

"Doesn’t life already seem cruelly short? Do you really want to waste any of it ploughing through a new Duran Duran record?"

At the moment and after one spin I'm ready to believe them. And people spend a fortune for "Astronaut" on vinyl