Ever since I've been online, I've been looking for a reasoned argument in favor of my favorite musical artist. Having spent ten years with no fitting solutions to that riddle, I've taken it upon myself to posit said argument. This is the conclusion of my Statement Of Fan Being.
In Britain, Duran Duran's debut album was received (generally) favorably, but as is the case with most musical artists that gain enormous amounts of popularity, the British music press turned on them by the time Rio was released. However, the American music media establishment has never been fair to Duran Duran. Not even Rolling Stone magazine, which put the band on its cover in January 1984, dared to go any further than a barely tolerant "we'll acknowledge you because you are a part of the zeitgeist, no more" attitude. By 1980, all corners of American pop cultural media were being controlled by the "peace and love" hippie children of the late '60s, individuals who were brought up to have very rigid ideas about who or what to respect in the worlds of entertainment. Detached guitar strumming and caterwauling about current affairs in some oblique manner was considered to be the acme of musical achievement. Dancing was out unless it was sloppy and accidental, mimicking some kind of drugged-out shimmy, and musical artists who showcased any sort of clean-cut, tailored style were definitely not taken seriously.
So when Duran Duran and their contemporaries came onto the scene and started attracting the attention of America's youth, these establishment figures sneered at their style and polish. It wasn't gritty enough, rock & roll enough, or masculine enough; its sound didn't properly rip off old and impoverished Missisippi bluesmen, and the lyrics? Well, geez, you actually had to ponder the meaning of the lyrics! Things weren't automatically spelled out for you! They were, dare I say it, less like a newspaper report and more like Shakespeare! The artists were advocating -- shock horror -- that the answer to living through an era when life was changing at a dizzying pace and mini-revolutions were happening on a near-daily basis was not to whine about things but rather to take charge, to revolt! Duran Duran came from a dark, dreary industrial city in an area commonly known as the "Black Country". Most of the band spent years doing manual labor while waiting for their big break. While touring the U.K. in 1980 in support of punk diva Hazel O'Connor, a tour that they hoped would attract the attention of record labels, the band lived out of their touring van, had a ten pound a day allowance, washed up at rest stops, and wore pretty much the same clothing throughout the tour. But they turned the charm and glamour on when they took to the stage, which led to a bidding war between at least two major labels, and remained true to themselves and their ethos even when they were at the height of their commercial success.
What Duran Duran and similar artists provided during those days was music both of and transcending from their time. They were quick to acknowledge the depressing state of affairs in Britain. They knew full well their country was entrenched in an economic recession. They were completely aware of the Falklands conflict. The threat of nuclear annhiliation hung over them all like a hauntingly great scepter. But instead of reacting with the naive expectation that one could solve those global issues through the Power Of Music, Duran Duran decided that the perfect solution would be to insist on having a good time in the face of all that adversity. It was a patently punk attitude; its rebelliousness tapped into the consciousness of young people who lived every day fearing a nuclear strike and saw news reports of this new threat of global terrorism, who tired of unsophisticated idealism and insisted that their music be entertaining. These young people weren't nearly as homophobic as the Establishment were and so embraced danceable music more readily, though there still existed a contingency of young, confused males who attacked homosexuality in a fevered attempt to deflect their own conflicted ideas about sexuality. (These were often also the same young males who embraced hair metal in the mid '80s.) Duran Duran has always provided its listeners with a true alternative to traditionalist ideas about How Music Must Be, which has confounded American arbiters of musical taste for decades.
Sadly, this means that Duran Duran has not yet been able to receive the accolades or respect due it by those individuals. One clearly apparent case involves two paperback books published about the band in 1983, toward the beginning of the peak in their popularity. One of these books was authored by a magazine journalist named Toby Goldstein and is an inconsequential volume riddled with errors. The other book was written by a fan named Cynthia C. Kent and, despite its occasionally basic prose (the author was still in high school at the time she penned this book), is perhaps one of the finest published works about the band to date. Kent argued passionately the cause for taking Duran Duran seriously and that calling has been passed down by generations of fans and other individuals outside of the music press establishment. For as long as there has been an Internet, there have been websites that have treated Duran Duran seriously (e.g. Tom McClintock's discography site and Eric Seven's Room 7609 website), zines that have filled the void in terms of adequate coverage of the band (one favorite was when Greg Bueno's Soloist's Notebook published a volume about the band), and mailing lists that were once abuzz with the kind of approbation the band never quite got. Flash forward a decade later and you have yours truly typing out these four essays, still attempting to make up for what the Serious Music People of the world have apparently yet to accomplish, i.e. a full and fair look at Duran Duran.
Complicating matters for Duran Duran is the astronomical success (both critical and commercial) of another group that emerged at about the same time and under similar circumstances, U2. U2 were easy for the members of the music press establishment to embrace. Their lyrics were overtly about social awareness, the music featured the same lead guitar-bass-drums lineup that rock music groups have been working with for many decades, the band's leader said all the right things about all the right social injustices, and all of that combined together to remind the original hippies of their Woodstock youth and reaffirmed their narrow-minded approaches to popular music. These people saw U2 as the very antithesis of what Duran Duran and their stylish associates were and pitted one against the other. Everything that U2 was, they figured Duran Duran wasn't. Bono spoke openly about global issues, which counted; Duran Duran's social justice involvement was more muted and Simon Le Bon spoke of the band being five individual members with distinct mentalities in defense of their non-outspokenness, which automatically branded the band with the incorrect status of not really caring about the state of the world. U2 were patently rock in a Rolling Stones style, which suited the machismo swagger of the Music Press Gatekeepers just fine; Duran Duran were more androgynously pop a la the early Beatles, which these same subtly homophobic editors and publishers just could not take. Bono is hailed as a savior and a saint when he does little to nothing on his own, but Simon Le Bon and other members of Duran Duran give constantly and generously out of their own pockets and little to nothing is said. Not even Le Bon's passionate and authentic devotion to Amnesty International is well known. The music press chooses to dwell on Simon's one singular moment of folly back in 1985 but all is forgotten regarding U2's major faux pas some ten-plus years later. Back when Duran Duran were at their most commercially popular in 1984, the common assertion was that their biggest rivals were London's Spandau Ballet (comprised as they were of males who grew up working class, who attached to themselves the same "we'll show the world by being glamourous in the face of adversity" attitude as their Birmingham contemporaries). The reality was, is, and always will be that Duran Duran's biggest and most damaging opposition stands with the four safely non-androgynous Irish males in U2, and it is because of the American Baby Boomers' sheer size in numbers that U2 have been able to almost completely erase Duran Duran's potent influence from pop music history.
Another reason people disparage Duran Duran is because the band were commonly known for having broken through with the assistance of MTV. What people don't realize is that the band were recording music videos for the adult nightclub market before MTV debuted in the U.S., that the only reason they capitalized on the advent of music video television is because they could not break America any other way, and that had they been able to break through via radio they would have. The only American DJ who gave Duran Duran a break was the legendary Rodney Bingenheimer of L.A.'s KROQ. No other Stateside DJ or radio station would give the band a chance, because their music did not fit the rigid guidelines set in place by radio station programming managers and owners. MTV was virtually the only outlet the band had for introducing their music to the masses, so they had to focus just as much care and attention in creating innovative music videos as they were already doing with their music, which only served to stoke the flames of those people who were driven to hate the band. Cries of "Oh, but they're a VIDEO band, don't you know?" were uttered by the very same people who caused the band to have no other choice but to utilize a visual medium to grab the attention of potential listeners or fans, something the band were not terribly thrilled about but nonetheless went with, because they believed in their music that much.
So in closing, I feel very strongly that the time came for everyone to view Duran Duran with new eyes a long, long time ago. Duran Duran, after all, are the reason why I am so enamored with so many musical artists that have not had a problem with gaining critical acceptance. I have been reassured time and again by people that my music tastes are superb; well, I wouldn't have the musical tastes I have without Duran Duran. Without Duran Duran there would have been no Josef K in my life, no Comsat Angels or The Cure or the Velvet Underground (Duran Duran inspired me to become a bigger fan of Andy Warhol, which then led me to the Velvets). Without Duran Duran, I would not have even become even remotely as interested in music as I am today. I would have simply continued to go along with whatever my parents' musical tastes were, eventually giving up the ghost in favor of -- well, nothingness, really. I've seen that kind of person, the person unaffected by music, and they have no spark of a spirit inside themselves. Their eyes are dull and dispassionate and their manner is nondescript. A real committment and passion to music makes a person all that much livelier and joyful, especially since music is omnipresent. Without Duran Duran to usher me in to a world where I could fully and passionately appreciate popular music, I would be another walking zombie. Thanks to them, however, I have that joie de vivre that has helped me out through so many incidents in my life where I could have simply chosen death -- of the self or of the soul -- instead of life. I'm glad I've chosen life. I'm glad I'm still a Duran Duran fan.
Showing posts with label Duran Duran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Duran Duran. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Duran Duran: The Saga Continues Again. Part Three.
Back for part three in an apparent four-part series revolving thoughts I've had about Duran Duran for a very, very long time, but have only just now consolidated to this one blog.
Duran Duran's music has been incredibly influential in terms of my music tastes post-1991, as I touched on in the last sentence of the last entry I made to this blog. What I didn't explain was the magnitude of this influence, which I still feel is an active one even in the present day. See, what Duran Duran did, as I stated before, was provide me with everything I was looking for in terms of music. They had the rhythm, they had the melodies, they had EVERYTHING. So when I became a more serious and thorough fan of their music, I began to fall for all the individual elements that comprised their music. I was attracted to the punk DIY influence peeking throughout nearly their entire career oeuvre, I loved the throbbing bass rhythm and beat, I felt thrills connected to the band's unconventional but prodigious use of synths in their New Wave rock style, and I loved the polished sophistication oozing from their pores, particularly after the band reunited post-Arcadia and Power Station.
So I began to seek out those very elements in whatever I was listening to. I found it easily with Duran Duran's most commonly associated contemporaries such as Spandau Ballet and Japan, sure, but I also found it easily with many artists not commonly connected to the band. Groups such as Gang Of Four and Wire provided for me many of the same elements I found myself enamored with via Duran Duran's music. GO4's music in particular was relatable in that they too were spawned from the revolutionary punk movement that rewrote the rules on rock music, but also contained within its music pulsating, shuddering rhythms that shook you to the core. And while GO4 didn't make use of synths until their wrongfully maligned 1983 album Hard, they always performed guitar lines that approximated that cold, synthetic sound that I so adored. As far as sophistication goes -- no one can argue that they had it in spades.
Even those musical artists I adore that could not be so easily relatable to Duran Duran's music, such as Joy Division, were brought into my life directly as a result of my Duran Duran fan adoration. Since I became a fan of Duran Duran's in the early '90s, when the only radio stations playing their music were college radio stations (who were staffed at the time with DJs who grew up with that kind of music), and since my fandom provided a need in me to pursue Duran Duran wherever they were, listening to college radio to hear Duran Duran's music played over the airwaves provided me with a direct exposure to all manner of musical artists I would have not ordinarily been exposed to had I just listened to contemporary music. MTV's retro program "Classic MTV" exposed me to more musical artists (e.g. The Church), and pursuing those rarer classic MTV clips on programs such as "120 Minutes" (during those rare occasions when I was allowed to stay up that late on Sunday night) gave me all the contemporary musical education I needed to at least give the illusion of being of the moment.
Those musical artists I now consider myself a fan of whom I didn't discover directly because of Duran Duran were uncovered for me via those other, more directly linkable artists, and going online in part to more actively participate in the fandoms ushered in pre-1997 has exposed me to even more. For example, because of my love for so many musical artists who emerged from the bosoms of the 1980s I became aware of the fact that I was a fan of a certain musical genre called "New Wave". Because of that fact, when I first went online, I searched for any and all New Wave-related resources available therein. Five years later, I discovered this exciting new resource called the New Wave Outpost, which provided me the additional service of giving me the chance to discover musical artists lost to the annals of time. As a direct result of this, I can now count several "obscure" musical artists amongst the list of artists in my fandom, and it has solidified my adoration of the whole of the New Wave musical genre set. (nb: This is coming from an Americentric point of view, so in other countries this would encompass a wide spectrum of genres. Example: One can accurately count post-punk, synthpop, and New Pop as elements of the American definition of New Wave.)
So now the question remains: Why, after all this time and all the many additional musical artists I've discovered to be just as thrilling for me to listen to, have I still maintained as much of a passion for Duran Duran as I have? I suspect part of it is because of the simple fact that They Were There First. They were my first exposure to this whole family of genres that I would later come to love and embrace. But there's also the simple fact that Duran Duran's music provides for me the proof that sometimes you CAN "come home again".
Witness my mentioning of "Hold Me" in the last entry, for example. I played it yesterday for the first time in months and it instantly triggered in me the same reaction it has induced in me since the moment I first heard the song, back in 1992. I felt the warm synths wash over me as the intense bass and urgent drumming pulsated their way into my innermost being, and when Simon Le Bon sang in a sweetly lullabying yet passionate way, I became just as sold on that song as the day I unwrapped my Notorious cassette and played it on my Walkman. And when That Guitar Solo began, I felt the sort of high that many people must seek out by trying drugs. "Hold Me" reaffirmed for me the real reason why I've never wanted to experiment with illicit substances; it's not that I have infinite stores of moderation and reserve, nor do I fear the police sufficiently enough, it's just that for me, music IS my drug, and Duran Duran has provided me with so many highs throughout my life that even when they make egregious errors in career judgement (e.g. by agreeing to work with Justin Timberlake), I will never stray from being one of their most outspoken advocates.
In fact, Duran Duran's music has touched my life so much, one can chart virtually half my life via their music. I have memories of going to the original, now-demolished Earl Abel's with my dad to pick up a family fried chicken dinner and a lemon meringue pie for my parents, grandmother, Grandma's caretaker, and I to share, and listening to Seven & The Ragged Tiger on my Walkman on the drive over. I remember being excited to the point of trembling the night MTV debuted Duran Duran's "Unplugged" special, shuddering both from anticipation and from the chill of the late autumn air as I sat, tears streaming down my face, never expecting to see my favorite musical artist featured in that manner anywhere, let alone the then-still vital MTV. I remember going through rough times in high school and being guided through them partly through Duran Duran's music; "So Long Suicide" was an especially huge assisting tool in getting me through the nonstop stress-a-thon that was my senior year of high school. "Mars Meets Venus" made me feel good during a time period when college pressures and coping with a terminally ill parent meant living through a period when little else did. And "Still Breathing" provided me with renewed hope when I was having my recent existential crisis.
In the next entry, I will touch on some more Duran Duran-related material, as well as close up with a few final remarks.
Duran Duran's music has been incredibly influential in terms of my music tastes post-1991, as I touched on in the last sentence of the last entry I made to this blog. What I didn't explain was the magnitude of this influence, which I still feel is an active one even in the present day. See, what Duran Duran did, as I stated before, was provide me with everything I was looking for in terms of music. They had the rhythm, they had the melodies, they had EVERYTHING. So when I became a more serious and thorough fan of their music, I began to fall for all the individual elements that comprised their music. I was attracted to the punk DIY influence peeking throughout nearly their entire career oeuvre, I loved the throbbing bass rhythm and beat, I felt thrills connected to the band's unconventional but prodigious use of synths in their New Wave rock style, and I loved the polished sophistication oozing from their pores, particularly after the band reunited post-Arcadia and Power Station.
So I began to seek out those very elements in whatever I was listening to. I found it easily with Duran Duran's most commonly associated contemporaries such as Spandau Ballet and Japan, sure, but I also found it easily with many artists not commonly connected to the band. Groups such as Gang Of Four and Wire provided for me many of the same elements I found myself enamored with via Duran Duran's music. GO4's music in particular was relatable in that they too were spawned from the revolutionary punk movement that rewrote the rules on rock music, but also contained within its music pulsating, shuddering rhythms that shook you to the core. And while GO4 didn't make use of synths until their wrongfully maligned 1983 album Hard, they always performed guitar lines that approximated that cold, synthetic sound that I so adored. As far as sophistication goes -- no one can argue that they had it in spades.
Even those musical artists I adore that could not be so easily relatable to Duran Duran's music, such as Joy Division, were brought into my life directly as a result of my Duran Duran fan adoration. Since I became a fan of Duran Duran's in the early '90s, when the only radio stations playing their music were college radio stations (who were staffed at the time with DJs who grew up with that kind of music), and since my fandom provided a need in me to pursue Duran Duran wherever they were, listening to college radio to hear Duran Duran's music played over the airwaves provided me with a direct exposure to all manner of musical artists I would have not ordinarily been exposed to had I just listened to contemporary music. MTV's retro program "Classic MTV" exposed me to more musical artists (e.g. The Church), and pursuing those rarer classic MTV clips on programs such as "120 Minutes" (during those rare occasions when I was allowed to stay up that late on Sunday night) gave me all the contemporary musical education I needed to at least give the illusion of being of the moment.
Those musical artists I now consider myself a fan of whom I didn't discover directly because of Duran Duran were uncovered for me via those other, more directly linkable artists, and going online in part to more actively participate in the fandoms ushered in pre-1997 has exposed me to even more. For example, because of my love for so many musical artists who emerged from the bosoms of the 1980s I became aware of the fact that I was a fan of a certain musical genre called "New Wave". Because of that fact, when I first went online, I searched for any and all New Wave-related resources available therein. Five years later, I discovered this exciting new resource called the New Wave Outpost, which provided me the additional service of giving me the chance to discover musical artists lost to the annals of time. As a direct result of this, I can now count several "obscure" musical artists amongst the list of artists in my fandom, and it has solidified my adoration of the whole of the New Wave musical genre set. (nb: This is coming from an Americentric point of view, so in other countries this would encompass a wide spectrum of genres. Example: One can accurately count post-punk, synthpop, and New Pop as elements of the American definition of New Wave.)
So now the question remains: Why, after all this time and all the many additional musical artists I've discovered to be just as thrilling for me to listen to, have I still maintained as much of a passion for Duran Duran as I have? I suspect part of it is because of the simple fact that They Were There First. They were my first exposure to this whole family of genres that I would later come to love and embrace. But there's also the simple fact that Duran Duran's music provides for me the proof that sometimes you CAN "come home again".
Witness my mentioning of "Hold Me" in the last entry, for example. I played it yesterday for the first time in months and it instantly triggered in me the same reaction it has induced in me since the moment I first heard the song, back in 1992. I felt the warm synths wash over me as the intense bass and urgent drumming pulsated their way into my innermost being, and when Simon Le Bon sang in a sweetly lullabying yet passionate way, I became just as sold on that song as the day I unwrapped my Notorious cassette and played it on my Walkman. And when That Guitar Solo began, I felt the sort of high that many people must seek out by trying drugs. "Hold Me" reaffirmed for me the real reason why I've never wanted to experiment with illicit substances; it's not that I have infinite stores of moderation and reserve, nor do I fear the police sufficiently enough, it's just that for me, music IS my drug, and Duran Duran has provided me with so many highs throughout my life that even when they make egregious errors in career judgement (e.g. by agreeing to work with Justin Timberlake), I will never stray from being one of their most outspoken advocates.
In fact, Duran Duran's music has touched my life so much, one can chart virtually half my life via their music. I have memories of going to the original, now-demolished Earl Abel's with my dad to pick up a family fried chicken dinner and a lemon meringue pie for my parents, grandmother, Grandma's caretaker, and I to share, and listening to Seven & The Ragged Tiger on my Walkman on the drive over. I remember being excited to the point of trembling the night MTV debuted Duran Duran's "Unplugged" special, shuddering both from anticipation and from the chill of the late autumn air as I sat, tears streaming down my face, never expecting to see my favorite musical artist featured in that manner anywhere, let alone the then-still vital MTV. I remember going through rough times in high school and being guided through them partly through Duran Duran's music; "So Long Suicide" was an especially huge assisting tool in getting me through the nonstop stress-a-thon that was my senior year of high school. "Mars Meets Venus" made me feel good during a time period when college pressures and coping with a terminally ill parent meant living through a period when little else did. And "Still Breathing" provided me with renewed hope when I was having my recent existential crisis.
In the next entry, I will touch on some more Duran Duran-related material, as well as close up with a few final remarks.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Duran Duran: The Saga Continues. Part Two.
Okay, so in preparation for today's blog post, I played a lot of Duran Duran songs. I haven't listened to a Duran Duran song (well, aside from my nom de blog namesake) for months and months, and listening to those songs was like coming home again. Even after being aurally excited by a seemingly countless stream of musical artistry, if I listen to a Duran Duran song, particularly one I especially adore, I still sense that powerful element of magic that originally drew me to the band in the first place. I think I almost ended up repeating "Hold Me", which was one of my favorite songs when I was a teenager, but was stopped from doing so via time constraints.
So. Duran Duran. What about them makes me respect and adore them as much as I do? I suspect that part of it has to do with the fact that they were my gateway to a sort of alternative music culture to the ones I'd been exposed to throughout my early childhood. Anything and everything I've been a fan of from the very day I fell for my very first Duran Duran song ("Hungry Like The Wolf" if you don't know me well enough by now) is either directly or indirectly caused by Duran Duran. My love affair with this band has lasted longer than a lot of marriages. Fifteen and a half years is an awfully long time for someone who is almost halfway toward year number 28 of her existence. And sure, right now I'm not exactly the biggest champion for this band's recent career decisions, yet -- I'm defending them right now on this blog, aren't I?
I suppose, though, that no matter what the band do, no matter the number of missteps I see them committing in the present day, they will always be responsible for much of the music-derived happiness I have experienced for the decade and a half-plus time period I have been listening to their music. Their music has also provided for the very template I use, consciously and subconsciously, to determine whether or not a piece of music has me in thrall. It is because of Duran Duran that I value highly the presence of a synth or a synth-like sound in the music I listen to. It is because of Duran Duran that I don't look down upon music that has all the distinctive hallmarks of the '80s; I find glossy production, echoey Linn-like drumming, and glimmery Fairlight CMI synth action to be what I most favor about music in all but a few exceptions. It is because of Duran Duran that I have to listen to music that features a very strong rhythm section that throbs its way into the core of my being, even if it isn't transparently funky or danceable.
But -- why Duran Duran? Why did it take them to make me swoon first, swoon the most, swoon the longest? I once posited that it could have come from my musical background, the very music my parents exposed me to when I was little. My mother subsisted on a diet of '50s proto R&B and '60s - '70s Motown and exposed me to oldies radio in the process of feeding her need to listen to Aretha or Gladys or Ray, and while I listened to the oldies I enjoyed not only those classic R&B songs but also the music from the first British Invasion, as well as the candy-coated harmonies of groups such as The Mamas & The Papas and The Beach Boys. My dad favored the music of the '40s and '50s and anything else that was smooth and relaxing and we bonded over our shared appreciation for big band music, its big, warm, lush sounds evocative of a feeling of bonhomie that I became a fan of. All of those elements combined together to create what I considered a blueprint for what I would look for in a musical artist, and the blueprint became an inscrutable puzzle by the time I hit the double digits age-wise and started to want to drift away from what my parents listened to. I eventually tried out classic rock radio for a few months, but wasn't happy with most of what I listened to. What I didn't know was that the solution to the puzzle wouldn't come from the radio but from TV.
Actually, I had no idea music television existed in the first place. Even though I was a little girl during a decade that was shaped in part by MTV's flashy style, my household was an MTV-free zone throughout the '80s. My parents were slightly older than the norm (they were in their mid 30s when I was born) and so they did not enjoy that kind of entertainment. And even though I was pretty much unrestricted in terms of what pop culture I was exposed to, I tended to gravitate toward more staid television choices such as the Weather Channel or "The Munsters"/"The Addams Family" reruns on TBS. I didn't even know what "MTV" stood for, which is why when I was at home alone after school as a "latch key kid", I never bothered with that channel. But when I became a preteen, I began to be curious about the full spectrum of entertainment choices that were on cable, so one day in a fit of pique I decided to flip through the channels. What I stayed stuck at wasn't MTV, it was VH1, and it was that day in the autumn of 1991 that I got my first peek at what a "music video" is. I think my actual first music video experience consisted of the last minute and a half of some Rod Stewart video, but it was enough to raise my curiosity levels and make me want to put down the remote. Which I remain grateful for because what I saw next literally changed my whole life.
At first I marveled at this mini-film I was watching. It looked like a part-travelogue, part-drama. The scenery was breathtaking. The males being featured on the screen were very attractive. The action was hyper-intense, almost like an Indiana Jones movie. And the MUSIC -- the music was the answer to the puzzle. It contained everything I was looking for in a piece of music; it was melodic, it had an intense rhythm, it was big and warm and lush, and it made me feel like no other piece of music had ever made me feel before. It affected me to my core and it, combined with the visuals, created an addiction in me. I had to find out more. So I spent every free moment I had glued to the TV, to this new and strange channel that played something called "music videos", in hopes of catching what I had seen again. It didn't help matters that this channel was being shared by a comedy channel, but after over a month of waiting I saw it again, and this time I knew to look at the informational chyron at the bottom left hand corner of the screen. "So the name of this band is apparently called 'Duran Duran' and the name of the song is 'Hungry Like The Wolf'? Strange. But I love this. I have to have more of this." And in December of 1991 I had to have it enough to where I gathered up the courage to have Mom take me to a secondhand music store, where I purchased a copy of Rio on cassette with my babysitting money.
From that moment on, a new blueprint was drawn up, one that drew its patterns and designs from the elements I heard evidenced on the Rio album, which incidentally I was later to find out was the third U.S. pressing version of said album, featuring remixes by David Kershenbaum on half of the album. (So you foreign folks will be familiar with a different version of this album than the one I fell in love with.) Soon thereafter I came into possession of two more Duran Duran cassettes (their debut album and Seven & The Ragged Tiger), then I came across a Duran Duran scrapbook at a flea market, and from that point on there was no looking back. My Japan fandom came as a result of seeing them mentioned in the scrapbook, then more VH1 viewing led me to more British artists who hit their commercial peak in the '80s such as Spandau Ballet, then that led me to want to watch anything '80s music video-related, which led me directly to MTV, and from that moment on I was able to form the foundation upon which virtually all of my musical tastes have been built.
Wow, I think I'm going to need a part three to this. More tomorrow, it looks like....
So. Duran Duran. What about them makes me respect and adore them as much as I do? I suspect that part of it has to do with the fact that they were my gateway to a sort of alternative music culture to the ones I'd been exposed to throughout my early childhood. Anything and everything I've been a fan of from the very day I fell for my very first Duran Duran song ("Hungry Like The Wolf" if you don't know me well enough by now) is either directly or indirectly caused by Duran Duran. My love affair with this band has lasted longer than a lot of marriages. Fifteen and a half years is an awfully long time for someone who is almost halfway toward year number 28 of her existence. And sure, right now I'm not exactly the biggest champion for this band's recent career decisions, yet -- I'm defending them right now on this blog, aren't I?
I suppose, though, that no matter what the band do, no matter the number of missteps I see them committing in the present day, they will always be responsible for much of the music-derived happiness I have experienced for the decade and a half-plus time period I have been listening to their music. Their music has also provided for the very template I use, consciously and subconsciously, to determine whether or not a piece of music has me in thrall. It is because of Duran Duran that I value highly the presence of a synth or a synth-like sound in the music I listen to. It is because of Duran Duran that I don't look down upon music that has all the distinctive hallmarks of the '80s; I find glossy production, echoey Linn-like drumming, and glimmery Fairlight CMI synth action to be what I most favor about music in all but a few exceptions. It is because of Duran Duran that I have to listen to music that features a very strong rhythm section that throbs its way into the core of my being, even if it isn't transparently funky or danceable.
But -- why Duran Duran? Why did it take them to make me swoon first, swoon the most, swoon the longest? I once posited that it could have come from my musical background, the very music my parents exposed me to when I was little. My mother subsisted on a diet of '50s proto R&B and '60s - '70s Motown and exposed me to oldies radio in the process of feeding her need to listen to Aretha or Gladys or Ray, and while I listened to the oldies I enjoyed not only those classic R&B songs but also the music from the first British Invasion, as well as the candy-coated harmonies of groups such as The Mamas & The Papas and The Beach Boys. My dad favored the music of the '40s and '50s and anything else that was smooth and relaxing and we bonded over our shared appreciation for big band music, its big, warm, lush sounds evocative of a feeling of bonhomie that I became a fan of. All of those elements combined together to create what I considered a blueprint for what I would look for in a musical artist, and the blueprint became an inscrutable puzzle by the time I hit the double digits age-wise and started to want to drift away from what my parents listened to. I eventually tried out classic rock radio for a few months, but wasn't happy with most of what I listened to. What I didn't know was that the solution to the puzzle wouldn't come from the radio but from TV.
Actually, I had no idea music television existed in the first place. Even though I was a little girl during a decade that was shaped in part by MTV's flashy style, my household was an MTV-free zone throughout the '80s. My parents were slightly older than the norm (they were in their mid 30s when I was born) and so they did not enjoy that kind of entertainment. And even though I was pretty much unrestricted in terms of what pop culture I was exposed to, I tended to gravitate toward more staid television choices such as the Weather Channel or "The Munsters"/"The Addams Family" reruns on TBS. I didn't even know what "MTV" stood for, which is why when I was at home alone after school as a "latch key kid", I never bothered with that channel. But when I became a preteen, I began to be curious about the full spectrum of entertainment choices that were on cable, so one day in a fit of pique I decided to flip through the channels. What I stayed stuck at wasn't MTV, it was VH1, and it was that day in the autumn of 1991 that I got my first peek at what a "music video" is. I think my actual first music video experience consisted of the last minute and a half of some Rod Stewart video, but it was enough to raise my curiosity levels and make me want to put down the remote. Which I remain grateful for because what I saw next literally changed my whole life.
At first I marveled at this mini-film I was watching. It looked like a part-travelogue, part-drama. The scenery was breathtaking. The males being featured on the screen were very attractive. The action was hyper-intense, almost like an Indiana Jones movie. And the MUSIC -- the music was the answer to the puzzle. It contained everything I was looking for in a piece of music; it was melodic, it had an intense rhythm, it was big and warm and lush, and it made me feel like no other piece of music had ever made me feel before. It affected me to my core and it, combined with the visuals, created an addiction in me. I had to find out more. So I spent every free moment I had glued to the TV, to this new and strange channel that played something called "music videos", in hopes of catching what I had seen again. It didn't help matters that this channel was being shared by a comedy channel, but after over a month of waiting I saw it again, and this time I knew to look at the informational chyron at the bottom left hand corner of the screen. "So the name of this band is apparently called 'Duran Duran' and the name of the song is 'Hungry Like The Wolf'? Strange. But I love this. I have to have more of this." And in December of 1991 I had to have it enough to where I gathered up the courage to have Mom take me to a secondhand music store, where I purchased a copy of Rio on cassette with my babysitting money.
From that moment on, a new blueprint was drawn up, one that drew its patterns and designs from the elements I heard evidenced on the Rio album, which incidentally I was later to find out was the third U.S. pressing version of said album, featuring remixes by David Kershenbaum on half of the album. (So you foreign folks will be familiar with a different version of this album than the one I fell in love with.) Soon thereafter I came into possession of two more Duran Duran cassettes (their debut album and Seven & The Ragged Tiger), then I came across a Duran Duran scrapbook at a flea market, and from that point on there was no looking back. My Japan fandom came as a result of seeing them mentioned in the scrapbook, then more VH1 viewing led me to more British artists who hit their commercial peak in the '80s such as Spandau Ballet, then that led me to want to watch anything '80s music video-related, which led me directly to MTV, and from that moment on I was able to form the foundation upon which virtually all of my musical tastes have been built.
Wow, I think I'm going to need a part three to this. More tomorrow, it looks like....
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Duran Duran: A Blog Post Trailer. Or Part One. You Decide.
In a world where people strain their brains for a lifetime figuring out the next thing to write....
Okay, so I only just now figured out the next topic I'll be tackling on this blog o' mine, and this topic hits especially close to home. See, I was looking back at some of the complaint-based things I've stated in the past and one common theme/thread appears to be running through all of those complaints: Why aren't you taking Duran Duran seriously?
Seriously, Duran Duran are the reason why I'm as much of a music fan as I am in the first place. They are the deeply rooted motivator behind every single post I've been making and will be making on this blog, even when said subject matter might not appear to be even remotely relatable. Duran Duran helped drag me away from a period of my life when I was just going along with whatever my parents liked, and helped me in the development of my own musical tastes separate from my parents'. Virtually anything and everything I've enjoyed listening to from the day I purchased Rio at a secondhand music store in the winter of 1991 onward is because of Duran Duran. And I'm not about to stop acknowledging that, even as I'm now witnessing them making some huge missteps that have caused me to lose a great deal of my faith in them.
Yet I don't know of a single location online, not a single resource or critical voice or someone who just Takes Music Seriously who is ready and willing to defend Duran Duran or to explain why people should take their career oeuvure (sp?) seriously. I think Steve Malins attempts to do this with his latest book, and George Gimarc almost touches on a sort of defense when he references the band in his book on post-punk, but not even Simon Reynolds, who puts up an impressive defense of the New Pop genre that Duran Duran were slotted in during their commercial heyday, does an adequate job of really destroying the destructive myths surrounding the band. And while you might see an occasional glimmer of hope here and there, it still doesn't even begin to have the kind of might that would be needed to combat the decades of critical dismissal of the group, even when the group were at their most admirably envelope-pushing and, dare I say it, experimental. If I read something online that states something positive about the band, it usually comes from a perspective deeply rooted in their stereotyped image as a teen idol group. (Perhaps a part of the blessing in disguise that is the Scars' lack of commercial success is the fact that they most certainly would have had success as teen idol figures, with their considerable music talents ignored in favor of their physical attractiveness.)
I can always sense it: Someone will point out a blog link to something that discusses Duran Duran in a praise-filled manner, and I will bet on the author of said piece to claim to have been a fan of the group's back in the early '80s, to talk about how she (it's usually a "she") had a crush on [insert Duran Duran band member here] back when she was a teenager, how she just loved the group's music back in the '80s but stopped listening to them in 1987/1988, how she was only slightly aware of their 1993 commercial resurgance but when she heard about the "original Fab Five" lineup reuniting in 2001 it compelled her to revisit the band, how much the group's newest music reminds her of her teen years, and how "weird" she finds the band's musical output from the late '90s to be. And if I were a betting woman, I would make so much money off asserting that that template would be the one that was being followed that I could afford plane fare to visit all of these overgrown adolescents, personally smack them upside the head, and curse them out for undoing all the hard work I've done in the past in proving that you can adore Duran Duran's music without devolving into silly adolescent giggling nonsense.
Also, I get incensed by these girls (ok, sometimes the offending figure is a boi) because they are the very definition of a fair-weather fan, which I am by no means interested in even dealing with. These people appear only to like a musical artist when it's commercially/critically acceptable to do so, and at the very moment said musical artist's star/estimation falls, these people just cut and run. Okay, so maybe it does have its benefits -- I wouldn't have nearly the amount of Duran Duran-related paraphernalia, including all of those cassettes and vinyl I've picked up from secondhand outlets throughout the years, but it gets so frustrating to me to have to deal with a constant editorial assault from these people, who automatically want to lay claim on Duran Duran as if they're the OG fanbeings and anyone who got into the group post-1986 is just a neophyte loser who doesn't deserve to be called a true fan. I mean, like, WHATEVER you stupid bitchlet, *I* was the one who spent days obsessing over an eBay auction in hopes of winning something Duran Duran related. *I* was the one who stuck by the group, year after year, when no one else appeared to even want to be associated with them. *I* was the one who spent hours fast-forwarding through shitty VH1 music video programming (that "The Big '80s" program stank to high heaven, didn't it?) just to see if maybe they'd play a Duran Duran video. *I* was the one who ran home from school her senior year of high school to see a glimpse of Duran Duran on Rosie O'Donnell's old talk show. You got to connect with many, many contemporaries who shared your brand of Duran Duran fanhood, while I had to be the odd duckling who liked "some group called Duran Duran" whom almost none of her classmates had even heard of. During a time period when you were busily denying you ever found any real enjoyment in the band's music, I might add.
So I'll attempt to wrest away the attention and spotlight away from these non-fans and try to posit my arguments for why someone such as myself, someone who feels like she takes music very seriously, would consider Duran Duran to be her gold standard for what she looks for in terms of contemporary/popular music. Even though -- now, this is the real killer here -- even though the band have been practically bending over backwards for the past six years or so to try to appease those little dipshit fair-weather fans. And okay, so the raw materials that made up the songs on that album Astronaut were really, really good, but seriously, I would still take Medazzaland any day of the week over that album, and this next album they'll be releasing soon is going to be the first album of theirs I have committed myself to never owning, not even if I find it on sale for $1 at some clearance sale. And no amount of convincing will make me change my mind about that. But I still cannot escape the fact that Duran Duran have remained influential in my music-listening life for as long as they have, and that I've been a member of their fan ranks for well over half my life. And yes, I still consider myself a fan of theirs.
More tomorrow.
Okay, so I only just now figured out the next topic I'll be tackling on this blog o' mine, and this topic hits especially close to home. See, I was looking back at some of the complaint-based things I've stated in the past and one common theme/thread appears to be running through all of those complaints: Why aren't you taking Duran Duran seriously?
Seriously, Duran Duran are the reason why I'm as much of a music fan as I am in the first place. They are the deeply rooted motivator behind every single post I've been making and will be making on this blog, even when said subject matter might not appear to be even remotely relatable. Duran Duran helped drag me away from a period of my life when I was just going along with whatever my parents liked, and helped me in the development of my own musical tastes separate from my parents'. Virtually anything and everything I've enjoyed listening to from the day I purchased Rio at a secondhand music store in the winter of 1991 onward is because of Duran Duran. And I'm not about to stop acknowledging that, even as I'm now witnessing them making some huge missteps that have caused me to lose a great deal of my faith in them.
Yet I don't know of a single location online, not a single resource or critical voice or someone who just Takes Music Seriously who is ready and willing to defend Duran Duran or to explain why people should take their career oeuvure (sp?) seriously. I think Steve Malins attempts to do this with his latest book, and George Gimarc almost touches on a sort of defense when he references the band in his book on post-punk, but not even Simon Reynolds, who puts up an impressive defense of the New Pop genre that Duran Duran were slotted in during their commercial heyday, does an adequate job of really destroying the destructive myths surrounding the band. And while you might see an occasional glimmer of hope here and there, it still doesn't even begin to have the kind of might that would be needed to combat the decades of critical dismissal of the group, even when the group were at their most admirably envelope-pushing and, dare I say it, experimental. If I read something online that states something positive about the band, it usually comes from a perspective deeply rooted in their stereotyped image as a teen idol group. (Perhaps a part of the blessing in disguise that is the Scars' lack of commercial success is the fact that they most certainly would have had success as teen idol figures, with their considerable music talents ignored in favor of their physical attractiveness.)
I can always sense it: Someone will point out a blog link to something that discusses Duran Duran in a praise-filled manner, and I will bet on the author of said piece to claim to have been a fan of the group's back in the early '80s, to talk about how she (it's usually a "she") had a crush on [insert Duran Duran band member here] back when she was a teenager, how she just loved the group's music back in the '80s but stopped listening to them in 1987/1988, how she was only slightly aware of their 1993 commercial resurgance but when she heard about the "original Fab Five" lineup reuniting in 2001 it compelled her to revisit the band, how much the group's newest music reminds her of her teen years, and how "weird" she finds the band's musical output from the late '90s to be. And if I were a betting woman, I would make so much money off asserting that that template would be the one that was being followed that I could afford plane fare to visit all of these overgrown adolescents, personally smack them upside the head, and curse them out for undoing all the hard work I've done in the past in proving that you can adore Duran Duran's music without devolving into silly adolescent giggling nonsense.
Also, I get incensed by these girls (ok, sometimes the offending figure is a boi) because they are the very definition of a fair-weather fan, which I am by no means interested in even dealing with. These people appear only to like a musical artist when it's commercially/critically acceptable to do so, and at the very moment said musical artist's star/estimation falls, these people just cut and run. Okay, so maybe it does have its benefits -- I wouldn't have nearly the amount of Duran Duran-related paraphernalia, including all of those cassettes and vinyl I've picked up from secondhand outlets throughout the years, but it gets so frustrating to me to have to deal with a constant editorial assault from these people, who automatically want to lay claim on Duran Duran as if they're the OG fanbeings and anyone who got into the group post-1986 is just a neophyte loser who doesn't deserve to be called a true fan. I mean, like, WHATEVER you stupid bitchlet, *I* was the one who spent days obsessing over an eBay auction in hopes of winning something Duran Duran related. *I* was the one who stuck by the group, year after year, when no one else appeared to even want to be associated with them. *I* was the one who spent hours fast-forwarding through shitty VH1 music video programming (that "The Big '80s" program stank to high heaven, didn't it?) just to see if maybe they'd play a Duran Duran video. *I* was the one who ran home from school her senior year of high school to see a glimpse of Duran Duran on Rosie O'Donnell's old talk show. You got to connect with many, many contemporaries who shared your brand of Duran Duran fanhood, while I had to be the odd duckling who liked "some group called Duran Duran" whom almost none of her classmates had even heard of. During a time period when you were busily denying you ever found any real enjoyment in the band's music, I might add.
So I'll attempt to wrest away the attention and spotlight away from these non-fans and try to posit my arguments for why someone such as myself, someone who feels like she takes music very seriously, would consider Duran Duran to be her gold standard for what she looks for in terms of contemporary/popular music. Even though -- now, this is the real killer here -- even though the band have been practically bending over backwards for the past six years or so to try to appease those little dipshit fair-weather fans. And okay, so the raw materials that made up the songs on that album Astronaut were really, really good, but seriously, I would still take Medazzaland any day of the week over that album, and this next album they'll be releasing soon is going to be the first album of theirs I have committed myself to never owning, not even if I find it on sale for $1 at some clearance sale. And no amount of convincing will make me change my mind about that. But I still cannot escape the fact that Duran Duran have remained influential in my music-listening life for as long as they have, and that I've been a member of their fan ranks for well over half my life. And yes, I still consider myself a fan of theirs.
More tomorrow.
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