Late Review: Duran Duran Red Carpet Massacre

Today marks one year since Duran Duran launched their latest comeback album and to celebrate I bring you a late review that has been sitting in draft since February. Maybe I should have finished it:

Duran Duran's Red Carpet Massacre recently caught my attention again prompting me to finally gave it a proper listen. Their patchy self-titled wedding album was one of the first discs I bought back when I really started getting into music leaving me with doubt over their ability to fully bring the goods and it's reputation as one of their stronger efforts has put me off buying Duran Duran albums for ages. Sure there have been some strong moments over the years with "Electric Barbarella" and "Nice" coming to mind as relatively recent favorites, but I never seem to find much I want to revisit outside of the singles. When Red Carpet Massacre came out it simply slipped past me despite it being covered by many of my favorite blogs, talked up by some online friends and hearing some of it on the Bay Area's kinda top 40 radio station.

Without a doubt the defining buzz around the album was super producer Timbaland's involvement suggesting this is Duran Duran's hip hop album. The group have shown an interest in the genre before covering "White Lines" and bringing Missy Elliot on board for a track on their last album but Timbaland co-produces three tracks and his apprentice Danja, who the Wall Street Journal note "typically charges $50,000 to $100,000 per track", has his hands over the all but one of the remaining tracks demonstrating the group's willingness to jump into the deep end of a foreign genre. Well almost. After listening to the album I can now safely say that they didn't jettison all their new wave roots but rather polished them with a different production style. Opener "The Valley" is a great example coming on as strong as any of their recent material but far enough away from their usual mode of operation that my first listen had me checking my car stereo's EQ to see what happened to the missing mid-range. The title track pushes the band further into unexplored territory as the album's biggest lyrical statement, some sort of take down of vapid celebrity culture which must disgust the yachting members of Duran Duran, finds the common ground between punk and the sounds of top 40 hip hop. Timbaland makes his first appearance on "Nite-Runner", the album's biggest hip hop moment and the most obvious choice for a single, lending his signature beats to a song that sounds so little like anything Duran Duran have touched before that that Simon Le Bon's vocals are easily mistaken for those of the track's co-producer Justin Timberlake. The remaining Timbaland tracks allow more of the band to shine through but both don't hit the mark of radio friendly pop with the same force.
Elsewhere in the album the band primarily focus on their strength at crafting mid-tempo ballads. The first single "Falling Down" finds Timberlake alone in the producer's chair steering the band towards "Ordinary World" territory with enough to success to that it got the band back on US radio. Well at least for a few weeks. They strip down the production to simple strummed guitar on "Box Full O Honey" which is an earnest attempt to portray heartbreak that is a highlight despite sounding a bit overworked. "She's Too Much" also hits some sweets spots as LeBon demonstrates why he has such a way with the ladies as he bares his sensitive soul.
Those looking for some old school new wave jams won't be disappointed. "Zoom In" has it going on musically but lines like "I'm zooming in and out on you" seem like an odd pickup line for the new millennium. A bit of research reveals the song was premiered in the game Second Life which give the lyrics a quite literal twist but it's still odd to hear the band wooing a sexy lady by praising her "avatar". You really have to be at a certain stage in your career to have that the confidence to so boldly go where your lyrical muse takes you.
Over all the band really have it together on this out as even the instrumental "Tricked Out", which has a touch of a rocked out Halloween magic, seem essential to the album. It may have taken some time, but Duran Duran have finally found the right mix of new ideas and consistent songwriting to draw me into an album that I want to revisit. Hopefully their label will wake up realizing that they gave up way too early on this strong album and finally release a second single soon.

It Feels So Nice

Duran Duran have a new digital single "Nice" out in the US this week taken from the band's 2004 reunion album "Astronaut". Commissioned some time ago the single was planned to be released the same time as they were to be touring Europe in 2005 but after the promos failed to generate interest with radio the single was shelved. I suspect the success of Ferry Corsten's "Fire", which is essentially a remix of DD's 80's album track "Serious", made the record company rethink their original decision by proving there is a market for dance versions of DD tunes other than "Hungry Like The Wolf". Having already spent the money on the remixes it must have been an obvious choice to give it a digital release since there are no distribution costs.

The album version of "Nice" has plenty going for it musically as a classic Duran Duran new wave disco tune, but the lyrics are laughable. One of the reason ladies love Simon Le Bon is because he wears his heart on his sleeve and I feel his pain when he sings "it hurts me to think that you might never know that I've got this thing about you". Then he continues with some of the most emotional sentiment ever committed to song he reveals that "there is nothing better than being with you and I'm feeling so nice". Nice. Of course it's just disco and if you listen to music for the lyrics you are foolish for not sticking to poetry.

As expected most of the remixes are a by-the-numbers dance stuff even if someone had the daft idea of commissioning a hip hop remix from Dready which lays some new "yeahs" and "woos" over the song. However the Eric Prydz mixes, which include two edits that are perversely longer than the original, are quite amazing. Taking a vocodered vocal from the original Prydz provides his signature looping-a-hook-and-endlessly-repeating-it-over-a-tech-house-beat thing that he did so well on his "Call On Me" and then adds a new lead synth that takes the whole thing to another level. It's low-brow minimalist pop that knows when to quit and that is a beautiful thing.

Here is video of Duran Duran playing "Nice" live:




Stream the Eric Prydz mix on napster.