Depeche Mode v Duran Duran

which i'm starting to do here. come on, people. be casting your votes for the mighty mode.

Well, that'll certainly rule me out from asshopping.

I quite like sax breaks. My favourite '80s sax breaks are probably Careless Whisper and... Well, my heart tells me it's got great sax on it, but I haven't heard it for years... Sade's Smooth Operator. Is it sax on "Decomposing Trees" by Galaxie 500? I like that too. Sorry, a bit off topic this.

In all seriousness, I like some Duran Duran and some Depeche Mode, for entirely different reasons. Both their names start with D. I like "Fly on the Windscreen" and "New Moon on Monday" best. Depeche Mode ought to attempt an ill-advised covers album though (maybe they have for all I know).

Rio > Depeche Mode's recorded output

Bah. Violator > Rio > everything else Duran Duran ever did

They served different ends. I'd say Tears for Fears (at the time, though certainly not since) attempted to occupy a bit of the same turf as Depeche Mode...or at least more so than Duran Duran.

DEPECHE MODE & THE STORY OF ELECTRO-POP - Q/ Mojo Special edition

Now on sale in the UK:

DEPECHE MODE & THE STORY OF ELECTRO-POP

A 148-page collector's edition from the makers of Q & MOJO
The Complete DEPECHE MODE story with new interviews and more...
Also Starring DAVID BOWIE, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, NEW ORDER, KRAFTWERK, TALKING HEADS, JAPAN, PET SHOP BOYS, GARY NUMAN, SOFT CELL and more
Exclusive New Interviews
The '80s Bands That Times Forgot
50+ Essential Albums & Songs Reviewed

On sale from 14 January. Published as a Q Special Edition in the UK and a MOJO Special Edition overseas, including the US. Available in all good newsagents or by ordering online from here...

Source: MOJO Magazine

Quick flick through seems well put together and also goes beyond the Top 40, so DAF, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire are featured.

Also featured Propaganda and Art of Noise.

i'm concerned by the fact the mighty OMD aren't mentioned in the puff, but hey.

Oh! And Dan, how the hell is "Rio" overrated? Don't you have to be critically acclaimed first before being considered "overrated"? Since when have any critics at all fawned over DD? I mean, I can see how "Rio" might be a tired example of a Good Duran Duran Song by the non-critical musical commentator, but, damn, it's far from being even, well, "rated".

(This is coming from someone who can't stand "Rio" the single, BTW, though the "Rio Pt. 2" song is quite good.)

Yeah, did the world pretty much forget OMD or what?

I'd sooner cite "New Moon on Monday" for that prize.

(Ha ha ha ha, I have *such* weak resolve when it comes to trying to stop being a fan geek.)

(xpost)

The reason "NMOM" isn't on Decade is because the band could NOT stand that song. I mean, there was a REAL hatred of it, and they wished to quickly bury it. That's also why they didn't perform it at all in the Sing Blue Silver tour (which was actually the tour to support the album "NMOM" was on) and in fact didn't perform it live at all until the shows they performed in 2000, by which time they'd (probably) gotten over their loathing of the track and included it in the Greatest comp and a mix of it in Night Versions and Strange Behaviour.

Um, some do speculate that the reason the band grew to hate "NMOM" is because the video was such a time-consuming and tiring affair to shoot. You've presumedly heard how lengthy the "uncut", cinematic version of the "NMOM" video, right? If not, then I'll let you know -- that version is 18 minutes long. Imagine how long it would take to create a music video that long. Imagine hearing that song as many times as it would take to shoot that video. I've heard that John Taylor, to this day, can't stand to look at that video even once, because of all the bad memories and negative associations from the video shoot.

Thanks for that, Ned. You know, as soon as I posted that question, I realized it was transfered guilt on my part, and that I had forgotten about OMD, never mind the world. Now I can assuage it by searching out some of this stuff. They were so much more than "Enola Gay", after all.

Look, i love Depeche Mode, but I'd never say they had either bite or balls in huge supply.

Actually, the band started recording their debut album in December of 1980, began releasing singles from the album in February 1981, and released the album worldwide on June 15, 1981. So I suppose you could consider their debut album to be a "rush job". In terms of Rio -- the first song off the album to be written, i.e. personal favorite "Last Chance On The Stairway", was written on August 27, 1981, the first Rio-connected single was released on November 16 of that same year, the rest of the album was recorded during the spring of 1982, and the album was released on May 10 of that same year, so that album took even less time overall than did their debut album. (Oh, BTW, the Rio most North Americans know and love? It was released six months afterward, after the band toured extensively, released several singles, done numerous TV appearances, and hired David "the person Dee would propose marriage to if she were twenty years older" Kershenbaum to create remixed versions of several of the songs off Rio.)

As for 7&TRT -- well, the band began recording that album in May of 1983 and released the completed album on November 21 of that same year, but for much of that time in between, the band's either doing very little recording or is taking a lot of time off from recording to either do promotional-type stuff (including a Jools Holland TV special I am *dying* to get my hands on) or recover from various ailments (including Nick's paroxysmal tachycardia and John's, uh, "nose trouble") or visit Cannes, or do whatever it is they did back in France or Montserrat or Sydney. Actually, they did most of their work in Sydney, so they mustn't have done much, comparatively, over there. So, yeah, the band did spend less time on that album than they did on their debut, but they couldn't have spent any less time than they did on Rio, which oddly enough seems to be the album most favored by the rabid fans and casual listeners alike.

I guess you could put the "blame" on the different production styles, as well, you know. Because the first two albums the band released were produced by Colin Thurston (whom you will also know from Talk Talk's debut album, as well as from engineering work he did on David Bowie's Heroes and Iggy Pop's Lust For Life), whereas the 7&TRT album was co-produced by Alex Sadkin, Ian Little, and the band themselves. Um, maybe. This is just a theory at this point. ;)

Oh, and if you do decide to go, please don't bother plunking down the extra approx. $275 just to splurge on a "V.I.P. package". I've heard those are total wastes of money and that tons of people have gotten ripped off by this obviously short-sighted and ludicrous offer. I mean, yeah, that price does include membership in the "fan club", but all that entails nowadays is just that you get special access to a website that contains only band photos and a message board. Big deal, huh? *I* in all my super tight schedule-ishness could put together a site consisting of only band photos and a message board.

i remember the DJ trying to get me thrown out after asking for the wedding present six times. heh.

No. You just have to have a college following rabid enough to insist on playing your stuff at every party but boring enough to only ever pick one song and play it over and over and over and over (see also "Stop!" by Erasure).

Maybe it's just the language, but does that not put them in (typically) quite a "cool" bracket?

Here, they were a bit of a teenybopper band, like the Bay City Rollers.

Whoah - is there a cover CD?

the production values are weaker than i'd like for a six-quid magazine. it's beautifully designed but the copy isn't desperately well edited - there's a paragraph in the bowie feature that makes no sense. and they can't tell ian craig marsh from martyn ware: every single picture is miscaptioned. that said: it's still worth picking up if you're even remotely interested in the whole synthpop thang.

there is actually a quote from dave gahan about duran duran too! hang on ...

New Romantics, Blitz Kids ... call them what you would, from Spandau Ballet to Duran Duran, from OMD to Ultravox, the bands all espoused a new sound - and image to match. Frilly shirts, baggy trousers, fluffy hair ... Depeche Mode, whose own sense of style dovetailed perfectly with those others, couldn't help but find themselves caught up in the fashion parade. The group tried to play down the link. "Obviously people who buy Duran Duran records might buy ours as well," Gahan admitted, "but I think we're in a different market." Or, rather, he wished they were.

this was written by someone called dave thompson, who might have benefited from, er, actually looking at some pictures of OMD (and indeed ultravox) before putting finger to keyboard. but i'm being horribly churlish, i know.

including Duran Duran and Depeche Mode

NME ORIGINALS: 80s

NME Originals have a new issue, covering the 80s - A-Z of the New Romantics.

Compiled from archive material from NME and Melody Maker in the 80s.