Duran Duran: Notorious POLL

said single is one of the best Duran Duran songs, so

I love this album and I also love the Arcadia album that preceded it. I really love the mellower stuff they did on the run of albums from So Red The Rose through Big Thing. They've aged better than the big singles (Election Day, Notorious, Big Thing). Ended up selecting A Matter of Feeling but the Stretch Mix of Skin Trade used to be my jam as evidenced by the battered 12". I love the smell of vinyl in the morning.

everything that you both said.
I selected Skin Trade, but equally love Winter Marches On, So Misled, American Science. from Arcadia to Big Thing, it was nice kind of growing up in parallel with them.

not a big dd fan but i love the song "notorious"

Their second best, and no one agrees :(

The title track will deservedly sweep, but "Hold Me" survives the gated drums, and "Meet 'El Presidente'" is actualy a decent eighties-funk number in its single version. I wanna be perverse and vote for "Vertigo (Do the Demolition)," which survives the line "Hear me when you listen" and boasts decent synth textures.

Notorious was never a favorite. A bit too clinical, maybe. Sounded like Nick and John were sleepwalking through it.

Some really nice moments though. "A Matter of Feeling" is a bit middle of the road, but does have some magic to it. The "Meet El..." single remix was fun, I thought.
The singles are certainly good, but... "American Science" for me. Great groove and a really nice vocal melody.

I was much happier with 'Big Thing' though.

Their second best, and no one agrees :(

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

It's my third favourite after the first album and Rio.

Will probably vote for American Science but it's a tough call between that, Skin Trade and Winter Marches On. Never understood why Skin Trade wasn't a big hit for them. Always thought it was a much better song than the title track.

Always have found "Skin Trade" a bit too slow for its own good.

But that chorus is just so good, one of the best they ever came up with.

oh yeah. loads of nice touches in it too.
nick's thick pads... the breakdown and instrumental bit after the second chorus (a duran specialty!)... that fantastic hi-hat in the intro...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfheSN9HAO0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfheSN9HAO0

ooh good poll idea. Skin Trade is incredible obvs but have to say i don't know the rest of the album much.

Always liked this album, especially American Science... but also Winter Marches On!

Argh, this is where I really miss Spotify because this is not one of the 4 Duran albums I still own. (But I do have my favourites from it marked out on Spotify.)

((I seem to recall my fave was not Notorious, but I can't remember if it was Skin Trade or if it was something else...))

I am, granted, the worst Duran fan in the universe. :(

The horns on "American Science" are ugly ugly ugly -- it's Power Station.

"Winter Marches On" otoh sounds like an Arcadia reject.

I voted Skin Trade, because it swoops gorgeously about whilst being really dark and bitter on the underside. They were always capable of melancholy and complexity, but this is one of the best examples.

I do like all of this album, I guess, but I listen to So Red the Rose a lot more often.

i remember reading in some interview from around the release that they were consciously looking at the Arcadia/PS projects as influence. While it shows on much of the album I love
how Rodgers managed to pull back on any excesses while making it still sound shiny n' expensive.

Probably "Skin Trade" for me if only for the chorus and those big reverbed synth stabs. Don't really like the awkward attempt at a Prince falsetto in the opening verse

i'm going to opt for Hold Me. somehow manages a huge chorus, even though Le Bon doesn't aim for much; he just kind of repeats the same phrasing a couple of times. i think it's the nuanced musical undertones that help it shine.

"does the body you conceal need the touch of someone's hand?"

I like the bridge -- thank those synth pads. Nick Rhodes listening to Peter Gabriel or something.

"Hold Me" has a nice pre-chorus too. Another Duran specialty.
Maybe I like this record more than I thought. haha

A few thoughts....

"Notorious" is such a great single
"Skin Trade" is an obvious nod to Prince from the first keyboard chords; and kinda nice
"A Matter of Feeling" is a pleasant-enough ballad, even a bit of a "Save a Prayer" Redux
"Winter Marches On" is the brilliant proper coda to what should have been a much better album

I also had the Master Mixes of this album, also, not nearly as good as it should have been. Very few remixes in the 80s are worth a crap - i think it really took hip-hop and turntablism to make remixes become something potential better than the source material

"Notorious" is the odds-on winner, and one of the few times the favorite gets my vote.

Very few remixes in the 80s are worth a crap

hang on a minute there!

beyond the handful... ?

what about this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1opcbG_Rwqw

Notoriously terrible.

I can easily enjoy the first couple of Duran Duran albums, even though I'd rank neither album as being up there with my absolute '80s favourites. Got no desire to sit through Seven and the Ragged Tiger or listen to Simon Le Bon's nails-on-a-chalkboard vocal on 'The Wild Boys' ever again. Only post Rio-era Duran song I'd happily listen to is 'Ordinary World'.

actually Le Bow Wow is on a tight leash here.

Nile Rodgers producing Duran Duran in the mid '80s. One just has to wonder how much cocaine they got through.

Surely you'd like Do You Believe In Shame if you like Ordinary World.

Ordinary World is the only famous song they've had since Notorious

"I Don't Want Your Love" hit the top five in America.

wow, it bombed in the uk

"Come Undone off the same album" is also known, if not famous.

Um, "Come Undone".

I can easily enjoy the first couple of Duran Duran albums, even though I'd rank neither album as being up there with my absolute '80s favourites. Got no desire to sit through Seven and the Ragged Tiger or listen to Simon Le Bon's nails-on-a-chalkboard vocal on 'The Wild Boys' ever again. Only post Rio-era Duran song I'd happily listen to is 'Ordinary World'.

― Toni Braxton-Hicks (Turrican)

Notorious and Seven and The Ragged Tiger are really good albums they're just not in the same league as the first two. Ordinary World is by far their best moment since Notorious but they have made plenty of great songs since. The problem is you just have to go through a lot of weak albums to find them. Serious, Come Undone, All She Wants Is, Perfect Day and Out of My Mind are good to great singles. Plenty of good album tracks too. Their last album All We Need Is Now is the closest they got to making another really good album. It's a surprisingly solid album.

Outdoorfish

Pretty much on-par for 80's remixes designed for the dance club scene; but not a strong enough reworking of the source material like ones finds even in the 90's. That Cure album, "Re-Mixed" is a prime example of "why bother" remixes that do little to expand on the source material. As for Duran, i suppose that the only remix they had that succeeds is the one done for "The Reflex"; again a dance-oriented strategy, and little more than another avenue to sell more units. Here's one i like....

Prince - Anotherloverholeinyourhead (no clip available)

I know I am pretty much the only person who will rep for Medazzaland, but jeez, guys. Medazzaland.

(Though I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that The Wedding Album is the canonical "best album since Rio" Duran album.)

This is almost certainly among the albums I've heard most in my life (the old "only had a handful of cassettes when I was kid" thing). But barely at all in the last twenty-something years, until right now. Thanks ILM.

The whole first side stands up pretty well, I'm thinking. Yet to refresh my memory of "Winter Marches On" which I always liked, but could happily opt for "Hold Me" at this instant...

Another vote for "A matter of feeling". The bass player in my band insisted we cover this song, and we made a decent enough job of it. Back in the late 80s we were just a duo of me and him and we ended up playing all of this album - he had the music books for this LP and "Running in the family" - so I've probably got a tape somewhere of this LP played on a load of cheap Casios and a bass which never got as far as Book 2 of "Rock School".

@Rob M
I want to hear that!

Very frontloaded album. First four tracks are excellent, next two good, last four meh. "Skin Trade" might be my favorite song of theirs, though I like the edited single version on Decade more than the drawn-out album version.

I kind of hate "Skin Trade"

Le Bon Bon doing Prince falsetto not my idea of erotics

LeBon is kinda hilarious when he attempts sassy sexy falsetto stuff.
The demo for All She Wants Is is probably the apex of this hilarity.

Yeah Simon's falsetto doesn't really hit sexy, despite the song being heavily influenced by Mr. Pancakes and Basketball. It's more floaty and playful, but I think it works.

I saw the end of the "View to a kill" video.

So, never forget...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiVrH0sRPFI

Duran Duran - Three to Get Ready

Documentary of the band preparing for the 87 Strange Behaviour tour.

Warren Cockatoo!

Love it when they're joking about 'what's Andy suing us for this week?'

RE: Three to Get Ready

Was really fun hearing Duran re-arrange their material on tour between 87-97 or so.
Tour for Notorious had that different version of "Hungry Like the Wolf"... "Girls on Film" with a bunch new words in the chorus) and the lengthy house jam of "All She Wants Is/Planet Earth" on the Big Thing tour... the acoustic "Planet Earth" at the Wedding Album shows... even the (dreary as hell) reinvention of "Sekret October" during the Medazzaland run.

They got pretty unadventurous (lazy?) after that, though the Electro Set from the RCM tour was pretty neat.
Still, I find myself wishing they'd switch it up more often.

In light of everything the band had experienced since the release of Seven and the Ragged Tiger, one might say that the development of Notorious' sound was an obvious direction, especially because the band's last two hit singles "The Wild Boys" and the James Bond theme "A View to a Kill" were much "heavier" in style but were nevertheless worldwide smash hits. "The Wild Boys" was also produced by Nile Rodgers, who had been a spectator during his long-time production partner Bernard Edwards' work on the brass-heavy Power Station album, as well.
It might be argued that with three years between the release of Seven and the Ragged Tiger and Notorious, it would be foolish not to try and progress the sound, given that the band now had the added experience garnered from their work with Arcadia and Power Station, and the many gifted musicians they had encountered (Edwards, Robert Palmer, David Gilmour, etc.).

It might be argued that it's their fourth album, one might say.

btw the Strange Behaviour doc was fascinating whenever it cut to scene of the trio strongarming a Capitol Records exec. Nick Rhodes comes off as the shrewdest and most alert member.

well he made sure he solely owned the band name

that was copied and pasted from wiki by the way

I'd like to hear demos of the Seven and The Ragged Tiger album. Apparently the band overworked the songs and lost some of the spark in the process.

I've never understood why this album flopped so hard. In the UK they went from three top three albums to this missing the top ten completely. Were there really that many Andy and Roger fans out there that stopped supporting them? Did radio stop playing them? This album came just eighteen months after A View to a Kill when it seemed they were bigger than ever.

They were still huge in Europe and the Far East and "Notorious" hit #2 in America. Neil Tennant has said that doing press with them in late '86 and early '87 in Italy and Spain felt like '83-era Duranmania.

I jumped ship at Liberty. Repped hard for Big Thing but nobody I knew wanted to hear it.

Repped hard for Big Thing but nobody I knew wanted to hear it.

lol, i had to throw my cassette of it from an upstairs window down to a friend to get him to listen to it, because he wasn't interested, but he loved it.

DUB MIX anyone? Thought not

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhqTeiN2XDA

"Do You Believe in Shame" is nice (on the Tequila Sunrise soundtrack too) but "All She Wants Is" is the keeper.

I liked Land a lot at the time

listening to it now and really struggling to understand why

I really hate Big Thing. All She Wants Is is a classic single but apart from that it's nonsense.

Liberty was slightly better but only just. Serious is a great song, shame it was their first single to miss the top 40 in the UK.

wow, it's like i never heard this album (big thing), though i did so often

this sounds like a completely new song to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVpX4IHWVp0

The fact that it has the worse cover (and possibly title) of all time doesn't exactly help BT.

The thing I like about both Do You Believe In Shame and A Matter of Feeling is they seem to be direct lyrics referring to personal issues and not some nonsensical metaphor shrouded in mystery like Union of the Snake, for example.

it's about tanttric sex.

"The word Tantra means expansion. It is a Sanskrit word, connected to an Eastern Indian spiritual path, Tantra Yoga. The ultimate goal of Tantra Yoga is the Divine Union between the goddess Shakti and god Shiva. Shakti, also called Kundalini, is in the base of the spine. In her form as Kundalini she is seen as a cobra, coiled 3 1 / 2 times, asleep. As Shakti, she is the divine feminine, passionate, strong, an incredibly creative force to be reckoned with.

The Divine Union takes place as the Kundalini snake starts waking up at the base of the spine, gradually uncoiling herself as she rises up the spine. She pierces each chakra in her undulating movement upward, and meets god Shiva, seen as pure consciousness, at the top of the head. Their merging ends the longing for wholeness.

The dance of Shakti and Shiva symbolizes the coming together of the feminine and masculine energies inside a person, as well as the creation of the world."

I've read "Do You Believe in Shame," "Ordinary World," and "Out of My Mind" are a trilogy about Le Bon's best friend.

I listened to Big Thing a whole bunch when it came out, been 20 years since i've heard "Palomino", and i'll be dipped if it don't still stand up as a solid track.

you know you gotta save some for the shoeshine boy

"palomino" is great! some boring bluesy guitar, but it's a vital part of the moody duran canon. the chorus kills and nick gets a nice moment with all his "whooshes" in the breakdown.
the one song on the album i used to like that bothers me now is "edge of america" - thought that sounded thoughtful/deep as all get out when I was 17. shoulda known better!

According to songwriter Simon Le Bon, the lyric "Who really gives a damn for a flaky bandit" was a direct dig at the guitarist, Andy Taylor.

Does that feature in the documentary?

no but they snicker often at the mention of Andy.

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