Medazzaland (Album) Live / Reimagined
Jan 23, 2020 13:04:33 GMT -5
MissNovemberTuesday, Max Zorin, and 1 more like this
Post by More Play Time on Jan 23, 2020 13:04:33 GMT -5
Medazzaland Live / Reimagined - A Hard Rock! Tribute
Check the youtube description for more info!
1. PL. You
2. Sinner or Saint
3. Big Bang Generation
4. Medazzaland
5. Electric Barbarella
6. Ball and Chain
7. Be My Icon
8. Out Of My Mind
9. Who Do You Think You Are?
10. Buried in the Sand
11. Michael, You've Got a Lot to Answer For (Album)
12. Silva Halo
13. So Long Suicide
14. Midnight Sun (Alternative take)
15. Undergoing Treatment (Album)
In a world of Reboots and Reimaginings, lets Reboot this album and try to work out want happened.
Many people think Duran Duran are a British Pop group, not worthy of the Rock and Roll hall of fame. But I like to think every band has dabbled in Hard Rock at some point - sometimes just for one song, or sometimes for a whole album. Medazzaland was initially scolded by reviewers, and was only released in Japan and North America. The UK didnt even get this, such was the feeling of shame at that time. This is a remake of that album, using alternative material and track list. A re-imagination of what the album was MEANT to be.
The story of the album is too long to write here, but can be summarised. John Taylor, who had been in the band since day 1, was getting bored and wanted to vent some of the darker punk anger which was inside of him in that period. He and Warren Cuccurullo (ex-lead of New-Wave band Missing Persons) tried out a few demo songs for the movie "The Saint", and cooked up a several rock songs including Sinner or Saint, and Silva Halo, but these were rejected. Out Of My Mind was accepted and featured in the closing credits of the movie. John and Warren then demo'd a few more songs in that same dark style, as a concept for a new album.
Things were going well, but somewhere along the line, someone (perhaps record Execs?) started to get nervous, and felt the path was too far away from the popular Duran Duran sound. Simon Lebon (vocals) himself said he felt uncomfortable with the hard rock sound. Several tracks which were supposed to be on the album were dropped, and the album was steered into a more surreal voyage of discovery. At this point, John quit the band and went off to live in America for a while, releasing several solo albums and rocking out with Matt Sorum and Duff McKagan of Guns N Roses, and Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols, to make another album.
Since Johns return to the band, the songs are rarely played, but I notice whenever the songs from Medazzaland were played back then, they are always hard ROCK turned up to 11, which stand out materially during the whole set. Most live songs are played exactly like the album versions, but any tracks from Medz are somehow completely different - harder, rockier. I got to wondering why they always rock out these songs, and concluded that perhaps this is what the songs were meant to sound like originally - having been perfected since release.
With this as my core idea, I collected songs from their live sets, and arranged them in a more suitable way to show off the album. We start with a couple of songs which were not included due to them being deemed too rocky. Then we go through the album; with the songs in a different order - a "heaven" and a "hell" set. In heaven we find love and reconciliation, while in hell we have death and rejuvenation. Its all been engineering work on the bridge of life, and this was just a process of drilling down and extracting those sounds, and getting them out of the bands system.
Youtube compression has chewed up the first song PL.You quite badly. This spoils the sound, so really sorry about that. If you want to experience this full song PL.You in better quality, this is where I got it from:
I would love to hear your thoughts on this. The idea that the album was unfinished on release, John quit the band because of disputes to where the sound was going, and certain songs were dropped. If the album had gone in John's and Warren's vision, perhaps this is the sort of amplitude which would have been on the album - kind of like a grown up Sex Pistols. I dont like how the actual album turned out, but I do love this collection of live versions, so although I never listen to the actual album, I have always enjoyed listening to this.
Check the youtube description for more info!
1. PL. You
2. Sinner or Saint
3. Big Bang Generation
4. Medazzaland
5. Electric Barbarella
6. Ball and Chain
7. Be My Icon
8. Out Of My Mind
9. Who Do You Think You Are?
10. Buried in the Sand
11. Michael, You've Got a Lot to Answer For (Album)
12. Silva Halo
13. So Long Suicide
14. Midnight Sun (Alternative take)
15. Undergoing Treatment (Album)
In a world of Reboots and Reimaginings, lets Reboot this album and try to work out want happened.
Many people think Duran Duran are a British Pop group, not worthy of the Rock and Roll hall of fame. But I like to think every band has dabbled in Hard Rock at some point - sometimes just for one song, or sometimes for a whole album. Medazzaland was initially scolded by reviewers, and was only released in Japan and North America. The UK didnt even get this, such was the feeling of shame at that time. This is a remake of that album, using alternative material and track list. A re-imagination of what the album was MEANT to be.
The story of the album is too long to write here, but can be summarised. John Taylor, who had been in the band since day 1, was getting bored and wanted to vent some of the darker punk anger which was inside of him in that period. He and Warren Cuccurullo (ex-lead of New-Wave band Missing Persons) tried out a few demo songs for the movie "The Saint", and cooked up a several rock songs including Sinner or Saint, and Silva Halo, but these were rejected. Out Of My Mind was accepted and featured in the closing credits of the movie. John and Warren then demo'd a few more songs in that same dark style, as a concept for a new album.
Things were going well, but somewhere along the line, someone (perhaps record Execs?) started to get nervous, and felt the path was too far away from the popular Duran Duran sound. Simon Lebon (vocals) himself said he felt uncomfortable with the hard rock sound. Several tracks which were supposed to be on the album were dropped, and the album was steered into a more surreal voyage of discovery. At this point, John quit the band and went off to live in America for a while, releasing several solo albums and rocking out with Matt Sorum and Duff McKagan of Guns N Roses, and Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols, to make another album.
Since Johns return to the band, the songs are rarely played, but I notice whenever the songs from Medazzaland were played back then, they are always hard ROCK turned up to 11, which stand out materially during the whole set. Most live songs are played exactly like the album versions, but any tracks from Medz are somehow completely different - harder, rockier. I got to wondering why they always rock out these songs, and concluded that perhaps this is what the songs were meant to sound like originally - having been perfected since release.
With this as my core idea, I collected songs from their live sets, and arranged them in a more suitable way to show off the album. We start with a couple of songs which were not included due to them being deemed too rocky. Then we go through the album; with the songs in a different order - a "heaven" and a "hell" set. In heaven we find love and reconciliation, while in hell we have death and rejuvenation. Its all been engineering work on the bridge of life, and this was just a process of drilling down and extracting those sounds, and getting them out of the bands system.
Youtube compression has chewed up the first song PL.You quite badly. This spoils the sound, so really sorry about that. If you want to experience this full song PL.You in better quality, this is where I got it from:
I would love to hear your thoughts on this. The idea that the album was unfinished on release, John quit the band because of disputes to where the sound was going, and certain songs were dropped. If the album had gone in John's and Warren's vision, perhaps this is the sort of amplitude which would have been on the album - kind of like a grown up Sex Pistols. I dont like how the actual album turned out, but I do love this collection of live versions, so although I never listen to the actual album, I have always enjoyed listening to this.