Post by Tin on Apr 18, 2008 23:17:16 GMT -5
The Vinyl Word
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Never grow up
Duran Duran were at the height of their powers with Union of the Snake. Then the band ruined it all by trying to reach out to an older audience, writes Joe Queenan
While taking a break during the shooting of my 1994 low-budget film Twelve Steps to Death, which deals with a psychiatrist who feigns his own death to escape from his self-absorbed patients, the 20-something cast members and crew got to talking about the glory that was John Taylor; the grandeur that was Simon Le Bon. All agreed that life had not been the same since Duran Duran fell by the wayside. Even though I was already too old to fall under the band's spell by the time they seized control of the universe, I commiserated with the youngsters, who were experiencing the first powerful waves of nostalgia in their lives, the first pining for a golden age they may not have sufficiently enjoyed at the time, as they were still in high school and could not sit at home getting wasted, watching Duran Duran videos all day the way people can once they are in their 20s and have finished university and are unemployed.
Adroitly synchronizing the release of their catchiest singles with the birth of MTV, Duran Duran had the world at their feet in the early 80s, the American public breathlessly awaiting the release of their next sybaritic, rococo video. But by 1994, Duran Duran no longer ruled the charts, and no longer occupied the pop world's collective consciousness. Condemned to the precocious irrelevance that is the fate of so many stars in a genre that fattens up its young merely so it can eat them and then spit out the gnawed-on bones and mutilated carcass as if it hadn't even enjoyed the meal, Duran Duran, by the mid-90s, were a spent force whose once idolatrous fans now sheepishly, almost condescendingly, dismissed them as has-beens, ironic icons of an earlier, simpler time, perhaps even a bit of a joke.
But not everyone felt that way. At some point, the female lead in the movie recounted an amazing story. A decade earlier, while vacationing in Bermuda with a friend's family, 14-year-old Hella and her friend decided to try rustling up Duran Duran on the phone. Posing as reporters for Teen Beat magazine, the girls dialed a bar in England where the band was known to hang out. The bartender told them that the lads were currently Down Under, recording new material. After several more calls, they finally tracked down the band at a studio in Australia, and actually came very close to getting John Taylor to come to the phone. But then the gatekeeper at the studio asked, "What's the code?' And lacking the secret code needed to gain access to their idols, the girls threw in the towel. A few days later, the resort management announced that the scamps had run up a $700 phone bill. Hella and her friend had to pay back the money, but they always thought the escapade was worth it. Their parents felt much the same, admiring their Yankee ingenuity, indomitable spirit, and brash refusal to take no for an answer. I admire them too, for it is the refusal to be cowed by the looming spectre of insolvency that makes America great.
Years later, I asked Hella what had prompted the pair to embark on such a financially ruinous, transcontinental telephonic rampage. "John Taylor's hair, the Rio album cover, just their videos in general," she replied. Interestingly, the reason the band may not have been able to come to the phone was because they were busy recording Union of the Snake, which required all their powers of concentration. A hook-laden, exotic number that was made into a dark, hypnotic video, Union of the Snake was recorded in Australia and released in October 1983. Like many Duran Duran hits, the lyrics were hard to follow; in fact, the video, though incomprehensible, came closer to making sense than the song. After Duran Duran was no longer relevant, Iscariot-like fans would poke fun at the overwrought videos they had once loved. This is the problem with rock music; people become famous by being ridiculous, then get blamed for being ridiculous. It's the Hendrix Hypothesis: First the public goads the star into overdosing, then it blames him or her for suffocating on his or her own vomit. It's really not fair.
Union of the Snake has been subjected to many interpretations. Some believe that the song alludes to the machinations of the glib, convivial, duplicitous serpent that brought mankind to ruin back in the Garden of Eden. Others say the song prophesies an impending, unholy alliance between good and evil, though this defies logic, as the two would cancel each other out, resulting in something harmless and neutral like Holland or Elton John. A more sinister interpretation posits that the song refers to the malefic 1982 collaboration between Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson that begat the hit Ebony and Ivory. Finally, it has been suggested that the song refers to coitus interruptus, where the snake attains full rigidity at the precise moment it is poised to strike its victim, then uncoils, and slithers off harmlessly.
But this too fails the logic test, as a single snake can not compose a union. A union, by its very nature, requires the presence of at least one other snake. To pass the intelligibility test, the lyrics would have to read, "The union of the snakes is on the rise." But "snakes" doesn't work here, not only because of blunted euphony, but because, while the listening public might tolerate one snake, more than one snake tends to creep it out. Lyricist Le Bon has occasionally discussed the lyrics' meaning in the past, but his pseudo-post-Freudian explanations strip the song of the compelling incoherence that gives it such a rich sense of urgency. Though it may seem disappointingly prosaic to say this, after carefully appraising the meaning of such terms as "telegram force" and "nightshades on a warning," I honestly don't believe that Duran Duran thought things out very carefully when they wrote this song. I think they were just winging it. When your audience mostly consists of 14-year-old girls, you can get away with a lot.
Duran Duran's brief dominion over the rock world did not end because of fatuous lyrics, bad songs or even an excessive reliance on the subliminal psychic allure of preposterous hair and jaunty headbands. It ended because the band made the catastrophic decision to grow up. Duran Duran is a classic example of the tragedy that inevitably befalls pop bands once they start to take themselves seriously. Insanely pretty, deliciously coiffed, and extraordinarily gifted as songwriters, Duran Duran ceased to be superstars once they decided to pursue loftier interests. Far too late did Duran Duran understand that they were put on earth to write songs like Girls on Film and Hungry Like the Wolf, not to be like Talking Heads, or Kate Bush, or even New Order. This is yet another situation where rock critics sabotaged a perfectly wonderful career by goading a great boy band into changing direction and making music they were never intended to make. The magic of Duran Duran is not simply that they were a pop band so captivating that little girls would masquerade as journalists and risk family-wide financial devastation to try to get them on the phone; it is that Duran Duran was the kind of band that honestly created the impression that if little girls called, they might actually pick up the receiver. Would anyone ever believe this of Sting?
music.guardian.co.uk/pop/story/0,,2274859,00.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Never grow up
Duran Duran were at the height of their powers with Union of the Snake. Then the band ruined it all by trying to reach out to an older audience, writes Joe Queenan
While taking a break during the shooting of my 1994 low-budget film Twelve Steps to Death, which deals with a psychiatrist who feigns his own death to escape from his self-absorbed patients, the 20-something cast members and crew got to talking about the glory that was John Taylor; the grandeur that was Simon Le Bon. All agreed that life had not been the same since Duran Duran fell by the wayside. Even though I was already too old to fall under the band's spell by the time they seized control of the universe, I commiserated with the youngsters, who were experiencing the first powerful waves of nostalgia in their lives, the first pining for a golden age they may not have sufficiently enjoyed at the time, as they were still in high school and could not sit at home getting wasted, watching Duran Duran videos all day the way people can once they are in their 20s and have finished university and are unemployed.
Adroitly synchronizing the release of their catchiest singles with the birth of MTV, Duran Duran had the world at their feet in the early 80s, the American public breathlessly awaiting the release of their next sybaritic, rococo video. But by 1994, Duran Duran no longer ruled the charts, and no longer occupied the pop world's collective consciousness. Condemned to the precocious irrelevance that is the fate of so many stars in a genre that fattens up its young merely so it can eat them and then spit out the gnawed-on bones and mutilated carcass as if it hadn't even enjoyed the meal, Duran Duran, by the mid-90s, were a spent force whose once idolatrous fans now sheepishly, almost condescendingly, dismissed them as has-beens, ironic icons of an earlier, simpler time, perhaps even a bit of a joke.
But not everyone felt that way. At some point, the female lead in the movie recounted an amazing story. A decade earlier, while vacationing in Bermuda with a friend's family, 14-year-old Hella and her friend decided to try rustling up Duran Duran on the phone. Posing as reporters for Teen Beat magazine, the girls dialed a bar in England where the band was known to hang out. The bartender told them that the lads were currently Down Under, recording new material. After several more calls, they finally tracked down the band at a studio in Australia, and actually came very close to getting John Taylor to come to the phone. But then the gatekeeper at the studio asked, "What's the code?' And lacking the secret code needed to gain access to their idols, the girls threw in the towel. A few days later, the resort management announced that the scamps had run up a $700 phone bill. Hella and her friend had to pay back the money, but they always thought the escapade was worth it. Their parents felt much the same, admiring their Yankee ingenuity, indomitable spirit, and brash refusal to take no for an answer. I admire them too, for it is the refusal to be cowed by the looming spectre of insolvency that makes America great.
Years later, I asked Hella what had prompted the pair to embark on such a financially ruinous, transcontinental telephonic rampage. "John Taylor's hair, the Rio album cover, just their videos in general," she replied. Interestingly, the reason the band may not have been able to come to the phone was because they were busy recording Union of the Snake, which required all their powers of concentration. A hook-laden, exotic number that was made into a dark, hypnotic video, Union of the Snake was recorded in Australia and released in October 1983. Like many Duran Duran hits, the lyrics were hard to follow; in fact, the video, though incomprehensible, came closer to making sense than the song. After Duran Duran was no longer relevant, Iscariot-like fans would poke fun at the overwrought videos they had once loved. This is the problem with rock music; people become famous by being ridiculous, then get blamed for being ridiculous. It's the Hendrix Hypothesis: First the public goads the star into overdosing, then it blames him or her for suffocating on his or her own vomit. It's really not fair.
Union of the Snake has been subjected to many interpretations. Some believe that the song alludes to the machinations of the glib, convivial, duplicitous serpent that brought mankind to ruin back in the Garden of Eden. Others say the song prophesies an impending, unholy alliance between good and evil, though this defies logic, as the two would cancel each other out, resulting in something harmless and neutral like Holland or Elton John. A more sinister interpretation posits that the song refers to the malefic 1982 collaboration between Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson that begat the hit Ebony and Ivory. Finally, it has been suggested that the song refers to coitus interruptus, where the snake attains full rigidity at the precise moment it is poised to strike its victim, then uncoils, and slithers off harmlessly.
But this too fails the logic test, as a single snake can not compose a union. A union, by its very nature, requires the presence of at least one other snake. To pass the intelligibility test, the lyrics would have to read, "The union of the snakes is on the rise." But "snakes" doesn't work here, not only because of blunted euphony, but because, while the listening public might tolerate one snake, more than one snake tends to creep it out. Lyricist Le Bon has occasionally discussed the lyrics' meaning in the past, but his pseudo-post-Freudian explanations strip the song of the compelling incoherence that gives it such a rich sense of urgency. Though it may seem disappointingly prosaic to say this, after carefully appraising the meaning of such terms as "telegram force" and "nightshades on a warning," I honestly don't believe that Duran Duran thought things out very carefully when they wrote this song. I think they were just winging it. When your audience mostly consists of 14-year-old girls, you can get away with a lot.
Duran Duran's brief dominion over the rock world did not end because of fatuous lyrics, bad songs or even an excessive reliance on the subliminal psychic allure of preposterous hair and jaunty headbands. It ended because the band made the catastrophic decision to grow up. Duran Duran is a classic example of the tragedy that inevitably befalls pop bands once they start to take themselves seriously. Insanely pretty, deliciously coiffed, and extraordinarily gifted as songwriters, Duran Duran ceased to be superstars once they decided to pursue loftier interests. Far too late did Duran Duran understand that they were put on earth to write songs like Girls on Film and Hungry Like the Wolf, not to be like Talking Heads, or Kate Bush, or even New Order. This is yet another situation where rock critics sabotaged a perfectly wonderful career by goading a great boy band into changing direction and making music they were never intended to make. The magic of Duran Duran is not simply that they were a pop band so captivating that little girls would masquerade as journalists and risk family-wide financial devastation to try to get them on the phone; it is that Duran Duran was the kind of band that honestly created the impression that if little girls called, they might actually pick up the receiver. Would anyone ever believe this of Sting?
music.guardian.co.uk/pop/story/0,,2274859,00.html