ncduran
A few more posts....
Posts: 41
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Post by ncduran on Jun 30, 2020 11:50:57 GMT -5
I remember when 7&Tiger came out and I first discovered DD at 13 years old I was amazed. They had incredible videos, hairstyles, clothes and they seemed so edgy.
And it only got better, 'Wild Boys' song, video, everything was 'dangerous'; Simon with the beard, Andy and JT with longer hair, the dystopian imagery. I mean WOW. As a 14 year old I was blown away. Then came View to A Kill, and they were still so cool and edgy. PowerStation was great; AT and JT fully embraced the dark rock look, and Arcadia... I mean damn, black clothes, black hair, they were goth basically and appealed to my then 15 year old interests.
In the time between Arcadia and Notorious, I discovered Depeche Mode, The Cure, etc... black clothes, edgy lyrics, and even deeper down the dangerous spiral. Many of my friends as well.
Then in Fall 1986 came Notorious. The song was good, but the imagery was so out of touch... I mean Notorious video was boring and pointless, the album cover; three clean cut guys in tuxes? I remember being completely put off. Many of the songs on Notorious I love now as a 49 year old, but stuff like "American Science", "Skin Trade", "Matter of Feeling", "So Misled", "Presidente" was so adult and when compared to the stuff DM, Cure, Echo, U2, etc put out at the time it just didn't speak to me.
The only 'dangerous' songs were "Vertigo" and "Proposition", but even those didn't go as far as Wild Boys or View to A Kill. Winter Marches On sounded to me like an Arcadia leftover.
Now look, Notorious did well by today's standards - but not great at the time and was step 1 in the 1986 - 1990 downward spiral.
Part of the problem was the image. They went too far ahead of the fan base age. They should have come back in black leather, 'criminal' type of image, something 'exciting' and 'dark' to appeal to the fan base who went in another direction. At 16, I just couldn't relate anymore to guys in tuxedos.
With Big Thing, they caught up to me at 18. Simon's hair was long, Big Thing had some really risky songs that were edgy and interesting... but Notorious, they just got too far ahead imo.
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green
BIG THING
Posts: 293
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Post by green on Jun 30, 2020 12:11:05 GMT -5
Additionally, here in the States the video for Notorious premiered on VH1, rather than MTV. While I do like the album and respective era, I tend to agree with some of the sentiments in your post.
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oakey
PAPER GOD
Posts: 2,600
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Post by oakey on Jun 30, 2020 14:18:09 GMT -5
I was 13 when Notorious came out, got it for Xmas and it made me a fan. So no, not too adult. For me the sound was as contemporary as any other band in the charts then. The next year I discovered their first two albums and I found their sound and production terribly dated at the time 😀 I already owned Arena and that was how the songs should sound to my ears then.
Of course now I love the 81–83 period. And it’s 1988-1990 which sounds terribly dated. Still love Notorious, especially its imagery, so cool. The flags, symbols, hairstyle etc. So have to disagree.
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Post by negative1 on Jun 30, 2020 14:59:09 GMT -5
Big Thing is what brought me back to the band, fun, adventurous, and experimental. With lots of hooks, big tracks, and mixes too.
Notorious killed off any interest I had in the band at the time, and still haven't really recovered, except for the occasional single here and there.
good points about Duran losing their audience, and trying to be something they weren't.
later -1
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2020 15:27:04 GMT -5
Big Thing is what brought me back to the band, fun, adventurous, and experimental. With lots of hooks, big tracks, and mixes too. Notorious killed off any interest I had in the band at the time, and still haven't really recovered, except for the occasional single here and there. good points about Duran losing their audience, and trying to be something they weren't. later -1 Same for me - Big Thing was just so refreshing.
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Post by missing on Jun 30, 2020 16:09:08 GMT -5
Interesting post. Notorious was where I lost all my Duranie friends. I stayed the course - very much liking the songs at the time (now it's actually my least favourite D2 album), but BGTHNG was a tremendous relief. IDWYL really wowed me, as did ASWI. Hell, the whole album did.
But I do agree with your sentiment - they went more "Adult" and, commercially at least, it didn't fare too well.
But would we have had the reactive BGTHNG if we hadn't had Notorious? That's the question!
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Post by Kiffa on Jun 30, 2020 16:17:28 GMT -5
I was 15 when the Notorious album came out. I liked that it sounded more adult than what had come before it. I was ready to grow up a little bit, and I was ready for the bands and the music that I liked to do so as well. It made me feel a little more cultured, in the same way that I did when I realized that with of all the crowd-pleasing chart-toppers on Tears For Fears' Songs From The Big Chair album, the song I was most drawn to was the album track "The Working Hour".
At the same time, I realized that not all of Duran's fan base would feel the same way as me, and that it was a risky gamble. When "Skin Trade" tanked as a single (by DD standards), it was clear that the band had matured faster than their audience was ready for. It took until "Ordinary World" for them to really catch up.
I played the hell out of Notorious in its day, and I still go back to it more often than many of their other albums. It has such a cohesive feel, without all of the songs sounding like each other. To me, there's not a dud track on it and on any given day I would probably rank it in my Top 3 favorite Duran albums.
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Post by coolbarn on Jun 30, 2020 18:52:04 GMT -5
I agree - Notorious was (relatively) commercial suicide. The band were already slipping from the public eye, new bands like A-Ha etc were hungry to take over and become the next big thing (no pun intended), and to maintain massive sales they really needed to embrace the previous five years of Duran Duran, make a classic sounding record, and show the fans "Hey, we're still here, and this is still Duran Duran doing what we do best"! Any departure from a popular band's established sound is always a very risky tactic. But you know what - I actually love the fact that they didn't care about the charts or going "adult". Duran Duran allegedly had always wanted to make a funk album, and just went for it. Albums like Notorious, Pop Trash, and even parts of The Wedding Album to a certain extent, are always endeared to me, because I love it when Duran don't chase trends and just make music.
However many other albums, where the band seem to be chasing current genres and hits, tend to fall a little flat.
Let's also not forget - they had lost Andy and Roger from their usual songwriting team. Of course it's going to take time for a "new team" to learn how to write together. Sadly time is one thing that pinup pop bands have very little of - a year or two is a very long time between drinks.
So well done Duran - you made an album that killed your domination, but you didn't care! Let's face it though - nobody in pop stays on top forever, that's just the nature of the beast. If you think Duran Duran would have been regarded as a serious band like U2 etc in the second half of the 80s and stayed huge with world domination, you're kidding yourself.
Notorious was the album Duran Duran wanted to make - charts be damned. I admire their massive, misguided, cojones. Shame that Duran didn't always keep that attitude
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Post by taylorism on Jun 30, 2020 20:22:33 GMT -5
I was just turning 15 the same month Notorious was out, and i really loved it. Played the hell out of that record. The only song i didn't loved was Meet El Presidente. It was too latin for my taste.
But half of the Duranies i knew back then were like "we're out". I don't know if it was the imagery, the actual music or just the fact the Roger and Andy were gone. I think it was that last thing.
If that record would have been released by the Fav 5, i believe the fandom would have embraced it.
As for the image of the band, i loved it. They looked awesome to me. They had that noir thing going on, and Christy Thurlington, damn, i had a terrible crush on her.
But as i was also a Prince fan, (still am) funk was something i was very much used to listen all the time. Duran have chased the Prince sound for a long time. And strangely, i don't like that. Notorious was the closer they can go for me. But there are songs that are really too Prince, that unless they disguise it with a Duran sound (I Don't Want Your Love, for example) i don't like it.
Examples: Hothead, Read My Lips, UMF, Bedroom Toys. (but that's a topic for another thread, i guess!)
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Post by La Princess on Jul 1, 2020 18:59:55 GMT -5
To me Notorious was not only a change from them but for me (and other fans) as well. I got it on cassette that Christmas and played it all the time. However, by then my musical tastes were changing from Duran Duran to other bands/styles as well. This was around this time I got more into U2 and the Joshua Tree (though had been a fan of U2 for awhile, it got more involved now). I also started listening to the classic rock station and bands like Traffic because this was so different than Duran Duran. I was also getting out of the "they are so hot" stage and liked music for music. Instead I concentrated on dating boys that I could go out with instead of a fantasy. Oh I still liked Duran Duran but it was a different thing. By this time most of my friends stopped being fans. My best friend at the time (who was as into them as me) moved away and I often wonder if she stayed a fan or moved on. At that point I don't think it would have mattered what they did, they were going to struggle I think. I wonder if they had done something darker would it have worked? Possibly, their first album was pretty dark. One thing in hindsight I like about Notorious is they weren't trying to be someone they aren't just trying to do something they wanted, compared to other albums like RCM.
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