|
Post by coolbarn on Jul 30, 2020 2:23:19 GMT -5
I hear what Cool’s saying about ‘if they added drums and made it sound more organic’ - but the reality is most people don’t look that deep into music. They either like what they hear or turn it off forever. I certainly don’t imagine any song with added salt and pepper. That’s upto the band and producer to get it right first time. You're right. And Duran Duran is the ONLY band I do it for - because I love them and they have always been "my band". I don't care if any other band f___s up. I also enjoy REM and The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and of course I don't love all their music either (there are plenty of lame REM songs that even Michael Stipe lambasts today, and the last Chili Peppers album was easily the worst thing they have released in 30 years).
But when I don't love an REM song, or a Chili Peppers song - you know what I do? I hit "repeat" and listen to it again. I'll at least give it a few listenings, try to really understand what the band was going for. Those bands are good enough, and their track record is good enough, for me to give each track a handful of spins. However, once I have given it repeated listenings, and the song still sucks, from then on I don't hit repeat ever again. I simply hit skip. I make a new REM or Chili Peppers compilation CD for my car, and include the songs I love, and leave off the songs I hate. And I simply won't ever listen to those tracks intentionally again. If they come up on a random playlist one day - great. But I probably won't like them any more than I did when I discarded them to the garbage bin. However Duran Duran is different. I "don't understand" not loving their records. I don't understand not getting each and every song. When I hear a Duran Duran song that I don't like on their new album, my first question is "why". Why don't I love that song? What is wrong with that song. What have the band done wrong - for my tastes? When I can pinpoint what it is about that song I don't like, the next part of me thinks - how can that be fixed? If it is something as simple as needing an edit (like a ridiculously long and unnecessary beginning and/or ending to the song), then I'll fire up Audacity and edit it myself. However if it is the type of music recorded, or type of instruments used, or basically anything I can't fix, then I start thinking "what if". What if they used a great bass guitar part there, instead of a boring keyboard? What if they turned up the lead guitar? What if they got rid of those annoying keyboard whirls and wooshes in the background? What if they used drums that actually sounded like drums? Little things like that, the bugbears of my Duran Duran listening life, start to spring to life. So Duran Duran, and this forum, suffers because I love them so much, and will not accept not loving every song they record. But without that love that we ALL share - this forum, and Duran Duran themselves, would cease to exist.
|
|
|
Post by coolbarn on Jul 30, 2020 3:31:08 GMT -5
I wonder what the audience was thinking when Paper Gods opened the first round of shows? I don't get Duran's thinking the last couple of tours. The first Duran Duran concert I ever saw (on VHS, because I was too young to see them when they first toured Australia) started with "Please please tell me now, please please tell me now" from behind a large curtain. It sounded cool, and I daresay drew interest from an already interested crowd, just waiting for the boys to enthusiastically jump out on to the stage. And Is There Something I Should Know is at least fast enough, and catchy enough, to get you straight into the Duran zone. Then when I DID actually get to see them live for the very first time (only about 20 years later ), they were hidden in darkness save the strobing lights, with some really awesome, foreboding music playing, just before they leapt into a magnificent rendition of Friends Of Mine. Now THAT'S how you start a Duran Duran concert! However then when I last saw them in 2012, things weren't quite so exciting. They started with arguably the worst and most boring song on AYNIN - Before The Rain. No curtains. No light shows. No foreboding music. Just boring music. (For those playing at home - unfortunately they also played the song vying with BTR as worst song on AYNIN - namely Safe (In The Heat Of The Moment). So for them to start their next tour with another slower sort of number in Paper Gods - that really surprises me. Maybe Duran Duran want to be the band to sleep to when the opener drops? And I read it in EVERY review, words along the lines of "Well the first song received polite applause, but it was when they thudded into the next song of Wild Boys that the audience really started going berserk". I honestly don't know how the band kept doing it. Night after night, knowing that your first song is only going to receive, at best, "polite applause", while the people patiently wait for the music that you are actually known for. Why not start with Wild Boys? People have forgotten Paper Gods exactly one millisecond after it finishes. In my mind, you should introduce new music AFTER you have the audience eating out of your hand. Have the audience in such a spellbound puddle on the floor, that Simon could say "I'm going to do 17 different types of fart into the microphone now", and even then they'd scream loudly and sigh to themselves in mutual pleasure. However by starting with a song that only diehard fans know (and it's well established that we're in the vast minority - most people at a Duran Duran concert are either 80s fans, or married to 80s fans), then you have 95% of the audience staring at each other with perplexed looks on their faces. At least if you introduce Paper Gods as "and here's one from our brand new album folks - we suggest you buy it as soon as possible", then at least the crowd know they're not supposed to recognise that one.
|
|
|
Post by madoldlu on Jul 30, 2020 9:28:40 GMT -5
You are right! DD IS the only band I do that to also! There are plenty of songs I don't like from other people, but I don't think I've ever given them such a deep analysis as to why I don't and what could have been done differently!
As for opening with PG in the last tour, I actually think it's commendable because it shows how proud they were of their work. You're right--the easy thing to do would have been to open with one of their hits. It would have set the mood of excitement for the rest of the show, and they could have sprinkled in the new songs here and there (although the downside is that it's a clear signal for everyone to take a bathroom break!). But the fact that they felt PG was such an achievement for them that they would choose it to open the show, it really displays how confident they were in their work. I mean, they could have opened with Pressure Off too, which was a moderate hit and more in line with the rest of their music. The guys thought they had something special with PG, and I can't really fault them for having pride in what they had done. It's kinda sweet when you think about it!
However, you do make a great point in that by, like, the second month of their tour, they could have gauged the audience reaction from the previous month and changed up the playlist accordingly.
|
|
|
Post by More Play Time on Jul 30, 2020 10:31:53 GMT -5
The band are so versatile that all of the albums seem to have a range of obscurities mixed in with pop hits. They want to show their broad talent on stage and set the party up for 'when the bomb drops'. I get that. Dont forget, DD usually work through a 'triple album's worth of tracks, and only release what they think is poignant enough to include. So they must like it, and hope we will too. Some of the leaked demos like In Between Women, Money On Your Side etc, show they can go in any direction - from lounge act to rock and roll, funk and groove to dance pop. They are like an octopus constantly trying to climb out of any box people put them into, with arms feeling in the dark but still connected to the same body. They could go in any direction with the next songs, and remix any of them to sound like any particular genre. It would be wild to have a rock version and a trance club hardcore version, but as usual I feel all genres go into the melting pot, and each song is an organic new life. I know what Nick might say if that were true. "How can you paint an elephant like an ostrich and call it anything other than what it is?' Yes I see his point. That still doesnt change my opinion. As far as Drug and Big Thing, I prefer the 7" and 12" remixes, although the hip-hop stuff seems to date the tracks even more, Im a big fan of good old skool house music.
|
|
|
Post by Rabbit Dog on Aug 2, 2020 11:53:07 GMT -5
The new songs almost always get a more muted response regardless of how good or otherwise they are: the majority of a concert crowd are there for the hits, and in DD's context that is the early 80s stuff. The band, of course, know this - but to give themselves modern validity they push the new songs, and no-one can blame them for that. DD are not unique in that respect, far from it, as other artists do the same unless they have decided to go into the "Billy Joel Zone" of stopping being a recording artist.
As for choosing Paper Gods as a concert opener, I'm not overly convinced it really worked - there's no wow factor about it in a live performance and it's quite a long track, but there was no other place it could go into the set list - it's definitely not a mid-concert piece, nor a closer. It was going to be up first or not at all.
I felt Before The Rain was a better opener on the AYNIN tour though, it was a good showcase for SLB's vocals after his struggle and it's genuinely a wonderful song.
|
|
|
Post by coolbarn on Aug 4, 2020 3:23:03 GMT -5
As for choosing Paper Gods as a concert opener, I'm not overly convinced it really worked - there's no wow factor about it in a live performance and it's quite a long track, but there was no other place it could go into the set list - it's definitely not a mid-concert piece, nor a closer. It was going to be up first or not at all. Well the obvious answer is the "not at all" option. Don't care that it's the title track of their latest album - people buy music based on enjoyment, not on names. Were Duran obligated to play Big Thing, Liberty, or Astronaut for each of their respective tours? Did people go home raving about those songs, saying that they have to buy the album now? Or did the songs they actually may have recognised have more of an influence?
|
|
|
Post by Rabbit Dog on Aug 4, 2020 3:37:59 GMT -5
As for choosing Paper Gods as a concert opener, I'm not overly convinced it really worked - there's no wow factor about it in a live performance and it's quite a long track, but there was no other place it could go into the set list - it's definitely not a mid-concert piece, nor a closer. It was going to be up first or not at all. Well the obvious answer is the "not at all" option. Don't care that it's the title track of their latest album - people buy music based on enjoyment, not on names. Were Duran obligated to play Big Thing, Liberty, or Astronaut for each of their respective tours? Did people go home raving about those songs, saying that they have to buy the album now? Or did the songs they actually may have recognised have more of an influence? I'd generally agree there. I actually like Paper Gods as an album track - I think the song has its place, but it didn't translate well into a live performance. But there was an obvious pride from the band about the track, especially given its status as the title track so I think they tried to shoehorn it in somehow to the only place it had a chance. As you say, not at all, may well have been the better option. But they would have wanted a song from Paper Gods to open the set each night (they typically use the latest album as the source for the opening track on the tour to promote that album). Perhaps Pressure Off may have been a better option.
|
|
|
Post by coolbarn on Aug 4, 2020 9:03:46 GMT -5
Perhaps Pressure Off may have been a better option. You are correct that NO new song will drive the collective crowd wild like Duran's 80s staples. But all things considered - yes, I agree that Pressure Off would have been a lot better option. But that's only because I enjoy Pressure Off. And it would be nice to hear crowd noise during the track - that WAS actual crowd noise
|
|
|
Post by More Play Time on Aug 4, 2020 12:56:29 GMT -5
Absolutely. If there was a song that ever screamed to be a lead, its the lead single, Pressure Off - a song all about the pressure now being off, and inferring that its now time to have fun and party. I would have put it at the top of the order on the album, to show support and trust in it as a lead single, just as almost all of the previous albums had lead singles at No.1 on the running order. Then at least we would be in a party mood for Last Chance on the Stairway City and the moody clubby stuff like Change The Skyline. Those would be a nice running order for the album as well as live.
I would have put Paper Gods in the middle of the album, as the intro would be a nice cool down from one of the hotter tracks, with the dance beat kicking the message home at a point where this no sweat cooked down half-hop dance number would have fitted in. Or at least, put it second after pressure off. But then that's why we debate the things endlessly online, where free speech means everyone will have a totally opposite view.
|
|
|
Post by Rabbit Dog on Aug 4, 2020 16:52:42 GMT -5
I think Pressure Off was placed next to Notorious on the Paper Gods tour as both tracks are a bit Chic in guitar. But, yes, would have worked as a great opening song on tour to start the party and promote the latest album.
But I think PG itself was a better opener for the album.
|
|