I agree with Den - top 10 is nothing to brag about if the sales are so low.
You read right - 749 copies to make number one. How well do you think number 10 sold that week?
Without getting into an argument that it's all about streaming copies over physical copies etc (no argument here), my point is that chart positions by themselves do not tell the full story.
So on to Paper Gods - was this "top 10" album, Duran's highest chart position for over 20 years, worth the chart spot?
Quite simply - NO.
The band love it. The band will tell you it's their best album in a long time, and definitely the best one since the reunion.
But the band are wrong. I'm glad the band love the album, and loved the tour. It gives them incentive to continue making new music for years to come. And I'm glad that many fans love the album as well.
But Duran Duran HAVE to say it is their best, because it cracked the charts and showed they could still make competitive, contemporary sounding music. However if they relent and say that All You Need Is Now is their best, then they are admitting that they rely heavily on the "classic" 80s Duran sound to make their best music, and they would never admit that in a million years. EVEN THOUGH IT IS TRUE.
Duran Duran make their best music when they use pretty, classic sounding, catchy riffs. Songs like Ordinary World, I Believe/All I Need To Know or Mediterrannea for example are nowhere near as cool as Last Night In The City or Danceophobia, but they are so much better in every way it is not funny.
Over the past six months, I made two Duran Duran CDs for my car. The first one was from their debut album to The Wedding Album, and the second one was from Medazzaland to Paper Gods. It was studio original albums only - no Arena, Thank You, Decade, Greatest, or 12" mixes. Any track that was not "doing it" for me - I skipped.
The results were surprising. The first CD, of their early albums, was barely skipped. Obviously I did not waste my times with the instrumentals, but outside those I listened to most of the songs. I would skip Downtown which is horrible, and occasionally Winter Marches On, but most of the songs held up pretty well.
Three months later I replaced the CD with the more recent music. The amount of skipping went up drastically. Medazzaland is a very weak album, and I ended up skipping more tracks than listening to. The biggest surprise to me, though, is that I skipped less tracks from what I believe to be Duran's worst album of all time (Red Carpet Massacre) than I did Paper Gods.
And here is why.
The tracks on Paper Gods are annoying, and don't live up to their potential. It's bad enough that too much of the album uses synth bass, but then to destroy a good sounding song by waffling on with rubbish, is the icing on the sloppy result cake.
Take the title track. It's got a pretty cool verse, but it's 1:40 before it even starts. Then we have some good music, until at 4:20 we arrive at the worst middle eight in Duran's history (although maybe the NA NA NA NA NAs in Chains are even worse perhaps?). We get another 1:20 of boring "Paper Gods, falling down, paper house, paper town" which ruins the song for me.
Had Duran not been so indulgent, and made the song half as long with just the good bits, then I would love it. But they absolutely ruin what could have been a classic sounding Duran Duran opener. And considering they have produced an album that is ruined by too many electronic instruments in the first place, they cannot afford to ruin anything else.
But it's not just the title track. The band prove they can sabotage most of the good songs on the album. The only good songs on Paper Gods are the title track, Pressure Off, Face For Today, What Are The Chances, Butterfly Girl, and The Universe Alone.
That is correct - only half of the album is any good.
Then here is what they do to those decent songs. They ruin Pressure Off by adding unnecessary crowd noise, and running the guitar too low in the mix. They ruin Face For Today (which has a beautiful, classic sounding Duran Duran melody) by using synth-bass and the weakest sounding electronic drums they possibly could have selected.
Then here is the kicker - they leave one of their stronger tracks for the album closer, featuring the guy voted the best guitarist of the past 30 years, and instead of letting him do his magic, they thought it would be better to end the song by using awful sounding distorted drums that could make your ears bleed, leading to people inexplicably chanting.
Hence, there are only two decent songs on Paper Gods that do not need any work or edits, and are good as is. And they are Butterfly Girl and What Are The Chances.
For that reason I'm actually starting to rate Red Carpet Massacre above Paper Gods. At least I know the songs on RCM are weak, so it doesn't hurt me to skip them. But it actually hurts me to skip all those songs off Paper Gods, as the songwriting is actually good, and they have so much potential to be great Duran Duran songs.
But in their current form - no, it's an album full of potential let down by instrument and construction choices.
DISCLAIMER : That is my opinion only. You do not have to agree with it. No animals were hurt during its composition, although one butterfly outside my house heard You Kill Me With Silence while I was typing, and shot itself. If you find my criticism of your favourite song offensive - please do not let it upset you; simply take a spoonful of cement and have a lie-down.