Duran Duran

JerkMoans

ICBM said:

JerkMoans said:

To this day I cannot understand what TF ‘The Reflex’ was all about.

A lonely child waiting by the park, in charge of finding treasure in the dark, and watching over lucky clover. Simples.

Yeah. Evidently they weren’t just on beer the night they wrote that one.

steven70

y

prowla

tone1 said:

prowla said:

Rio is a great bass workout.

My favourite ever Bass part under the sax solo... I don’t hear the sax, only the Bass

edit... Duran Duran are my main Guilty pleasure...

Yep - it's a bit prog-like, dare I say it!

prowla

EricTheWeary said:

More proof, as if needed, that all the best things are from the West Midlands. 

But the intro to the video linked in the OP said they were from London!

EricTheWeary

prowla said:

EricTheWeary said:

More proof, as if needed, that all the best things are from the West Midlands. 

But the intro to the video linked in the OP said they were from London!

Does it? Well it's wrong. Le Bon came from Bushey but the other members of the classic line up were from Birmingham or Solihull.

ICBM

EricTheWeary said:

Does it? Well it's wrong. Le Bon came from Bushey but the other members of the classic line up were from Birmingham or Solihull.

Andy Taylor was from Newcastle too, but they are very definitely a Birmingham band.

Kittyfrisk

^ Yes definitely from Newcastle (Cullercoats), he had a trendy wine bar 'Rio' for a while in Whitley Bay.
Saw them at Newcastle City Hall on their first tour as I was helping out.
Le Bon's 'raw' vocal's were definitely wobbly & the crew reckoned that his vocal output was 'harmonised'.

Still have a promo 10" single of 'Planet Earth' somewhere...

ICBM

Kittyfrisk said:

Le Bon's 'raw' vocal's were definitely wobbly & the crew reckoned that his vocal output was 'harmonised'.

Probably chorused - I don’t think there were harmonisers as early as that, even in studios.

*Everything* was chorused in the 80s, whether it needed it or not .

Kittyfrisk

Just using the phrase the crew used, it was such an unusual word at the time that it stuck with me.
 We were in the bar halfway through the gig & they had a high end 'beatbox', tuned to the vocal radio microphone frequency. There was a noticeable difference between this 'raw' signal & the band, listening at the same time.

Just had a quick look and it could have been possible (not definitely stating a fact, just relating what I was told).

https://www.izotope.com/en/blog/music-production/a-brief-history-of-pitch-correction-in-music.html

lasermonkey

I'm with Robert Smith on this one.

ICBM

Kittyfrisk said:

Just using the phrase the crew used, it was such an unusual word at the time that it stuck with me.
 We were in the bar halfway through the gig & they had a high end 'beatbox', tuned to the vocal radio microphone frequency. There was a noticeable difference between this 'raw' signal & the band, listening at the same time.

Just had a quick look and it could have been possible (not definitely stating a fact, just relating what I was told).

https://www.izotope.com/en/blog/music-production/a-brief-history-of-pitch-correction-in-music.html

Interesting, I didn't think any of that was available before the mid 80s.

Nikc

First single I bought was Hungry like the wolf - I'd been in hospital and it was always being played on hospital radio - I loved them

steven70

r

TonyR

We were only talking about Duran Duran at work this morning, I was taking the mickey out of a colleague for being a “Duranie”.

At the time they weren’t my cup of tea, although I did quite like the song “Rio” and as a 17 year old the video for “Girls on Film” was compulsive viewing!

These days I don’t mind them at all - probably my favourite track is “Is There Something I Should Know” - I really like the real 80s chorused riff. I even taught myself to play it - got the sound pretty nailed with my Roland Jazz Chorus and Strat.

Deadman

What a bunch of overrated, gay, funny clothes wearing arseholes.


I thought in 1983.

Love em now though. What a band. 

YellowLedBetterMan

Birmingham's (3rd or 4th) finest. Drummer went to my school many moons ago.

Its funny how many people write them off as "just another boy band". Your One Directions, Westlifes and Take That's have nothing on Le Bon and Co.

RobDavies

Didn’t like Duran Duran then, and don’t care for them now.... BUT!... whenever there’s an old episode of TOTP on, or similar, it’s always evident that everyone in those days could play.
it didn’t matter what you looked like when forming a band, the key thing was being able to play your instrument... the record companies then worked on the styling later. 

With the possible exception of Martin fry, ABC weren’t good looking lads, but they could really write and play.... stick ‘em in gold suits, bit of lippy and hair gel and we’ve got a hit. 

What a shame that the absolute reverse is what governs the modern pop industry these days.

Old man rant over. 

ICBM

RobDavies said:

Didn’t like Duran Duran then, and don’t care for them now.... BUT!... whenever there’s an old episode of TOTP on, or similar, it’s always evident that everyone in those days could play.
it didn’t matter what you looked like when forming a band, the key thing was being able to play your instrument... the record companies then worked on the styling later. 

With the possible exception of Martin fry, ABC weren’t good looking lads, but they could really write and play.... stick ‘em in gold suits, bit of lippy and hair gel and we’ve got a hit. 

What a shame that the absolute reverse is what governs the modern pop industry these days.

Old man rant over. 

Sadly true, a lot of the time. There are exceptions though, even in mainstream pop - even if being able to physically play an instrument is less important to the process of making music now, some achieve success through talent - as well as others having success thrust upon them, so to speak...

EricTheWeary

ICBM said:

RobDavies said:

Didn’t like Duran Duran then, and don’t care for them now.... BUT!... whenever there’s an old episode of TOTP on, or similar, it’s always evident that everyone in those days could play.
it didn’t matter what you looked like when forming a band, the key thing was being able to play your instrument... the record companies then worked on the styling later. 

With the possible exception of Martin fry, ABC weren’t good looking lads, but they could really write and play.... stick ‘em in gold suits, bit of lippy and hair gel and we’ve got a hit. 

What a shame that the absolute reverse is what governs the modern pop industry these days.

Old man rant over. 

Sadly true, a lot of the time. There are exceptions though, even in mainstream pop - even if being able to physically play an instrument is less important to the process of making music now, some achieve success through talent - as well as others having success thrust upon them, so to speak...

I think that is one of the things of listening to something that I wouldn’t have liked at the time from Duran Duran to the Bee Gees, pretty much the whole of disco, and how well it was all made. People playing instruments, recording onto tape.

mudslide73

A mate at work never tires of telling us how he was permanently on their guest list at The Rum Runner in Bham. All makeup and see through macks.. even for the blokes. It sounds like an amazing time/place. 

I liked them and they were the bridge between charty stuff and proper bands for me if I'm honest. I was about 11 when they were in their pomp.