Band: DURAN DURAN
Album: PAPER GODS (15th LP)
Released: 11 September 2015
Artwork: All items on the sleeve refer to old great Duran Duran
moments, but my guess is that the band members’ looks by this
time on the cover would have scared their fans
Music: Outworn – listen here
Even before I played it, I could hardly fail to notice the deadeningly literal and positively gauche cover. Was there ever an album cover that more closely resembled a Duran Duran b set for pre-teen girls than this? The irony was that it was probably more thematically relevant to the previous album which actually did trade on the sounds of their imperial period as indicated in the choice of images; but not this one. The fact that the white stroke around each iconic image was not consistently wide from image to image, suggested that it had been applied to the icons in Photoshop before compositing and rescaling on the cover image. Sloppy! But not as half as sloppy as the music on it! As usual, this band manage to veery wildly form album to album. For every good one there are 2-3 debacles.
Between 1982 and 1985 Duran Duran were probably the best pop band on the planet with a string of massive hits. But the whole stylish marketing thing that surrounded their ‘brand’ wasn’t my thing and affected the music in the end too.
I’m actually busy reading a great informative book about new wave/synth & electro pop in the(ir) eighties. It’s called ‘DARE’ and is written by David Laurie. Maybe you know it… https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dare-Kraftwerk-Inspired-Invented-Modern/dp/0993347908
JL – Gott Im Himmel! I need to read that book – pronto!