DURAN DURAN – "Is There Something I Should Know"

Didn’t this video have creepy schoolboys in it too? It must have, like the record I remember it being a veritable kitchen sink of visual overload. I always think this record is trying way too hard, a newly-monster band who haven’t had time to write a good song so pile on the effects to beef things up and hide the cracks. All sound and fury signifying nothing. Apart from ‘The Reflex’ I don’t remember liking anything they did after ‘Rio’ and think they’d pretty much shot their bolt early on.

I never really got Duran Duran. Maybe I was already too old (at 27) and not really into watching the videos, so that even now I struggle to remember what Simon le Bon looked like. Not that I’ve ever been much into the kind of man with a lantern jaw and a six-pack but not much between the ears. Although, come to think of it, he looked a bit too much like a Thatcher acolyte for my liking. And that voice, which comes across to me as flat and rather droney. The nearest thing I can think of today is when Simon Armitage, most irritatingly-voiced poet in the known universe, comes on one of his regular radio slots.

Duran’s best legacy is giving it’s name to one of Bristol’s most unmissable pub bands in the 1990s, Doreen Doreen. Nearer the mark would be the item I found one day in a Chinese cash-and-carry in that fine city. It was round, it was prickly, it had a reputation for being exquisite that I wasn’t able to see, and it stank.

Yes, I’m talking about Durian Durian!

I am surprised there are any #1s from this period I can’t remember, but here is one! I had to look twice to be sure this was part of Popular. How odd.

Yr right, I was equating “sounding like keyboards” with electronica rather than airy-but-clunky (how was that possible?) soullessness. The double bass-drum at the climax is usually a failsafe for cranking up the excitement but in this instance it only highlights the clumsiness of the production and the song almost falls to bits.

Everything sounds like a Fairlight, it’s true! Probably a DX7 in there too, aka “the sound of Go West”. New Pop had warmer analogue synths to work with, OMD always used Korgs for instance, but there was an unpleasant sonic shift in ’83. I’m sure someone on here can explain exactly which gruesome keyboards are responsible for this. This was the point at which I stopped taping the Top 40 on Sunday.

so no #2s during this song’s brief reign but looking at ChartStats and recognising all other top 10 hits from the time inc. Altered Images fab ‘Don’t Talk To Me About Love’ (tho I didn’t hear this until last year) and Forrest ‘Rock The Boat’. The one I’m not sure I’ve ever heard is JoBoxers ‘Boxerbeat’.

I wasn’t THAT old, not quite! In spite of my taste in hush puppies and Farahs.

But I suppose there was a continuum between Strawberry Fields Forever and Souvenir, via Prog (any mellotron-prog recommendations anyone?) – one of big, emotional chords – that this ultra-brite and brittle sound suddenly trashed.

The tuneless middle eight, of which I have no recollection, is my favourite bit of the song. It has an oddness to rival that brief burst of harpsichord on Ant Rap.

No, I’m not. Cheers. The only one I’ve ever heard and liked was by Spring, a one-off album on Polydor, but I was guessing there had to be more.

I hate Duran Duran with a passion which is partially explained by their horrible look, their awful buying into to thatcherite ‘me me me’ culture, their nonsense claims of being punk’s true inheritors and their penchant for ridiculously tacky soft core porn videos, and also partially explained by the fact that my little sister was a screaing durannie who knew every little thing about them right down to when their brother’s birthdays were and managed once to fall down a flight of stairs and land at Nick Rhodes feet (and, following on from #6, the only other good thing they did apart from the cover band and the stinky fruit was suggesting a name for the very good New Rhodes who should be more famous than they are). Okay, it was mainly the sister thing that turned me off them but it was a very powerful turn off and that passion I hate them with is still there.

Most terrifying splinter group of all – Electric City, aka the sons of Duran. Working with Xenomania! And still lumpy and horrible!

Their pose was all “Sex Pistols crossed with Chic”, which was plain bobbins. For all that, I felt this was more Beatles in origin, and more honest than most of their other singles.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at the level of negative comment. Duran Duran were always a group that polarised opinion, and unlike say Human League or Dep Mode, never really attained an ok-to-like status, certainly not amongst the boys at my school.

But I’ve always had a soft spot for them and still love the Moroder/Japan-influenced debut album and its trio of classy singles. They developed their sound on “Rio”. Moving away from the austere sequencers and synth washes to a more luxurious, undeniably more commercial, production. It wasn’t as much to my liking, but they kept the surprising element of mystique that punctuated the debut (Tel Aviv, Night Boat) with album-closer “The Chauffeur”. And “Rio”, the title track is fabulous.

By the time, “Is There Something I Should Know” appeared they were probably the most popular group in the country, and it was inevitable that this would go to Number 1.

It does sound rushed – a stop-gap released to take advantage of their growing popularity. The production is interesting, much brasher and bolder than either of the two albums that preceded it. This I assume is partly down to the change of producer – Alex Sadkin came on board at this point, as well as perhaps the desire to make a statement, to release an ‘event’ single. The opening ‘Please, Please tell me now’ I took to be a deliberate nod to The Beatles, confident that their moment had come. But the chorus is anti-climactic, the weakest part of the track.

The verse is great though and I love the bridge (I assume the comments about this sounding unfinished, odd sounding, tuneless etc are aimed at the middle 8, where indeed nothing but marking time between choruses seems to occur). The bridge itself features a very typical Duran melody (There’s a dream that strings the road/With broken glass for us to hold) – and is probably the best, most tuneful part of the song.

tears for fears possibly? that was a bit more “magical mystery tour”…

Re 25: I can hear Take On Me powerpop-style, and The Sun Always Shines On TV with a ringing 12 string, sung in the Searchers’ harmonies.

Completely agree about good Duran Duran = the stuff before this and the bad = this and just about everything they did afterwards (excluding ‘Ordinary Day’). Interesting about the Beatles references as I remember thinking from the day I first heard this back in 1983 how it had certain things in common with early period Beatles.

Good (and pretty early) example of use of Mellotron Moody Blues albums from 1967-about 1972.

Metallic and empty-sounding but the real problem is the tempo – this is one PLODDING song and if you mentally will it into going just a bit faster it becomes much more tolerable. That would also make it shorter, which would help as well. 6 seems weirdly high for the song and for the text of the review but ah well.

Coming of musical age in the 90s, Duran Duran were already a joke “remember the 80s?? hahah!” type reference but I briefly entertained the idea of sort of liking them…it just didn’t take.

Sometimes I suppose “taste” is formed as much by deciding what you DON’T like as discovering what you DO like.

It occurs to me now, looking back on the recent run of Number Ones here that this was a pivotal period in developing my personal taste in music. Thinking back to 1980 I recall I’d been dipping into all sorts of musical styles – from the sublime to the ridiculous. Sometimes I’ll come across a home-made compilation tape from that era and I’m forced to remember what I ACTUALLY listened to (as opposed to what my later tastes prefer me to remember from the mish-mash of sounds and styles which had caught my ear on the radio at the time).

I often forget that I listened to (and even owned) a wide variety of ’80s pop’ – including a fair amount of New Romantic and synth music which I would never actively choose to listen to these days. A few years ago I saw an old “Top of The Pops” from 1980 and was reminded that one of my favourite bands from that year was the little-remembered synth-pop band New Musik (Straight Lines, Living By Numbers, Sanctuary). I also enjoyed early O.M.D., Human League… even The Buggles!

The music I now ‘remember’ liking at the time was by artists like Dexys Midnight Runners, The Specials, Madness, Elvis Costello and XTC. I remember those groups partly because those are the ones I can still enjoy listening to today but also because they helped forge my musical directions (and in many instances, encouraged me to delve backwards into the various styles from the 60’s which had inspired those artists)

It’s a strange thought now but I actually quite appreciated the first songs I heard by both Spandau Ballet AND Duran Duran! It’s still true that “To Cut A Long Story Short” and “Planet Earth” are the only songs by either artist I remember with any real fondness. The thing is, that both acts went on to release songs I either didn’t like, actively disliked… or loathed with a passion. And with each new “New Romantic” release which came out (and each new group which came along) I became more and more convinced that I was NOT a New Romantic …that this was not how I wanted music to sound or to BE.

So thank you, Duran Duran, I realise now that songs like this played their part in helping me discover my musical taste.

Could never stand this effete gang of pillocks and ITSISK is about as dismal as it gets. That’s all.

#43 – I always thought that Jo Boxers appeared a contrived industry response to the success of bands like Dexys – whereas DDs origins were more DIY.

I still have an old flyer from the early 80s for some nightspot called Club Left on Wardour Street. The listed DJs/Performers include Vic Godard and a Mr. Dig Wayne who was, of course, later to be JoBoxer’s lead singer.

I think that people have generally been a bit harsh on this.

It’s true that if you listen to Duran’s hits chronologically, then this feels a bit disappionting – their sound ironed out and simplified, with less of the crazed sense of excess that makes their better work so compelling. But that’s what it took to win over a wider public, and to my ears this is full of appealing hooks;

1) Please Please! clarion call

2) That lovely shimmery guitar line, the bass playful under it.

3) The way the vocals descend on “there’s a dream”, mirrored by the way they then rise on “feel the same”

4) Morose “Uuuh oh!” backing vox.

5) Contentiously, I maintain that “Don’t say you’re easy on me – You’re about as easy a a nooclear war!” is a great line. If you’re going to do this sort of thing, you can’t go at it half cock. It makes Le Bon sound like an idiot, but in an Elton John thrillingly ridiculous way, not a Phil Collins vapid earnestness sense.

6) Odd middle eight bit – long enough to make its mark, short enough not to outstay its welcome

6) Various elements of 1-6 are then combined together at the song’s conclusion.

Tom OTM with Slade comparison – It’s that sense of confidence that’s attractive if it carries you along with it, trying if you’re not in the mood for it. See Oasis for a more recent example of this.