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Comments
Lydia said…
Tess Daly! I remember her from The Beloved's video for "Sweet Harmony".
I never wore Guess but I liked the ads, especially Drew Barrymore's.
From the Wikipedia entry on this video: “Newly muscular guitarist Warren Cuccurullo is almost unrecognizable to fans who were accustomed to his formerly waif-like appearance.” You look good, Warren. Nice pecs. Stop editing your Wikipedia mentions to point out how incredibly buff you are.
Lol! That bit sounded odd to me too.
I'm totally on board with your ideas to improve the video. (My brain is desperately trying to imagine Nick in biking leathers, just for the hell of it, but nothing doing.)
Liberty is definitely my least favourite album of theirs, though it does earn chutzpah points with me for Simon's rhyming "catechism" with "jism" in "Venice Drowning". (BTW, thanks for the link to that interview! You should be proud of your sexy zombie vampire song, Simon.) I remember being tickled/pleasantly scandalised by that as a Catholic-raised 14-year-old, telling my friend on the phone (whilst trying to be unheard by my mother in the next room) "no seriously! Simon says jism! no I'm not imagining it, come over and listen!" Good times.
Anonymous said…
hey now, that's not entirely true! nick had the orangey hair in electric barbarella and that bizarre stripey thing that reminds me of a brown-and-blonde beachball around 2000. (i think he's got it in the studio sections of the devils' press kit!) and for paper gods, he got an undercut! (it isn't always easy to see it, but it is/was there, i promise.) he's just mostly stuck to the same haircut.
recently someone posted a notorious-era magazine interview on tumblr, and john talks about how seven is so much worse than notorious. the trend of john bagging on whatever album came before the album they're promoting is even older than i thought. i can't wait to see how he manages to criticize paper gods.
i agree, the durans being cast in the story parts of the video (and there being more story time and less performance footage time... i had no idea that all those scenes made a story until you explained it, so thank you!) would help things immensely. sometimes, much like how you are sometimes baffled by what the durans choose as favorite songs, i wonder if they realize that part of what makes watching the music videos so fun is watching the band be active participants in the story. i know it's probably easier to just make a video full of performance footage and hire actors for the rest, but it's not as memorable!
Lydia -- I'd forgotten about Drew Barrymore's GUESS ads! I remember liking those, too -- I was thinking more about Anna Nicole Smith and Claudia Schiffer, but Drew certainly fits into that same blonde-bombshell category. And as far as I'm concerned, Simon is a genius for rhyming "catechism" and "jism". He should be very, very proud of himself.
Mousie -- I know, you're right, you're right. Nick does go through a few hair variations past this video. Still, though, it's a far cry from his dramatic earlier transformations.
I remember an interview somewhere where John bags on Seven and the Ragged Tiger -- I tried hunting it down to include it, but couldn't find it. Yeah, I figure first we'll see John criticizing AYNIN, then he'll eventually move on to Paper Gods.
I see how it's easier on the Durans AND easier on the director to only feature the guys in performance footage... but the videos suffer badly as a result. Those early music videos are so wonderful largely because they're playing active parts. It makes all the difference in the world!
Mintycake said…
Morgan, I'm totally with you on your idea for the video - it would be fantastic (esp. Nick's part). Liberty is my least fave album from DD, in fact I bought it and sold it a couple of years later to a used record shop because I never listened to it anymore. I remember this song too being pretty underwhelming. But I can't believe you don't like "Serious"! I actually quite like the song (and the video as the boys are all looking very lovely in it).
Thank you for bringing back Duranalysis....it's been too long!
Mintycake, I've run into SO MANY fans of Serious! It's not just Simon! There's something about it that I'm totally missing; it's one of a very few Duran songs that I flat-out don't like. (But yes, you're right, the boys look very pretty in the video.)
Anonymous said…
well, i started with the essentials of a greaser (leather jacket, denim, boots), but i'm not sure if the resulting nick fits the spirit of the self-imposed challenge. nonetheless, alex the friend loves it and covets the jacket, so i'll call it a success. here he is, nick the greaser.
Oh, holy hell, mousie, that's brilliant. Were Nick a greaser, that is spot-on exactly what he would wear. And the world trembles... Well done, mousie. Well done.
Jonah said…
Feel like I'm late to the party and only wish I'd come across this sooner. I love the blog. Nightboat almost made me spit out my tea... but I have to take issue with a couple of things. The Skin Trade / Wild Boys thing. I'm a big fan of Skin Trade and I think it's really hard to compare. What would I rather hear as an encore? Obviously Wild Boys. Which was a better song? I could go either way. As for Violence of Summer and Serious being worthy of a mention in the Duran Pantheon, well, where to start? I tried, I mean I really tried to like Liberty. I almost convinced myself I did but deep down I knew that if anyone else had written it, I would have dismissed it immediately and never listened to it again. In that respect, Violence of Summer in infinitely more painful than Serious (however much I agree that Serious is meandering and dreary) because Serious is effectively harmless. Simon's lyrics are not supposed to tell stories understandable by mere mortals. Where are the tar plane and th sanhedralites? The only problem with Violence of summer is most definitely NOT the chorus. It's the whole thing. Bouncy, maybe. Painful to listen to, even at 25 years remove, it still is. The only redeeming feature of Liberty is the superb My Antarctica.
Anyway, thanks for writing the most brilliant Duran site out there. I'm totally hooked and haven't done anything other than read and laugh for the last two days.
Thanks, Jonah! Yeah, I've tried with Liberty, but it's just so relentlessly mediocre.
I've had people whose taste in music is far superior to mine argue that Skin Trade is a better song than Wild Boys, and certainly John should know what he's talking about on the issue, but... I can't see it. I like Skin Trade okay, just as I like most of the Notorious album just fine, but if someone told me that for some reason I could never hear any songs off of Notorious ever again, I'd shrug and go on with my life. I'd be somewhat devastated if I could never hear Wild Boys again.
Comments
I never wore Guess but I liked the ads, especially Drew Barrymore's.
From the Wikipedia entry on this video: “Newly muscular guitarist Warren Cuccurullo is almost unrecognizable to fans who were accustomed to his formerly waif-like appearance.” You look good, Warren. Nice pecs. Stop editing your Wikipedia mentions to point out how incredibly buff you are.
Lol! That bit sounded odd to me too.
I'm totally on board with your ideas to improve the video. (My brain is desperately trying to imagine Nick in biking leathers, just for the hell of it, but nothing doing.)
Liberty is definitely my least favourite album of theirs, though it does earn chutzpah points with me for Simon's rhyming "catechism" with "jism" in "Venice Drowning". (BTW, thanks for the link to that interview! You should be proud of your sexy zombie vampire song, Simon.) I remember being tickled/pleasantly scandalised by that as a Catholic-raised 14-year-old, telling my friend on the phone (whilst trying to be unheard by my mother in the next room) "no seriously! Simon says jism! no I'm not imagining it, come over and listen!" Good times.
recently someone posted a notorious-era magazine interview on tumblr, and john talks about how seven is so much worse than notorious. the trend of john bagging on whatever album came before the album they're promoting is even older than i thought. i can't wait to see how he manages to criticize paper gods.
i agree, the durans being cast in the story parts of the video (and there being more story time and less performance footage time... i had no idea that all those scenes made a story until you explained it, so thank you!) would help things immensely. sometimes, much like how you are sometimes baffled by what the durans choose as favorite songs, i wonder if they realize that part of what makes watching the music videos so fun is watching the band be active participants in the story. i know it's probably easier to just make a video full of performance footage and hire actors for the rest, but it's not as memorable!
Mousie -- I know, you're right, you're right. Nick does go through a few hair variations past this video. Still, though, it's a far cry from his dramatic earlier transformations.
I remember an interview somewhere where John bags on Seven and the Ragged Tiger -- I tried hunting it down to include it, but couldn't find it. Yeah, I figure first we'll see John criticizing AYNIN, then he'll eventually move on to Paper Gods.
I see how it's easier on the Durans AND easier on the director to only feature the guys in performance footage... but the videos suffer badly as a result. Those early music videos are so wonderful largely because they're playing active parts. It makes all the difference in the world!
Thank you for bringing back Duranalysis....it's been too long!
The Skin Trade / Wild Boys thing. I'm a big fan of Skin Trade and I think it's really hard to compare. What would I rather hear as an encore? Obviously Wild Boys. Which was a better song? I could go either way.
As for Violence of Summer and Serious being worthy of a mention in the Duran Pantheon, well, where to start? I tried, I mean I really tried to like Liberty. I almost convinced myself I did but deep down I knew that if anyone else had written it, I would have dismissed it immediately and never listened to it again.
In that respect, Violence of Summer in infinitely more painful than Serious (however much I agree that Serious is meandering and dreary) because Serious is effectively harmless. Simon's lyrics are not supposed to tell stories understandable by mere mortals. Where are the tar plane and th sanhedralites? The only problem with Violence of summer is most definitely NOT the chorus. It's the whole thing. Bouncy, maybe. Painful to listen to, even at 25 years remove, it still is.
The only redeeming feature of Liberty is the superb My Antarctica.
Anyway, thanks for writing the most brilliant Duran site out there. I'm totally hooked and haven't done anything other than read and laugh for the last two days.
I've had people whose taste in music is far superior to mine argue that Skin Trade is a better song than Wild Boys, and certainly John should know what he's talking about on the issue, but... I can't see it. I like Skin Trade okay, just as I like most of the Notorious album just fine, but if someone told me that for some reason I could never hear any songs off of Notorious ever again, I'd shrug and go on with my life. I'd be somewhat devastated if I could never hear Wild Boys again.